Damn, it happened again
 

No image this time, but this story in the Sacramento Bee talks about a guy from Kazakhstan who fled religious prosecution, landed safely in Sacramento, got a job delivering pizzas and was killed in a botched robbery attempt.

A few months ago I thought about chucking it all and just delivering pizzas for a living. But it's a dangerous life...

Don't consider it Tony. I just left a job cooking the damn things and was good friends with some of the drivers. It never happend to our store (that I know of) but at my boss's other pizza place, the drivers were getting robbed all over the delivery area. Got to the point where they weren't allowed to carry more than $20 cash.

~Mike

Remember the guy a few months ago here in Philadelphia? He had been trying to get on with the pizza place to do deliveries for some time? Got robbed and killed over in N. Philadelphia...

I did delivery for a short time and didn't mind it, except for the fact that my car was a piece of shit. There were two shady apartment complexes in the area where several of our employees had been previously robbed. We quit delivering there...all was well.

This sort of thing is becoming more common, although it has started problems in Washington, DC. For example, Domino's will deliver to what they consider "bad" neighborhoods. You have to meet the driver at their car though. These "bad" neighborhoods tend to lean towards a particular skin color, which is what started it. (This was not the issue where I was delivering.)

I always worried about getting robbed, but didn't. We never carried more than $15 in change. I always kept my eyes open, particularly in apartment complexes, making sure I knew all the ways out and things like that.

*reads Syc's last paragraph...

wowwie.

Though I don't blame you. The place I worked at, we're convinced that this one house was a crackhouse. There were bars on the windows, a security door, the works. The thing of it is, the neighborhood isn't like the South Bronx or your local equivalent.

The thing I remember most about my pizza employment tribulation was the absolute MORON customers. Our delivery area encompassed the enclave of rednecks in the borough, and I had to take orders from these people. You have no idea how many times I'd hear orders for a "peh-per-oh-NEYE PETE-zer" and an "EYE-tal-ee-un HOE-gEYE" (phonetically respelled for easier communication of stupidity).

The horror...

~Mike

I was delivering pizzas in Arnold, a southern suburb of St. Louis. In the state of Missouri, the collective IQ of folks starts to drop as you drive south on I-55. The Meramec River leaving St. Louis County and taking you into Arnold is one such drop--redneck haven. (It is now rednecks vs. chicken-shit folks who have begun to not only fear living in St. Louis City, but St. Louis County as well.)

So anyway, these apartments (called Bayshore) were right across the Meramec from St. Louis County. They looked nice and all, but at night, it was a different story. I ran a few deliveries over there with a friend of mine (before we quit delivering there)...barefoot & pregnant women, scruffy guys with gun racks in their trucks...and I'm only half-kidding. You're trying to give the customer their pizza and they're arguing with their wife/gf/baby momma. You're just trying to get the hell out for fear of being part of it or a witness.

I wouldn't mind delivering pizzas now, if only I had a better car. About the worst thing I'd have to deal with here are a bunch of moron teenagers.