Sometimes the night gets away from you. You’ve been studying — or partying — and it’s suddenly 1:00 a.m., and you’re hungry.
You’re not coherent enough or in the mood to make the drive to Taco Bell, so there’s one option: Delivery. But delivering in Baton Rouge isn’t easy. Narrow roads that fill up quickly during prime-time delivery hours and constant back and forth swerving through them can run down a vehicle and add stress to the job.
Luckily, other students are willing to put their time and cars on the line for your hunger. Whether it’s rush hours or late hours, these delivery drivers traverse Baton Rouge’s inconvenient infrastructure and gridlock traffic more frequently than most students drive down the street to get snacks from CVS.
In fact, drivers drop off most deliveries to other students according to Amanda Kittoe, a recently graduated anthropology major and pizza/sandwich delivery driver.
Actually, 95 percent of her deliveries go to other students. Kittoe has delivered food for about eight months: four at Jimmy John’s and the last four at Hungry Howies, which she said proved less stressful because of the efficient delivery system, the easily memorized delivery area and especially the late night shift.
“It goes by a lot quicker, the people are a lot different, people are more relaxed,” she said. “It’s the end of the day, so the people I deliver to aren’t working anymore. They’re ordering pizza as a treat, or they’re drinking.”
While Kittoe prefers a more laid back late night shift, others, like re- cent LSU graduate Ryan Branson, willingly grab the busiest schedules.
Branson started delivering for Domino’s Pizza in Hawaii, but since last January she started delivering at niche times for Domino’s on Staring Lane — during the rush shift.
“I’m not a night person,” she said. “I’ll usually work from five to eight or nine o’clock — till the rush ends.”
While it’s a short shift, it’s an in- tense one between the waves of orders and Baton Rouge traffic.
“It’s a lot of wear and tear on your car. We’ve had three accidents in the past four months, but three of them [we] were not at fault,” she explained. “It’s really stressful being in your car all the time.”
Kittoe said delivering to these students in the afternoon can be a lot more comfortable for her than stopping by businesses midday. When employees are in the middle of the work, they can come off as focused and irritable rather than the evening loungers who are having some beer or watching TV, Kittoe said.
“I’m not very comfortable deliver- ing to businesses, because people seem to be unhappier,” she said. “They don’t look at me as a person. I don’t really like delivering to businesses during the day.”
And it’s pretty common for evening orders to invite drivers in on some of their fun. Kittoe always turned invites down to get back to deliver- ing, but these included more than one tempting pool party, she said.
However, the job was never an
easy one for Kittoe as a full time student. Balancing a night shift at a full- time job and grad school was difficult, but even after she graduated, working 40 hours a week was never easy.
From undergraduate programs or technical programs like nursing school, Branson said managers understood student workers’ priorities when considering shift hours. This ultimately allowed the job to be a great temporary source of income that didn’t butt into school.