So I still work at the place in Stamford on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. But that’s just at night from 5 to 9. It’d hardly be worth driving 20 miles each way to work except my new car gets better gas mileage and I’ve had nights where I made $100 in 4 hours (with pay). Of, that’s another thing: I got rid of my WRX. I know a lot of you like that car, but the lack of room was killing me and I got tired of borrowing people’s Jeeps and trucks to move stuff. I traded it for a 2008 Toyota Rav4. It has 4 wheel drive, and since it has the 4 cylinder, it gets a few miles more per gallon than my WRX did. It’s slow as shit in comparison, but I’m over the racer-boy stage of my life anyway. I love how much space there is inside. It has compartments everywhere and since the tire is on the back door it has ninja storage space under the back floor that has THREE milk crates worth of gear that used to take up my hatchback in the WRX. Then there’s more space under the back seats I haven’t got used for anything. I’m thinking I’ll have a powered subwoofer installed back there when I get my new radio. I plan on keeping this one for a while, but if I had the funds I’d trade it on a 4Runner. I love the new 4Runner. I want that.
Anyway, I saw an ad for another pizza place that’s closer looking for drivers and they happened to need them Tuesday through Thursday from 5 to 10. Perfect. The only thing about this place is the owner’s a little grumpy at times, which I hate. I get $6 an hour. I used to own a place. I NEVER stressed out my employees with my bullshit. Then they hate you and you make them miserable when you’re there which rubs off on customers. Don’t do it. Oh, and this place I have to sweep and mop at the end of the night, along with trash, etc which I wouldn’t mind, but I have to do the whole kitchen area, too. Usually the kitchen guys do their own shit at most places. This place is like 100 feet long. It’s a lot of work. Plus the owne wants the floor mopped twice. Why, I have no idea. I usually do it once. So last week I see place in Stamford looking for a catering driver from 10:30 to 3. Monday through Friday. Even better. So now I have three jobs. I start that one tomorrow. I hope it pays well with tips. I would really rather just work at the Stamford pizza place all day because it pays the most and the tips are the best. I might consider moving down there if that happened, but they have a full-time guy. But they pay $8 an hour and everyone is happy there. It’s a huge place, too, like 6,000 square feet (upstairs and down). They’re always closed Monday so I’d be happy to do 6 days a week open to close. That’d be $520 a week just for showing up and doing whatever side work the full-time guy has to do. To figure out what a driver gets you multiply that number by 2.5 so my weekyl GROSS pay with tips would be $1280. It’d obviously be more gas, but probably no more than $100 a week. It’d still be a nice take home amount, and all cash.
So as much as I like being employed, I’m tired of working for other people so I have two new ideas besides the book that hasn’t been written yet (I promise when I get a laptop I’ll bang it out). Idea one is to do a delivery business like Gowaiter and undercut them and take all their clients. They get 30% of the order plus $3.99 from the customer. I mean that could be like $10 a delivery plus tips. I could do that with VERY LITTLE start up cash and not even have to get insurance or incorporate or get a tax license. They pay the sales tax (the restaurants). The other idea, idea number two I like a little better but I figure would cost about $6,000 to start up: A kiosk at a mall selling cheap iPhone cases bought from China at pennies on the dollar for less than most stores sell them. I’ve seen lots of 1,000 selling for $200. That’s 20 cents a piece. I’d sell them for around $10 which is still about $20 less than places like Staples and cell phone stores sell them for. But getting into the mall costs “seed money” which usually runs $2,000 and the first month’s rent which is another $2,000, and then figure another $2,000 for supplies. And you have to dress nice and be there all day every day or have employees. Still, if I sold 30 a day, or 3 an hour, I’d gross $9,000 a month. I’m betting I can sell double that. I like that idea because I don’t have to drive and I can work on opening a second one while I’m at work. You know, planning, etc. If the kiosk is big enough I can get a helper, pay them well, bonuses, etc. Sigh. I really need to figure this out. I want to be independent in the next ten years instead of relying on pizza delivery jobs.
The Driver (Adam Smith)
© Adam Smith and drivershout.wordpress.com, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Adam Smith and drivershout.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
“Kick Rocks” Pizza Delivery Nightmares by Adam Smith is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License
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