Most interactions between Duke students and the Durham community do not last long. They are a string of brief and largely forgettable exchanges, such as thanking the bus driver, taking a cab to Shooters or ignoring the rambling attention of a homeless person on Ninth Street. Many conversations occur over the phone, through the Merchants on Points program. From dorm rooms or apartments (or, on some sorry occasions, the library), a student can call one of twenty local dining establishments and, fifteen minutes to two hours later, receive a meal.
Who is on the other end of these calls? If you order from Jimmy John’s, the person taking your order might be Alex, an outgoing 19-year-old who graduated from Southern High School in 2010.
“It’s the best high school in Durham,” he says, “You can quote me on that.”
As I talk to Alex, an in-shop team member, he enthusiastically tells me about his experiences at Southern. He played in the marching band and was a member of Chi Omega Lambda, a fraternal organization focusing on community service and leadership development. Now, Alex lives with his parents not far from his old school. The money he earns from Jimmy John’s helps him support his girlfriend and their three-week-old baby.
“It’s something that you work for,” he says about his child.
While Alex spends most of his working hours in the store, the employees who deliver the sandwiches are constantly rushing in and out.
They don’t have much time to talk, but I manage to ask one of them his thoughts about Duke, which is the destination for roughly 80% of his deliveries.
“Duke students tip terribly,” he says. “Really terribly.”
I suggest that low tipping might be an inherent trait of college students, but he disagrees. He has worked near other universities as well.
“UNC tips fine,” he says.
Manager Matt Beardsley, however, later wrote in an email that there is little difference in tipping behavior between the two schools.
Caroline, a customer service representative at Domino’s Pizza, has firsthand knowledge of both schools. Weekdays, she is a student at UNC, but on nights and weekends, she takes orders from Duke students, spending entire shifts working across the street from her rival campus. Caroline doesn’t make much of the rivalry between her classmates and her most frequent customers.
“I don’t let it bother me,” she says. “I worked here first.”
But when it comes to sharing her allegiance with patrons, she adopts a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, especially late at night, when many people who order pizza are intoxicated and potentially hostile.
Down the road, at Papa John’s Pizza, a 23-year-old driver named Devon is concerned with another rivalry, the competition between Papa John’s and Domino’s. He tells me that he holds no personal grudges against Domino’s employees but their pizza just doesn’t compare.
“The food doesn’t look the same,” he says. “The sausages look antibiotic.”
Sometimes the pizza feud manifests itself on the streets of Durham. “I’ll screwface their drivers when I pass them on a delivery,” says Devon.
When I ask him to demonstrate a “screwface,” he displays an exaggerated sneer, wrinkling his nose and protruding his lips sideways. On occasion, Domino’s drivers have responded to this gesture by challenging Devon to a race.
“I could take them if I wanted to,” he says. But he has always declined. “No one wants to get a ticket in a delivery truck.”
Aside from Domino’s pizza, Devon’s biggest work-related pet peeves are “inclement weather and non-tippers.” He says that although Duke students tend to tip lower than other customers, the proportion of non-tippers (customers who don’t tip at all) is about the same across the board. He attributes this practice to poor parenting.
“Nobody taught their children how to tip,” he says of a particular Durham neighborhood that’s notorious for non-tipping.
Life experience also plays a role. “You don’t understand until you’ve had a service job where you’ve worked with tips.”
When I ask Devon if he has anything to say specifically to Duke students, he comes up with a list:
“Order Papa John’s over Domino’s. Don’t be afraid to tip. And know your 4-digit PIN.”
After this conversation, I call Domino’s to get another perspective on some of Devon’s comments. I speak to Dave, who has worked at Domino’s since 1984. He has held a variety of jobs, including ones in management and food preparation, but he prefers delivery because it’s the least stressful. He says that Duke students tip about the same as anyone else.
And what’s Dave’s take on the rivalry with Papa John’s?
“We don’t care what they do,” he says, giving a hee-hee-hee sort of laugh. “It’s a job, not a competition.”
That night, I order pizza through Merchants on Points (in the name of objectivity, I won’t say from where). When the delivery guy reaches my Central Campus apartment, I make sure to give him a good tip.
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