November Employee of the Month - Josh

How long have you worked for DoubleDave’s?
I started at the Indian Springs location in The Woodlands in August 2015 (shout out to Jesse and Lima.  Started at Rayford Rd. location in April of 2017.

 

What’s your favorite DoubleDave’s product?
Got this one from an old customer, Crispy Thin Meateater with Buffalo sauce instead of red sauce - it’s an 11/10.

 

Ranch or red sauce?
About 80% of the time red sauce, though I will dabble in ranch from time to time.

 

Favorite Pizza of the Month so far?

Loaded Potato will always be my favorite.  When I started it was the Pizza of the Year.

 

Best experience with a customer?
Consistently one of my favorite customers has been a man named Drew. I’ve known him since I first started at Indian Springs. Always an absolute joy to interact with.  He orders a couple times a week and I always enjoy taking his order.  A couple times I thought the order had the wrong crust on it, so I sent him one of each since I couldn’t reach him on the phone.

 

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
I’ve always hated these questions, I’ve always been particularly bad at answering them.  I honestly don’t have an answer.  Just about a year ago our store flooded, and I was working as a shift-lead at almost part-time hours, and now here we are a year later.  The only thing I know for certain is that I’ll be five years older.

 

What is your favorite part about working for DoubleDave’s?
In the lean times, everyone is working to keep busy and keep the store looking good, and in the thick times, everyone is buckling down to get all the orders out.  Regardless of what part of the spectrum we’re at, we’re all having a great time, laughing all the way.

 

If Hollywood made a movie about your life, who would you like to see cast as you?

Some weird amalgam of John Goodman/John Candy/John Belushi.  I don’t really care, so long as Laurence Olivier narrates it.
 

What advice would you give to recent new hires?
Come early, stay late, take on more responsibilities. I always seek out that kind of behavior and it means a lot to me, and I always try to reward it.
 

What did you want to be when growing up?

An astronaut, a chef or nothing, I can’t honestly remember but that sounds right.

 

What do you like to do on your days off?
Go take my 1911 or Auto-5 out for some practice, play some 20-year-old computer games with friends, sleep for 12 hours, do some work on the car, or cooking things I didn’t have time for during the week (I’m frying chicken tomorrow).
 

What is the first thing you would buy if you won the lottery?
Webley-Fosbery Target Model with a 7.5” barrel in .455 with a Prideaux Device
 

What’s the best vacation you’ve taken?
I always love going down to Mexico City to see my cousins, that’s a great drinking town.  But in terms of being meaningful, back in 2010, my brother, mother and I went back to Guam after having been gone for 15 years or so.  The island changed a lot, but it was great to see all the old spots we used to go out to.
 

What is your favorite thing to do in Spring/Houston?
There’s so much great food.  Lots of good ranges.  There are always plenty of great artists passing through.  Honestly, one of the great things about the area is that if you want the night life, it’s there, but if you want to be secluded and retreat to your introvert lair, like me, it’s really easy.

What’s the first concert you went to?
I won’t give you the answer to that question because it’s some classical event that was free back in the late 90s or early 2000s.

Instead, I’ll give you my account of my first time organizing a concert.  It was 2009, I was going to school in Indiana in the middle of nowhere.  Our school had a great student senate that would vote on everything and allocate funds for everything.  Including a once yearly “National Act” which would be a famous musician or group, whatever.  I personally led a campaign to get Three-Six Mafia (a very famous rap group from Tennessee), which ended up winning against the more popular Kid Cudi.
 

What music do you like to play on your shift?
I play a wide spectrum of music, everything from country to western.  But seriously, I am a huge fan of Houston rappers like Slim Thug and Z-Ro, I like some metal, like Pantera and some of Hank3’s work, I’ll play rancheras and stuff like Vicente Fox.  I will always love, above all, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys.  To quote Waylon Jennings, “It don’t matter who’s in Austin, Bob Wills is the King.”

Where are you from?
Kind of a complex question.  I was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as my father was working with the Saudi Government’s aircraft.  If you recall, around 1990, there was a thing called Desert Shield, which ended up turning into Desert Storm.  We left Riyadh, under threat of Iraqi SCUD attacks, for Frankfurt, for a little while.  Eventually ended up in Chihuahua, Mexico, for a little while, then my mother got a job with Continental Micronesia, lived in Guam until mid-1997, and I’ve been in Houston more or less ever since.

So yeah, I just say I’m from Houston to make it easy.