I work at Pizza Company, which I will not further identify so I don't get fired and never get another job ever again, and tonight was one of those nights--starts out nuts and just forges ahead into the truly unexplored Nutbag Territories. Here be dragons.
It started out before I even got there. I stroll in at noon and am promptly informed by my coworker, T, that the lunacy is laying thick on the ground. To wit: he had just taken an order from a customer who didn't want olives on their pizza because they were too Oriental.
Pause.
Okay, WHAT? Not only is that racist, but it doesn't even make any sense! As another coworker put it, that's like not wanting noodles because they're too Mexican. Jesus, seriously. That's taking racism, which is inherently stupid, and just working that dormant stupidity, shaping and honing and filing it into a fine point. Of STUPID.
But ah! That was only the beginning!
About half an hour later or so, I got a call from a woman who wanted a bunch of pizzas for a birthday party. Not so unusual, except she was not calling prior to the party. Not the day before, not the morning of, not twenty minutes before a half dozen wired six year olds appear. This brilliant young mother calls during the party.
And it's not she's rushed or apologetic at all. She is an Entitled Princess Bitch, who can't understand why it's taking more then thirty seconds for someone to enter seven large pies cut sixteen slices each. And then. She's got two coupons, one for a salad, one for breadsticks. I patiently explain that you can only use one coupon per order. She instantly says no problem, she'll just place two separate orders.
Okay, you're not allowed to do this, for this precise reason. Coupons are an extra, not a way for you to score as much free shit as possible in one go. But fuck it, I can tell this one's the type to argue for fifteen minutes over saving seven dollars for a fucking salad and bread, plus she's keeping up the Patient But Aggravated Sighing about how long this is all taking and the kids, meanwhile, are running around and (hopefully) destroying all her overpriced Danish Modern or whatever the hell Bellevue Bitches stock their living rooms with, so FINE, TWO ORDERS.
But of course the damn computer kept trying to erase the order, so it took forever, and while I'm trying to get it straightened out she's PBASIGHING about trying to give me her Goddamn credit card number, and it takes FOR-FUCKING-EVER but I finally get the two orders straight and call the store to double check that they went through okay and tell them her henpecked and presumably secretly alcoholic spouse can just wait five fuck-sozzled minutes at the counter for the cooks to finish the pies since it was HIS spectacularly ill-chosen mate who wanted to use TWO GODDAMN COUPONS, goodbye.
Well, that was annoying, but that should finish the Crazy for the day, right?
Oh, no. We have passed the isle of the Sirens, but Scylla and Caribdis lay dead ahead.
I didn't, thanks be to Jesus, get the first call from tonight's Gold medalist of crazy. That was poor newbie B, who I overheard pleading with our managers to talk to the following: a woman who, being disappointed that our previous seasonal special pie was no longer being made, was apparently demanding we make her not one, but two, of said NOT ON THE MENU ANYMORE pies.
Oh no, said my too-smart-to-touch-Madness bosses, who already realize that the simple facts of reality-- this pizza is no longer featured, we no longer have the ingredients, and thus the pie cannot be made--will not even penetrate the outer layer of this woman's version of how her life should be going at this moment. B (brave lad) gets back on the phone, then comes back to report that this woman is crying. Crying. And has not ceased her demands for these COMPLETELY UNAVAILABLE pies.
"Wow", I said as I headed back to my chair. "Sure am glad I didn't catch that call!"
Have you ever wondered if God's really listening to everything you say?
He is.
Sure enough, fifteen minutes later this woman calls back and guess who is being taught a lesson in humility? Yes, moi.
This woman demanded to talk to a manager, ranted about how we "used to" carry this pizza in March but changed it to February as a plot to keep it from her, I guess, said she's been petitioning for it to be put on the regular menu and apparently was waiting for me to just write it in or something, and when I asked for her number so one of our manager could "call her back" (HA) snapped "get caller ID. It's technology!"
(We actually do have caller ID. I just asked to fuck with her. What? I am but flesh! She's an idiot!)
She signed off by warning that she "didn't have time to wait around for a call" (I'll bet) and she fully expected to recieve TWO Special Pies tomorrow. Gahhhhhh. That call should be gold. Please, Jesus, let me have paid off my smugness debt already, please?
Seriously, I don't know what tipping point of lunacy was reached tonight. But may it take a long, long time for that point to be reached again. I've put up with the slow and steady erosion of all my youthful dreams and aspirations, but I really need my Disappointing But Let's Face The Real World job to just calm the fuck down for the next few weeks, okay? Okay.
Too Oriental. JESUS.
