Is there a job you held as a kid that stands out in some way? One that was not very relevant to your eventual career but that taught you quite a few important lessons? I had one of those.

For most of my time in college, I had a pretty decent system going. I would work as many hours as I could manage during the summers and when I came home over extended holidays. Then, I could usually manage to make it through the school year without a job. That worked until my senior year in college.

As Thanksgiving weekend loomed, my checkbook and I had a long, hard discussion. It told me, in no uncertain terms, that I was on a collision course with insolvency unless I found a way to make some money. OK, I probably could have drastically cut my expenses, too. I was living off-campus in an apartment I shared with two other guys. And I had a car which cost me gas and repairs and insurance. Yes, I could have sold the car and relied on others for rides, but it seemed so much easier to just find a job.

On a lark, I walked into the Domino’s Pizza location right near campus and asked if they were hiring. I knew that I liked pizza and driving, so it seemed like the perfect combination. The owner asked if I had a reliable car and if I would show up on time when I was scheduled. I answered yes to both and was hired. When I went home at Thanksgiving and told my parents about it, neither one of them was very happy – they were worried about the potential for danger. Even back then there were stories of pizza delivery guys getting robbed (or worse). But I was in my early 20s, and knew absolutely positively that nothing like that could ever possibly happen to me. Fortunately, things worked out that I was right.

Compensation was an hourly rate of minimum wage and “mileage”. This mileage was calculated at 6% of my deliveries during a shift, and paid to me in cash at the end of the night. I have no idea if this was a Domino’s corporate policy or if this was “just the way we do things” at this particular store, who was owned by a big guy we all called “J.B.” The “mileage” was always a much bigger number than the daily pay, which made the bi-weekly paycheck kind of anti-climactic. This system was to encourage us to hustle – the more deliveries we made, the more money we made, and I was all about the hustle.

Getting paid based on deliveries made a guy pay attention to the pizzas getting stacked up for a delivery run. There was nothing worse than having to make a special trip to deliver a small cheese pizza to somebody. To this day I remember that a small cheese pizza was $4.06. Yes, it was probably going to some struggling student who was scraping coins from the couch cushions, but my 6% take on that meagre check made for the kind of change that would fall into my own couch cushions. On the other hand, four or six loaded-up pies made for a rewarding trip.

I learned a lot on that job. For starters, I learned how addresses are numbered on city streets – odd numbers on one side of the street and even numbers on the others. And how the numbers got bigger as you went out from the central North/South and East/West dividers in the middle of town. Elemental stuff it is true, but it is the kind of thing every adult needs to know.

I learned that on college campuses of that time that tipping was not really a thing. I occasionally got a tip, but it was not normal and I was exited whenever I got one. I didn’t much like dorm deliveries – Parking was seldom near the dorm entrance, and there was often a delay before the customer came to meet me in the entry area. I disliked deliveries to fraternity houses even more. These involved ringing the doorbell, then having the guy who answered yell out “who ordered a pizza”. Then there was a delay as the occupants of the big house would try to figure out who.

Sometimes they could not figure it out at all. Then they would generously offer to buy the pizza for half price, which (they suggested) would be better than taking it back to the shop, unsold. This had evidently happened often enough that our rule was to tell them “no thanks” and bring the pizza back to the shop for the staff to eat.

I usually worked from 5 pm until close, which was 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights. At some point I noticed that a not insignificant number of people came to the door for their pizza looking like they had just gotten out of bed. Their girlfriends stood farther back into the room – looking just like they had gotten out of bed too. I guess that thirty-minute delivery time seemed like a great opportunity for tired young couples to take a nap before their pizza arrived.

I got some clarity on this situation on one occasion. I knocked on the door of the house, not really paying much attention to things as I walked onto the porch. It was an old house with a large glass panel in the front door, and I suddenly noticed the young couple on the living room sofa, right in the middle of that activity in which young college sweethearts have been known to engage. I decided to be a gentleman.

I knew there was a pay phone a couple of doors away, went there and called. “I’m having some trouble finding your address”, I lied through the phone. Then I went back (following their helpful directions) and found the young couple after their hasty recovery. The girl tried to make conversation while her boyfriend went to look for his wallet. “Sammy Terry is on TV” she said, referring to the guy on a local station who hosted a Friday night horror movie. Without thinking, I asked “Oh – what’s the movie tonight?” She, of course, had no idea.

The closest I came to a bad experience was on a delivery where I had multiple pizzas stolen from my car. I had a big Styrofoam delivery box on my front seat, which usually contained pies for two or three deliveries. At the first stop on a very cold night, a small group of college-age guys asked me inside while someone went to get the money. I was reluctant to leave my running car unattended, but did so. My spidey sense was telling me that this process was taking way too long, but they kept yelling that it would be just be another second. When I went back to my car, the delivery box was open and all the pizzas were gone. From then on, I got a second ignition key and locked my car at every stop, even when it was running.

I got a lot of practice driving in bad weather, and saw the most amazing near-accident I have yet seen. We got a bad ice storm one night that completely glazed the streets. On my last delivery before an early close, I was about 50 yards behind a Volkswagen beetle and both of us driving about 20 mph. I watched that VW lose control in slow motion, the rear end swinging out and starting a slo-mo spin. Then, as I was trying to figure out how I was going to avoid it, the rear end finished its 360 degree lap around the front and the car continued straight ahead as if nothing happened.

As graduation approached, I said my goodbyes and prepared to move on. I had made friends there and, in some ways, did not want to leave. On graduation day, I ordered a couple of pizzas for the part of the family who came to my apartment after the ceremonies. Friends were working there that day, and I have to say that they made the best pizzas that ever came out of a Dominos. Ingredients were loaded on top of those pies until no more would fit. My mouth still waters thinking about them.

It was a funny thing – I worked three weeks in a Burger King and could not eat a hamburger for months after. I worked for six months at Domino’s, sitting for hours around the baking ovens and driving in a car that smelled like pizza every single day, and still managed to eat (free) pizza every single shift I worked.

Quite a few years ago, Domino’s completely revamped their pizzas, something they saw as a significant quality upgrade. The funny thing is that I was so sympatico with the old Dominos that the new one has never appealed to me. Making pizza one place where I truly can’t go home again.

Featured image – Domino’s Pizza logo from the 1980’s