I, 20(F), absolutely love my job despite it being considered a minimum wage job (aka, delivery). Despite barely even living paycheck to paycheck, this has been one of the best work environments I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. Sure, there were some issues here and there, but with an understanding boss who puts our needs first evens everything out. However, I did almost quit due to one coworker.
After a month or two into my new delivery job, we get a new driver we'll call Nich (M/30). He was very obviously an extrovert and was very excited to get to know everybody at work. I can understand this, but as an introvert, it should be obvious at this point in time when someone doesn't want to talk to you. Despite my lack of response, Nich spent a good 45 minutes talking my ear off before he somehow wound up giving me his number for “business purposes.” I ended up throwing it away without him knowing because one, I was not interested, and two, I have a partner already.
Other than him being annoying, he wasn't really an issue. I kept my distance because he just gave me a bad vibe. It seems my gut feeling was right because slowly but surely, Nich became the most hated person in the entire store.
For example, he began to tell anyone who would listen he was a cop. I'm not even kidding. I personally believe it was for intimidation purposes, or maybe he just wanted to look cool. Problem was his story never added up. One day, he worked at this station and was part of highway patrol. The next, he was part of a completely different station and was the paperwork guy. It started to get creepy when he claimed to have run all of our plates on his very first day. He also “called off the highway officer” when one of my leads was being followed by highway patrol for a few minutes before he got off the highway. It was so fucking weird.
One day, I questioned him myself. It was a while ago, but this was basically the convo:
Me: So, you work for which town?
Nich: I work for (town name)
Me: But you told our other coworker you work for (other town)
Nich: Oh- no, I USED to work there, but now I work at this one
Me: uh huh, okay… I don't know man, your story really isn't adding up, and I find it really weird you claim to have run our plates
Nich: That was a joke, man! I can't believe (lead name) can't take a joke (it wasn't a joke but okay)
Me: okay, whatever… y'know my brother-in-law works at your station?
Nich, starting to look uncomfortable: oh really? what's his ID number?
Now, I'm sure if you know about cops, you caught that mistake right there. ID number? Seriously? It's BADGE number. My brother-in-law got very heated when I relayed this conversation to him because he IS a cop. Not to mention he tried to find Nich in the system and could not, so it was quite obvious he was lying.
But that wasn't all. Not only was he going around trying to act cool, but he was a shit worker. We as drivers at our job have a topper on our car that tracks how we drive our car, basically to make sure we're following road laws. If you score below 90, you're going to get into trouble. Nich here typically scored between 55-80, typically due to speeding and sharp turns. This actually affected leads'/managers' bonuses which is why Nich managed to piss them off every day.
How he managed to piss us drivers off was taking horrible delivery runs. We have a system where drivers take orders close together – doubles, mostly, hardly ever triples due to higher ups having some weird problem with it – and only one delivery if it's slow as hell. Nich liked to take two orders that were 15 minutes apart during SLOW hours, skip other drivers (which is a big NO NO) to get a specific delivery, and constantly take the wrong order and not realize until he drops it off. Sure, everybody makes mistakes, but it is very annoying to other drivers when it is a constant thing and backs everything up.
And the one thing that bothered everybody was him when it came to food. When we have an order not picked up, a voided/canceled order, or a mess up, we typically throw it on top of the oven and let everybody snack on it. Nich, however, would eat 50% of all those orders. He constantly would go to the heat rack and ask “is this late? can we eat it?” every. fucking. day. He once ate an entire extra large pizza by himself within five minutes of it being on the oven, not allowing anybody else to get a slice.
Once, during a dinner rush, I had to move my own personally ordered food that had my name on it onto the oven to keep it out of the way. When I clocked out, I grabbed my box and realized it was very light. I opened it and found only one slice left when I had only eaten two. I was LIVID. I paid my own money for this, had my name on it, and my shit coworker decided to eat my food. My manager made me a free pizza as an apology but I was not letting Nich off the hook.
Nich finally came back from his delivery and I dropped my empty box in front of him, asking “Why the fuck did you eat from my pizza?”
Nich: What? I didn't eat your pizza
Me: Yes you did, do not lie to me. You go around eating everybody's food (he once ate my manager's food from ANOTHER FOOD PLACE) but I will not stand by and let you eat mine
Nich: I don't eat anybody's food! I'm not lying!
Me: If you do this shit again, you will pay for my food. Do not touch anything with my name ever again, do I make myself clear?
Nich: I didn't I promise I would never eat your food
And before you consider “what if he really didn't” one of my leads caught him eating one of my pizza slices (I'm weird and basically eat cheese sticks in the form of a pizza and I'm the only one who orders it this way, so he was eating a slice of cheese pizza without sauce – very obviously my food)
Now how could this get any worse? Oh, he also flirted with all the women in the store. He avoided me and a line cook after we made it clear we hate him, but he harassed two other women who were MARRIED saying shit like “will your man care if I take you on a date?” like WHAT?
One day, my boss had enough. He gave Nich a choice – transfer to another store, or get fired from the company. He transferred but proceeded to call my boss daily demanding to know why he let him go and even came back to our store and stared my boss down until he acknowledged him. He was an absolute nightmare to work with.
I, unfortunately, have to leave this job due to money issues. Aside from Nich, this has been the best year of work I've ever had. It'll be a shame to have to leave, but I have to feed my cat somehow 😀