Good ol' Murphy's Law

Pizza Shop Talk The Think Tank
1

I thought this would be a fun topic. I’ve been in the business for about 8 years now, and I’ve always wondering if Murphy just follows me around or if its a common thing in the industry.

This has happened hundreds of times to me. I know when its the “slow” time, generally between 2 pm and 4 pm and thats usually when I eat. The phone wont ring at all for at least an hour, so I’ll make myself some food. Literally as soon as I sit down to enjoy my hot, tasty meal the phone starts ringing and it then results in my food sitting out for a good half hour.

Or how bout when I have my full staff, it tends to be a slower day. But the days someones call in, or doesn’t show up is when hell breaks loose. Seems like the volume becomes much greater on the days I’m short staffed.

This has happened a couple times too. The phone will be dead and you’ll be waiting for the rush to happen. Then out of nowhere, all 4 lines light up and everyone orders at the same exact time. Its as if the whole town is conspiring against me and plans to order at the same exact time. Then after about 20 minutes of nonstop orders, it completely dies down…

And last one for now… How bout when you send someone home at 7 because it completely died down. Then as soon as they drive off, you get a couple orders with 2 or more pizzas? Ugghhh…

Anyone got any good stories thanks to good ol Murphy?

2

Not such a bad thing to have happen! But yeah, this seems to be a norm. I have a slogan: “Time to lean, time to clean.”

One thing I did is create an incentive program for employees. It works like this: if you call in (authentically sick does not count) you lose prime time slots for scheduling. I also have a rule that if you do not work a Friday or Saturday night, then you are last on the list for time slots during the week. These “natural” consequences seem to work wonders.

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One shop that I was a delivery driver for had a standing joke about me having supper. Anyother driver that I worked with could have their supper break and eat hot food but every single time I wanted supper the deliveries would go crazy just after my meal was put in the oven. It got to the point that when things were dead even the owner would come to me and say “Are you sure you don’t want me to put something in the oven for you? It has been a while since the phone rang.”