Lessons From Ziggy’s Pizza: Say What You Mean.
Posted: February 9, 2011 Filed under: favorites, Foolishness, Getting older | Tags: business, business communication, Communication, humor, life, Mozzarella, Pizza, postaweek2011, thoughts, work 31 Comments »In my previous Ziggy’s Pizza post, I introduced you to the owner of the restaurant where I got my first job. Though Ziggy and his restaurant are gone, the lessons I learned from him stay with me.
Today we’ll discuss the second communication lesson I learned from “The Owner”.
We rejoin this tale of my youth a few weeks into my pizza making career, I was still sixteen years old. Ziggy stopped by the restaurant, lingered a bit, then pulled me aside when an order came in. “I’m going to show you how to make a pizza” he said, “get me a pizza crust.”
That’s Not Funny
Tossing a Ziggy’s Crust (Image via Wikipedia)
The pizza crust at Ziggy’s was pre-made and par-cooked. It arrived in boxes and kept refrigerated. We’d grab the crusts off the shelf, put stuff on them and slide them in the oven as the orders came in. There really was not an art to it.
Sometimes I’d toss the crusts in the air like I was spinning crusts out of fresh dough. Management didn’t think it was as funny as I did.
When Ziggy came to me and said “get me a pizza crust” I got one out and placed it on the preparation table with reverence. I knew that $2.35 an hour he was paying me gave him the right to decide what was funny.
Pizza crust tossing was not funny. It was time for me to learn from the man.
That’s The Way, Uh Huh, Uh Huh…
My pizza making seminar with The Master began. Ziggy showed me how to put pizza sauce on the crust, then he uttered the line I saw him use unsuccessfully with one teen-aged pizza chef after another:
“I like to make a pizza the way I like it. I put on the amount of cheese I like.”
Cheese = $ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
To young me, that meant I too should make pizzas that I would like. I like my pizza with lots of cheese. From then on, I piled cheese on pizza…the way I like it. Then one day Ziggy stopped by and saw me make a pizza with about one cow’s worth of mozzarella. He clutched his chest and croaked out “who taught you to make pizza that way?”
“You did, sir.”
A second demonstration made it clear that I should make pizza not the way I liked it, but the way the owner of the shop liked it. Mozzarella was money. Pizza was to be made with only the required amount of costly cheesiness.
Say What You Mean To Say
Subtlety did not work for Ziggy. During my time working at his restaurant, I saw him use the “I like to make a pizza the way I like…” line with a number of new pizza makers. Time after time, the result was pizza going out the door laden with excessive cheesy goodness.
So what I learned from Ziggy, though it wasn’t what he was teaching me is: When you need people to do something specific, be specific about what you want them to do. I supervise people and can be subtle, but I know from my time with Ziggy that I’ve got to make a point to be direct sometimes.
Sometimes I need other people to make pizza the way I like it.
This is part two of a three-part series, click here for the last serving of Ziggy’s Pizza.
I would have piled on the cheese, too.
It just seems right to me. Why not?
I love this! Too true.
My gram owned a popular music club that was known for its secondary line of business: pizza. She said they ALWAYS piled on ingredients. They people who bought the property (and became a different kind of business) got phone calls requesting their pizza over 10 years after they’d sold. Ingredients are money — but customers are the ones giving it to you!
I think I’d still be calling that place too.
Did Ziggy play guitar?
Ziggy really sang, screwed up eyes and screwed down hairdo.
I had wondered that on the first post actually…glad you asked. Inquiring minds, and all that…
We went to DQ the other night for sundaes, and Hope asked me why the girl weighed them…a scale might have helped you guys achieve the “zen level of cheesiness” for Ziggy’s pizza…hindsight is 20/20!
Wendy
Good point. The sauce amount was specific
I made some pizza last week from scratch. Trust me…throwing pizza dough (premade or otherwise) is funny. Until it’s done unsuccessfully. And then it’s funnier.
Some things get better the worse you do them.
I was at a party this weekend where pizza was served. The hostess ordered cheese. The pizza guy (name unknown) told her she had to get an extra topping to get the special price. She said she did not want an extra topping. Apparently they went back and forth on this for some time until she said, “Hey, I’d like cheese as my extra topping.” He complied.
I do not have a point. Were you looking for one?
Looking for what?
Never occurred to Ziggy that everyone did not like pizza the way he did. Maybe the second lessons is- like what your boss likes…at least in the beginning or when his name is Ziggy
Someday I will blog about the night my dearly departed and his best friend decided to drink an old collection of airline miniatures…and make pizza dough for scratch–including tossing the dough…lucky for him he married a women who is a darn good sport.
Man, i wish they would have called me. This wasn’t in the winter, was it? Because I couldnt have made it in the winter, I was busy. I had all summer though.
Ziggy sounds like a piece of work. It’s also good to know that the pizza from the pizzaria is really no more fresh than the kind they have in the freezer at Kroger.
The sauce was uncanned and seasoned every day and the cheese was shredded right there and blended to unyielding specifications.
I know what you mean. I had zero assertiveness once upon a time. Then every mentor/boss seemed to be so direct. That rubs off. Now, every once in a while a student will say that I’m scary, and I laugh because I’m never thinking anything but clear and direct communication!
That’s what makes you so mysterious to your students; they never really believe you are being direct.
what is the point of tomato pie?
Right…it is the interplay of the cheese and tomato. The more cheese, the more interplay.
That sounds kind of dirty, doesnt it?
interplay is key.
Oma, maybe you should try being direct by saying “Quit singing to me! You sing badly”
His powers of awkwardness resist my rank, seniority and overall presence. I can deal with him in all other arenas other than the singing.
Smells like my old boss at Long John Silvers motto back in the day: Do what I mean not what I say. I mean really! I was a teenage boy so abstract thinking was not in the tools needed for fast food success.
Ha ha…I think the teenage boy point is well taken. There are times when we need step by step guidance. I’m walking toward being 50. I think I’m going back to that time.
Didn’t you have to actually measure the ‘correct’ amount of cheese on a scale or something? How much cheese did you put on the “white pizzas”?
I think at one point there was talk about a scale but I don’t remember it happening. There was a scale that was used to portion out the seasoning for the pizza sauce. Don’t ask me for the secret recipe, I’ve been sworn.
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I think I used to be Ziggy…I owned a little pizza place in a small town for 13 years…had a lot of kids work for me during that time. I sure hope I was more specific about what I wanted the kids to do!
If you had it for 13 years, I’m guessing you were!
Welcome to whereever this is!