Let me start off by saying I have been employed at Pizza Hut, as a driver for about 6 years now. The first three years where great. We got a free employee meal (as many restaraunts do), free fountain drinks, a gas reimbursement that covered gas expenses and some money to help with maintenence (although really not much for maintenence but at least it covered gas expenses). My duties consisted of folding boxes and taking deliveries. We where pretty busy back then all the time and never really had any time to do anything else save sometimes we would help on the cut table preparing the pizzas for delivery or take out. We where told that our reimbursement was also to help with the added cost of insurance, though I don't see how that was possible, still... I had no complaints.
Then, around three years ago, the delivery drivers where called to a mandatory meeting. Nothing strange about that really. It happened every once in a while. Back then we didnt get paid for such meetings but still... I had no complaints.in the meeting we where told pizza hut was redoing thier reimbursement policy to address higher gas prices and costs of the buisness. Most of us where pretty excited, because if you'll recall gas was starting to soar in costs. At the time we were getting $1.35 per delivery and gas was 2.78 per gallon.
Now it is important to note that although some buisness will pay you. 32 to. 50 per mile of travel on buisness, those travels are generally highway miles cruisn on the highway from one town to another or state. A delivery driver is constantly turning off and starting their car, stopping and goin, and sittin in rush hour traffic though the experinced delivery drivers do their best to avoid the latter if we c an (shortcuts and what not).
Its even more so at my job as we deliver to the largest C-130 air force base in the country. It's basically another town seperate from Jacksonville. For us to get on the air base we have to go to the search pit. This involves a fairly lengthy process which involves anywhere from 5 min (if you are the only one trying to get through) to upwards of 25-30 min. The process includes the following steps;turn off vehicle, get out and open all doors hood trunk glove box and even gas cap sometimes, guard then searches vehicle, then insurance registration and license must be presented then they call in your information to verify you have no warrants and aren't a child molestor, start up vehicle and drive over a pit, turn off vehicle again get out and guard walks into pit and looks under your vehicle, then if everything is cool your are permitted to go on base after they fill out a pass for you. Once you have a pass you get to skip the part about checking for warrants though all other steps apply even if your turn around and come right back 15 min later. Needless to say we dont have a 30 min or its free policy. Now it ha been suggested by the higher up that we stop delivering to the base as it is against the laws of physics to meet out the door times while delivering to a town of over 45,000 and an air base (which is basically another city. Did I mention the residential areas on the air base are a strictly controlled 15 mph? I have been pulled over for goin 17 mph down a steep hill) However the majority of our tips, when we can get them come, from the air base. The airmen and women there are 90% great folks whom many have or are working a second job that depends on tips. I think many of us at the moment would rather we not deliver in town and just on base. Still, to go through all that time and gas and wear and tear on our vehicles to get out there then not get tipped costs us.
Though our call center still will tell people it should only take about 30 min. Our call center is located a state away in Memphis, Tennesee. More on that later.
Back to the meeting... We where told our reimbursement was to fall to 1.05 for one delivery. A second delivery taken was. 79 and any others after that would only pay. 59 on one run. We where told we had 3 days to get ready for this job altering adjustment that was being done because of some act of congress and as a way to discourage us from taking more than two deliveries at a time. Of course no one was gonna take more than two deliveries at a time and just about all of us weren't gonna take more than 1. We where then forced to sign some sheet of paper that said we agreed to this or we would be let go. I asked for a copy of that sheet and was told I couldnt have one, but there was a sheet posted in the back that explained it all. The sheet in the back simply said what the new payment policy was and that it was because of an act of congress (no act number or bill number or any explaination). It is also important to note that no other pizza delivery place has cut their reimbursement.in fact they have all increased it to help their employees meet their gas and maintence costs. Funny how that mysterious act of congress only applied to pizza hut (for know on they only get lower case letters... Just tryin to keep my sanity here)
Now 15 years ago reimbursement was. 75 per delivery. Three deliveries would net you $2.25 and gas was. 89 per gallon. After the new policy three deliveries would get you $2.43 at 2.78 per gallon. The new policy didnt even come close to covering gas and didnt doesnt do anything for maintence let alone insurance. (tell your car insurance you will be delivering pizzas and see your bill go up at LEAST 25$ a month).in the following months gas soared to a little over $4 a gallon (we all remeber that crap) yet our rembursement never went about 5cents more than the figures above. Just as bad we lost the ability to dispatch ourselves and management (most who have never delivered or knew nothing about the layout of the two towns we delivered to dispatched our runs for us and forced us to take more than two deliveries at a time. Sometimes as many as 4-6. We are being forced to take punishment pay, and many times the deliveries arent anywhere close to each other.
At the same time our dishwasher was let go and guess who is suddenly responsible for washing all the dishes? Thats right the delivery driver. Now that wouldn't be too terrible except we are a dine-in, carry-out, and delivery store which means tons of dishes (I personally have been in the store till 4 A.M. Trying to do all the duties that where suddenly thrust at me with no increase in pay, in fact a sharp decline in pay.) Then wing street came along and we are supposed to help with that too, but at least its not soley our job. Free meals are gone. Free drinks are gone.
At the same time our reimbursement was cut the delivery charge went up to $1.50 from the previouse price of $1.35. Now somethin happened about a year after that and the delivery charge was renamed a "convienience fee" and raised to $2.00. The convn fee is only applied to deliveries. It doesnt take a geniuse to figure out someone just made millions of extra dollars at the customers AND us drivers expense. Right now our reimbursement at 2.19 per gallon is. 94 for one delivery. 64 for two and. 54 for anything else. That means that pizza hut is pocketing minimum $1.06 per delivery at ours and the customers expense as the convience fee has been 2$ now for round year and half to two years yet our pays just seems to get lower and lower.
Now that seems totally illegal and at best its very scandolouse but wait... Remember how i said our call center who takes all our orders was located in another state? They are completely incompetent and consistently send us orders to wrong adresses and even wrong states. Every night they send us an order to either a wrong adresses or entirely wrong states. The states we catch, however, many towns have the same named streets in them so we are sent on a fools quest to some place that doesnt exist. When it comes time for them to pay us for our deliveries. These voided tickets are mysteriously (yeah right) void from the list so they try to not pay us for them. I try to catch as many as I can but on a busy night it can become impossible to remeber every voided ticket that you drove out to. Now in my managements team defense they will pay you for those if you can remeber to mention it but they are always like, "these extra runs are killing us." and thats because they are stressed so much by the higher ups to cut costs. Many drivers dont even realize they arent gettin paid for these runs and so say nothing. I know I have missed them and have been not reimbursed for them at times. The same goes for deliveries where there is somthin wrong with the order and the customer gets it for free. These deliveries we arent reimbursed for either if we forget to mention them and sometimes we dont even know it was canceled because we made the delivery but they got their money back afterwards leaving us paying for those at our costs.
Just as a side note... The delivery driver doesnt make your pizza or take your order or even put the order in the bag. So the next time there is something missing from your order (unless its a drink) please try to give us a break as it is supposed to be checked twice before we get to it. We really do try but this ridculose company with its very scrupolous policies makes it as difficult as humanly possible for us to do our job. There is also no tip in there for the driver. The call center is supposed to say this as well as inform you to turn your porch light on for safety but they fail to do even these basic things. They do not call back on orders over 50$ to verify them and I have been robbed once, in part, because of these failed saftey procedures. Every other house we go to has no porch light on.
There is no way we are makin minimum wage. Tips are very hard to come by these days and I've had nights where I owe money to the store because No tips. My gas money had to come from somewhere so it came from my bank. I complain daily about our gas pay, saftey procedures and call center yet it pretty much falls on deafs ears simply because our management team has no recourse. They can tell the higher ups but it hasnt done any good in three years. Im sure eventually no one even cares any more.in the mean time I have went from being able to pay my bills and keep my car goin to borrowing money just to get back to work. I have had over 2 grand in maintence need for my car in the last 6 months alone due to transmission goin out, brakes, water pump, and many other things though the transmission has been the worst. I have no money at all for these (cant even afford to get an oil change atm but am gonna look into doin it myself as soon as I can find some relief.
The people who are workin the store are pretty good people but they are stressed to the max.Us drivers are basically goin to work wondering whether we will owe money or make maybe a few bucks after its said and done.
So the next time you get a delivery from pizza hut know this... They are scamming you and the guy who just delivered your pizza. Please pray for us and if anyone out there with knowledge of the law sees something very wrong about this and possibly illegal please help.
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