Back in college I was a deliverer for Domino's pizza in a small southern college town. This job provided many opportunities for entertainment.
I would often get invites to parties, "Hey! Come back when you're off work! We got lots of beer!"
I would sometimes, though not often enough, get other invitations from the young ladies, "You're closed? But we are soooo hungry! We would do anything if you would bring us a pizza!"
These were certainly worthwhile experiences for a young college boy, but the one event that bubbles to the surface of my mind the most was one short phone call.
See, when we were delivering to one of the dorms we had to call ahead to have the customer meet us in the lobby. We were not allowed past the lobby of a dorm. So this one night I was set to make a delivery to a dorm, and so I made the call to ask the fellow to meet me. This was the conversation I had.
Customer: "Hello?"
Me: "Hello, this is Domino's. Did you order a pizza?"
Customer: "Yea! I'd like to order a pizza!"
Me: "No, did you already order one? I am about to deliver it."
Customer: "Hey yea! What do you have? I'd love a pizza!"
Me: "Is this 555-5555?"
Customer: "Yea, that's my phone number. What kind of pizza can I get?"
Me: "You haven't ordered one yet?"
Customer: "No. How did you know I wanted one?"
Me: "I'm just psychic I guess. Do you by chance have a roommate?"
Customer: "Yea! I think he ordered a pizza, but he's in the bathroom right now."
Me: "Well, could you tell him to please meet me in the lobby?"
The next day I told some friends about the phone call, and they had a great idea! We should start a Psychic Pizza Network, and just call people at random (in our town you had about a 70% chance that it would be a college student) and ask if they wanted a pizza. We figured most students would say yes.
Turns out we were right. We didn't start the network, but one of those friends with whom I discussed the issue was my manager. She decided to start a new marketing program on Friday and Saturday nights. We would cook up a bunch of pizzas, and a driver would take a stack of about six to a dorm lobby and try to hawk them.
We would sell out almost immediately.
Later I realized I should have kept my mouth shut, bought some frozen pizzas from a Sam's club, cooked them in the dorm kitchen, and sold those myself. Stupid me.