Use The Scales!

Trying to squeeze every penny of profit out of a pizza is a tough job. It requires the use of a rather complicated equation where the variables are...

• size of pizza
• ladles of sauce
  
• ounces of cheese
  
• number of pepperoni
• etc

The end goal, obviously, is to spend less on ingredients (and wages) than you sell the pizza for. So the optimal solution is to make a pizza as fast as humanly possible using the minimal amounts of ingredients but just enough so that the customer doesn't think you're stingy...

So by now it shouldn't surprise you that we had scales everywhere. It also shouldn't surprise you that we rarely used them, beyond maybe the first few weeks at the make table. Once you've been at it for a week or two, you know what 8 ounces of cheese looks like in your hand. Just like the lady at the lunchmeat counter in the grocery store more or less hits the 1 pound mark in turkey every time. Chalk up a little teenage rebellion, and we never had to clean the scales at night.

Every once in a while, the manager would come back and scream, "USE THE SCALES!" at us. Or, "THAT'S TOO MUCH CHEESE!" Or my favorite, "WE DIDN'T BUY THESE SCALES TO LOOK PRETTY!". I don't recall ever fauning over the scales handsome shiny exterior.

Then one night the district manager showed up for dinner with his family. He ordered something regular, nothing fancy, and the manager came racing back to the make table. "That's for David *********!" (Last name removed to protect identity). Then she proceeded to pummel the pizza with about 11 pounds of cheese. He probably choked on every bite.

So much for the rules!