Number of Deliveries: 10
Sales: $445.07
Tips: $58
Hours: 3.42
Total Wage: $24.96 per hour
It's easy to live in a bubble in Rancho Santa Fe, even for me. While sales drop off earlier in the night, between 7:30 and 8:30, we still have good, early rushes and some big orders. When I arrive at the pizzeria tonight, the manager clocks me in early and gives me a $172.05 order. I haven't had a big order like this in some time, so I'm excited.
I arrive just before the scheduled 6 p.m. delivery time. The tall, gray-haired man, wearing a festive, red sweater, takes the items in bunches––the 16" salad bowl and dressing containers, then two trays of pasta, then another tray of pasta and a tray of garlic bread––and walks them into the kitchen while I wait at the door. When he returns for the final time, looking serious, he pulls out a money roll. My eyes widen as he releases a twenty from the wad and hands it to me, saying, "Happy Holidays." I return his holiday greeting, but am upset when I realize it's a five dollar bill, not a twenty. I think maybe he's going to tip the rest on the credit card slip, but he hands it back with a signature and a blank tip line. Happy Holidays, Mr Scrooge.
It's crazy, because some people have been holiday tipping lately: one lady gave me ten dollars for a $38 order and said, "For gas," and another man gave me $15 on a $25 order earlier this week. But just as many people have been giving the tip stiff-arm this holiday season, and I feel like I've been earning less and less this fall. It's going to be a long, cold winter if this keeps up.
I tend to forget, working my cushy pizza job in Rancho, that there's a real economic recession out there. Sure, many stocks have recovered, since companies are cutting costs and becoming more profitable, but unemployment is still above ten percent. And one of my closest friends lost his adjunct teaching job at Fresno State and is fishing around for work, trying to piece enough together to pay his mortgage come spring.
I've thought about substitute teaching for extra cash and a way to transition out of the food service industry, but when I called the local high school district about next semester, the woman told me they had 130 people at this fall's "guest teacher" orientation, and she's still processing them. When I went to this same orientation last year, there were maybe 30 people. I'm thinking about getting a teaching credential, but the programs are super impacted because of state budget cuts, meaning they're accepting fewer and fewer students. And when I called San Diego City College to check on the adjunct instructor pool down there, the department head told me she has over fifteen current instructors without any classes to teach for spring, so they're "about a year or two out from hiring." Times are tough, indeed. I feel like an ungrateful ass for complaining, but that's what life in the bubble does.
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