How a customer gave me a nice break every week

I deliver food for a major company for a living, and while most of our customers are very nice we get the occasional person who drives us crazy.

One customer requested her food be delivered at 5:30PM. I left the store at about 5:20PM, knowing it'd take about ten minutes to get there. I ended up getting stuck behind slow drivers and arrived at 5:34PM.

This woman flipped out. She was yelling at me and telling me that when she requests something for a specific time, it had better be there AT that time, no sooner, no later! I got where she was coming from, but due to a variety of reasons (including not wanting drivers to drive dangerously to arrive at the specified time) we cannot guarantee that it'll happen on the dot.

She wasn't hearing any of it. No tip, but that was no surprise given her reaction.

The following week, the same woman ordered again for the same time. This time around, we had more help in store and I got the order out earlier than normal. I thought "Fuck it" and went to get something to eat. I parked on the next street over and ate my food slowly, then delivered her food at exactly 5:30PM.

This time around she was on her phone and didn't say a word to me. No tip again.

This process repeated, but I came to enjoy having some quiet time to eat, even if I wasn't getting tipped. One day I was in a particularly mischievous mood and decided to just sit outside her house and eat my lunch. When I finally rang the doorbell at 5:30PM, she immediately whipped open her door and yelled "HAVE YOU BEEN SITTING OUTSIDE MY HOUSE THIS WHOLE TIME WITH MY FOOD?!"

"Yes."

"WHY IN THE HELL DIDN'T YOU BRING IT TO ME THEN?!"

"Cause you said when you ordered something for 5:30, you wanted it at 5:30. It's 5:30. Didn't want to bring it to you too early."

No tip.

Worth it.