Number of Deliveries: 7
Sales: $195.76
Tips: $27.50
Hours: 3.30
Total Wage: $16.33
I'm not sure what I've done to piss off the delivery gods––maybe it was writing about how much they've been hooking me up all week––but they decided to balance things out tonight.
I begin the night with a single-bagger to El Brazo, one of the farthest streets (8.4 miles, one way) we deliver to in Cielo. Since, according to this government site, my car gets a combined 19 miles per gallon, and we only receive $1.45 per delivery for gas, this run is actually costing me gas money. When I'm getting the delivery ready, I notice in the direction section of the delivery ticket that one of my fellow drivers noted in the past, "GREAT VIEW!" And when I finally turn the corner onto El Brazo, elevation over 1,000 feet, I get a beautiful view of the green valley and hills to the south. While the home I deliver to has 4,193 square feet and an unusual ratio of 3 bedrooms to 5 bathrooms, the coolest feature is by far the real church bell over the door at the house gate leading into the courtyard. The black, cast iron bell has a chain that cuts through a hoop, and hangs down to a handle. I pull that sucker hard, and the solid gong reverberates throughout the hills. I would ring it every day if I lived here, coming and going. A nice woman and her daughter arrive at the gate and give me a $3.56 tip, which makes my net tip $2.01 after accounting for gas losses (not calculated into the above totals).
My next two deliveries give me decent tips ($4.50 on $31.11 & $4.00 on 31.09), but the run after that kills me. When I arrive at the house in Santa Luz, it's one that has a driveway with no access to the front door. The open garage reveals a life of chaos: bikes cast about; sets of golf clubs piled on; skateboards here and there; a spilt jar of change, among other crap. I try calling the house, but no one answers. I cut through the garage, kicking things out of the way to make a safe path to the door, and knock. A frazzled mom comes to the door, and I apologize for being in her garage, and she apologizes for the stupid layout of the houses. She hands me some cash, and it's not until the door shuts and I'm walking through the garage debris, that I discover she only tipped me $1.30. I think about scooping some change off the garage floor, but I assume her chaotic life is enough penance.
The next house on this same run should be cut out of our delivery zone, since it's 8.9 miles (another gallon of gas) away and technically in Rancho Penasquitos. It's an average San Diego neighborhood, and the woman who answers the door gives me an average two dollar tip, so that by 8:00 p.m., I have only $15.36 in tips.
The next two deliveries save my night from a total disaster (which would be under $20 in tips). I arrive at a condo, and a girl answers the door, then calls to her boyfriend. The tall boyfriend in his 20s burps at the door, grabs the credit card receipt out of my hand, and while signing against the door, asks if I have any ranch dressing, like I would be driving around warming ranch dressing in my car all night and cultivating bacteria. "No, you have to ask for that when you order," I say.
After tipping me $6, he says, "Dustin was out on another delivery, or something?" referring to one of my fellow drivers. I guess so. He says to tell Dustin "what up?" from Greer, so I agree and head off to my next delivery, where, after the guy tips me $5, some woman walking by asks if I have any extra pizza. This is probably the dumbest and most annoying thing you can ask a pizza delivery guy (gate guards are the most frequent violators of this rule). We don't carry around extra pizza, and if there's a mess-up in the store, a pack of wild delivery drivers salivate at the chance to devour free food.
Speaking of pet peeves, earlier in the night, a well built, blonde man in surfer/casual clothes answered a door and asked me how I was. I said "good," then asked him how he was, and he replied with the pretentious-correcting-your-grammar-sounding "well." When someone does this, it makes me feel uneducated, yet I'd feel pretentious and like a pedant if I said "well" and made someone else feel this same awkwardness. A friend recently tried to explain the difference, "well" being an adverb describing the verb "am," and "good" being an adjective that should describe a noun, and, therefore, unfit to describe the verb "am." But according to Grammar Girl, this isn't correct, and you can say either "well" or "good," because "am" is a linking verb (like "is": He is tall) and plays by different rules. I notice the wealthy tend toward the whole "well" response to seem educated and, well, refined.
This man also fumbled around with a cash roll (discussed in post on Days 46 & 47), dropping bills as he went to pay. He even said, "I have too many freakin' bills here." I've said I can't figure out the whole flashing money roll phenomenon, but then I found this online NPR story that explained it all: "Study: Your Brain Thinks Money Is a Drug." It turns out that handling cash during an experiment in China helped the cash handlers feel less pain than their counterparts handling blank pieces of paper (they were all told they'd be performing hand dexterity tests and later had their hands put in hot water and asked about their discomfort level).
The conclusion is that "money can act as a substitute for social acceptance, reducing social discomfort, and, by extension, physical discomfort . . . even pain . . . [and] works as a substitute for another pain buffer––love." But then the researcher, Xinyue Zhou, adds, "All substitutes are sad." The researcher said what also stood out was a feeling of strength the cash handlers felt. And I think this is what the cash rolls of the wealthy (and gamblers, and drug dealers, and rappers in videos, and my friend Todd Noe) are all about: a show of strength. I mean, I feel better (stronger?) when I keep my cash tips rolled up in an undisclosed location in my room and take them out every now and then to count (flexing my strength), rather than immediately putting them in the bank or receiving a paper paycheck. At the same time, I feel pretty good (and sometimes sad, due to the small amounts) getting a printed paycheck, and is why I refuse to sign up for direct deposit; I, too, want to feel the pain-easing, tactile power of cash. (I can hear John Lee Hooker singing in the background: "The best thing in life is free, but you can give it to the birds and bees; I need some money. Need some money, oh yeah, what I want.")
But then I just read in the actual study, entitled "The Symbolic Power of Money," that "interpersonal rejection and pain caused desire for money to increase," which makes my cash handling fetish, as well as that of my wealthy patrons, seem a little less exciting and more psychologically telling. The article also explains why having less tip money in my hands tonight has put me in such a foul mood.
What up Dustin! :) Glad to see that someone else thinks that the anomaly of the Rancho Santa Fe pizza place is worth writing about. I sure have tons of stories.... and I can say I miss that damn place a lot.
ReplyDelete~Erica
I am guilty of the "doing well" phenom. but its generally contextual. at work where most people have degrees I use it more often. yes I work at a grocery store and its the highest educated group of people I have worked with in 20 years!
ReplyDeleteI do always feel pretentious though.
"superman does good you are doing well"
-tracey morgan 30 Rock