The delivery driver who got a $42,000 tip
A customer stiffed a driver who walked through a snowstorm to deliver pizza, but a cop and the Internet came to his rescue and saved the day! Bravo!
As some of you know, I do deliveries for most of my income. I used to deliver for a large, national pizza chain. I stopped working for them because they paid around $8 per hour, and I was supposed to get most of my money through tips. Alas, most tips were bad, and some customers didn’t tip at all. Ultimately, I stopped working for that pizza chain because it wasn’t worth the time or wear and tear on my car. In addition to delivering for them, I also washed dishes, took out trash and did other work that had nothing to do with deliveries. All for $8 per hour.
Today, I saw a story in the Daily Mail about a driver who walked through a snowstorm to deliver a $40 pizza order, and the cheap, wealthy customer only gave him a $2 tip!
An Indiana pizza delivery man has been left stunned after a police officer raised $42,000 for him when a wealthy local only tipped $2 to deliver a pie in a snowstorm.
Connor Stephanoff, 20, of Brownsburg, parked his grandma's car at the top of the hill and made the nearly mile-long trek to deliver a pizza to a home down the road in the ritzy neighborhood that had been blocked by a bus.
On his journey Stephanoff, who works for Rockstar Pizza, came across officer Richard Craig who was helping with the road congestion.
Craig told DailyMail.com: '(I thought) no one is delivering pizza on foot! No one is walking a pizza. Not today! That's not happening!'
Except it was exactly what Stephanoff was doing.
Dressed in just a gray pair of sweatpants, a Nike crewneck, and a hat, and armed with an insulated Rockstar Pizza bag, Stephanoff hiked through several inches of snow in a pair of sneakers to make sure dinner was on the table in the affluent neighborhood.
While the young man was walking up the middle of the icy road back to his car, Craig stopped him to talk and started filming him because 'no one was going to believe me'.
'You delivering pizza, bro?' Craig yelled down in a TikTok video posted to his account, which has garnered more than 112,000 views. 'Did you get a good tip?'
A dejected Stephanoff, who was hiking back to his car, said: 'Two dollars.'
'Are you kidding me?' Craig asked in the video and the young man just laughed and shook his head.
When asked how much the order cost, Stephanoff checked the receipt, revealing it cost $40 - meaning the homeowner only tipped him five percent.
'It broke his spirit a little. It's enough to break things a little at that age,' the father-of-four told DailyMail.com.
Stephanoff lives with his grandmother and has since he was a young teen after he was removed from his parent's home by the Department of Child Services, Craig said. His grandmother was letting him use her car for work.
The next morning, Craig's video had 20,000 views and people were asking for ways to donate to Stephanoff, so the officer started a GoFundMe, which has since raised more than $42,000.
'It shows how much this world is yearning for kindness,' Craig said.
What a kind and generous thing for that cop to do! It speaks well of his character to try to help that delivery driver out. The cop didn’t have to do it, but he did it anyway. Just an all-around good egg, if you ask me. 👍🏻
Winter deliveries are dangerous
Just so you know, deliveries in the winter are difficult under the best of circumstances. Roads can be dangerous with snow and ice, but it’s often the customer’s driveway, steps and walkways that can also be treacherous. Many people don’t salt or plow outside their home. So delivery drivers have to walk very carefully indeed or risk a fall that can cause injuries to their backs or other body parts. I have to deal with this all the time, including this winter.
I recently started doing grocery deliveries, and I was out on the road yesterday. Each house I went to had ice all over the driveways and walkways. So I had to remind myself to walk slowly, place my boot carefully, and not try to rush through the delivery. The day before, I didn’t slow down enough and slipped on ice a couple of times. I avoided a fall but wrenched my back a couple of times, and it has been a bit sore since that route.
Cheap customers who screw over drivers
I remember when I was doing pizza deliveries, getting stiffed regularly by some customers. It sucks because you are out on the road, sometimes in very bad weather (heavy rain, snow, etc.), driving to their home to bring them their order as quickly as possible, and then they don’t even tip you! And often, these are people who have money. You can tell by the car they drive, the house they live in, and the neighborhood the house is located in.
There was one time when the customer’s order was $110, and the guy wouldn’t give me a tip. Can you imagine? If you can afford $110 to have food delivered, why wouldn’t you tip your driver? I asked him to sign the receipt, as that’s one of the ways drivers can try to get customers to tip. When they sign the receipt, they see the field for a tip, and it’s the driver’s last chance to get a tip. That guy signed it and looked me right in the eyes, and it was clear he wasn’t going to tip me a dime.
Ironically, his wife complimented me on how quickly I got their order to them. Her compliment was nice but meant nothing to me because I left their home without a tip. So I wasted my gas and time and put wear and tear on my car with nothing to show for it but my shitty hourly wage. I was in a rage when I got back to the pizza place, and my poor boss had to listen to me rant for a couple of minutes. 🤣
There was another time where I had to drive through a rainstorm to deliver a $69 order to a woman. But she had put the wrong address on her account. So I went to the address on the order, only to have an older woman tell me that I had to deliver the order to another address a few miles away. So I drove there in the rainstorm, brought the order in, and the ungrateful bitch had the nerve to complain that the order should have been there earlier! She didn’t tip me, and I walked away furious. Drivers must go to the address on the account when fulfilling orders; we have no way of knowing that the person is somewhere else.
I had another situation where I had to deliver at night to a huge house in a rich neighborhood. The total for the order was around $80, and I got a $3 tip for my efforts. Seriously, you should have seen that house. Those people obviously had a lot of money living in that area and could afford an $80 order but couldn’t be bothered tipping me to make it worth the drive all the way out there (around 8 miles) to bring them their order.
Drivers can get back at customers who screw them over
Then I had this weird guy in an apartment complex order about $30 worth of food. I brought it to him, and then he tipped me 25 cents. Yes, 25 cents. Later in my shift, the exact same order came from him again. I mean, it was exactly the same food, for the same amount. I drove over there again, and I got another 25 cents. He seemed to find this amusing, except I left him a surprise when he went to open his food.
Can you guess what it was? Oh, don’t worry, I didn’t spit in his food or anything like that; I would never do that sort of thing. But I did take the box and give it a good shake or two before I did the delivery. You see, when you piss off a delivery driver who relies on tips by screwing them out of the tip, they have ways of getting back at you. Sometimes, an unfortunate accident could occur, like the driver “tripping” on something on the way to deliver your order. The end result of this is that the box your order is in gets shaken, and you end up with a mess when you open the box. 😂
There’s another trick delivery drivers can play on customers who screw them over. Did the customer order a bottle or can of soda with their pizza? Oops! Somehow the bottle or can must have rolled around inside the car because when the customer opens it, it explodes all over them and makes a big mess. 😈
I know this all probably sounds terrible to you as you read it. But remember that the delivery driver is getting a low wage, is using his own gas and vehicle to deliver to you, and is often putting his physical safety at risk by being out on the road to bring you your food so you can eat it in the comfort of your home. If you screw him over and don’t tip fairly or at all, you might get more than you bargained for when you get your next order. 😉
I’m very happy that things worked out so well for that delivery driver. He went out of his way to bring that customer his food, and the wealthy customer proved to be an ungrateful ingrate. Thank goodness for the cop and the kindness of his following on Instagram.
Sometimes there is justice in this world. 😇
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There is a shred of “benefit of the doubt” I will extend to the elderly. My parents are up around 80 and still think it’s 1965. So a) they still mistakenly believe that companies pay normal people such as delivery drivers an actual living wage like the dads in their neighborhoods used to get, and b) they think a $2 tip for pizza of any amount (including a big order) is generous. They are just kinda clueless.
Once upon a time, I used to do deliveries for an upscale grocery store. No car. Pile all the various bags into a giant cart and truck it by hand. The price-point alone meant a mix of ritzy customers and elderly pensioners. I didn't much mind the latter; we're all gonna get old someday, and they usually gave a decent tip
The richies not so much. I tried not to let it bother me, but I can recall one in particular that did. She was a six-story walk-up at the very edge (and, technically, just outside the edge) of my route. Twenty-two bags of groceries, packed to the gills with items that were way above my price range. It was a rainy day, and I was pretty spent from my shift. But i kept them safe in. The vestibule, hauled them up the stairs five or six at a time.
When I was done -- soaked to the bone, breathing heavy, sweating like a pig -- she tipped me a dollar. This, on an order that cost at least $250, and probably more like 3. I remember wishing that she didn't tip me at all, so I could've pretended she forgot. But some people are just sadistic.