I got downsized at my IT job and after a month of laying on the coach and sending resumes I had to get *something* <sigh> Man I hate office politics. The SOBs knew the position was temporary and advertized it as full-time.

The best I could find, not that I looked a lot, was pizza delivery.

The pay rate, if curious, is min-wage plus $1.25 per delivery plus tips.

Some acutely interesting sociological remarks:

The tips are not contingent upon neighborhood. A really nice neighborhood might give you $1 tip, while a trailer park tips you $3. It's totally hit and miss with no correlation to social class whatsoever. I've been taking notes for my future PhD paper on behavioral patterns of a highly industrialized, hedonistic society.

The average tip is about $2.40. Typically, you get 90 cents from one dude, $1.75 from another, then $1.50 then some guy tips $7. There is always some dude that or
ders a $12.75 pizza and pays $20 without change. Statistically one per shift. There are always 3-4 deliveries to the very periphery of delivery area where you run, run fast only to make 90 cents. You deal with the mindset of it's cheaper to get it delivered than the gas I burn to get there.

So do a few deliveries per hour and theoretically can make $9/hour after paying for gas (but not for tires, transmission, etc.etc.) I've killed my starter with all this driving. Pizza delivery is really brutal on every aspect of the car. Thank God I have my Ford truck so I am not car-less. It saved my butt more than once when the oh so quality Japanese engineering left me stranded, like now.

I was tellling my esteemed collegues that I killed my car and was likely not coming back and one dude told me his was on this 8th eigth car.
Um, no, it's not worth it even if don't have any accidents or anything like that.

 

I was thinking of going into that industry during the summer...then i realized i'd have to drive a car..
Ha, me in a car...

 

Now THAT'S finding the silver lining!! Way to look at the brighter side. keep you chin up, better things will find you. BTW, I have to agree on the tip theory, my experiences were very similar.

 

You should get a cheap remote starter that allows you to leave the vehicle running while the keys are not in the ignition. Saves on wear and tear, as well as saving gas because you are not starting the vehicle as often.

 

or you could make a spare key for about a doller.

also check out tipthepizzaguy.com

 

How long did you deliver pizza? I delivered pizza for three years with the same car and had 0 problems. Most people I worked with have worked there longer than I did and still use the same car, same there too, 0 problems.

 

I would like two large one topping pepperoni pizzas with a litre of pepsi.
Heres a 3.00 tip.

 

Ha, very funny.

I will maintain networks for food.

For 3 weeks. I won't ever do it again. I was in the transitional period between jobs and needed money to move to another job. This pizza thing doesn't even qualify as a "job". What's scary is getting stuck in it or some other min-wage nightmare - forever. Happens to lots of people, actually. The unemployment rate is officially low, but the figures are bogus, because the quality of jobs is really low, they are either part time, or have no benefits and certainly don't support a person, let alone a family.


Myself, I have always done work with my head but at the same time have never considered myself "above" dirty jobs when things got tough... I've had worse jobs. Planting 800lbs trees, or auto repair - I've had been sprayed with every kind of fluid there is in the car, some of it hot. And for 7 bucks an hour. I think I would enjoy spilling hot radiator coolant or oil on myself for 40 bucks an hour, if I had my own shop. But working for someone else is a nightmare, whether you seat in front of a monitor or plant trees.

I've lived in a mobile home park, very blue color, and I've seen what that kind of life does to people.. they've given up hope and their only source of escapism is booze to deaden their pain. That includes those who make several times more than min-wage, still pretty hard to support yourself/family in a large metro area.

 

i did delivery driver for 4 months made alot of dough both kinds on weekends pulled 50 in tips and 25 on whats called milage so all to gether made 75.00 pluse 6.50/h for 8 houres in one night and it only work when you drive a NEW car or truck because people feel sorry for you but my insurance company found out and told me to quit or lose in insurancs because that violates the full covrage policy

 

I delivered pizza when I was 16. Tips was where the money came from. Not the wages. Back then it was $4.50 an hour, plus tips. If I did 3 deliveries in an hour, I could almost count on doubling my money. It was more like 10 deliveries an hour though, and my best tip ever was 20 bucks or something. The guy paid with a 50 for 2 large pizzas and a 2 liter of Coke, told me to keep the change. I never got an order from that house again though. But like you said, there's some cheap ***** out there, wanting all the change.

Most of the time I was happy with 2 bucks, so that's what I tip now. I guess I should up it a bit for inflation, but the last time (Wednesday, actually) the order was $19.29, a 20 just didn't seem right, and 5 was too much, so I had to get a bunch of quarters for the poor kid.

 

apropos, is it my understanding that if the pizza is not here within 20 minutes after I phone in the order, it's free? (kidding)

Wasn't that Dominos Pizza that had that policy?

 

Ever thought about trying a job where you could develop a skill? Maybe construction? Or bartending.......

 

Funny thing about tipping the pizza guy is one dude remembered my good tips I guess and he got a job working at the gas company a year later. So he shows up at my door one day and hooks me up on a special gas plan that is saving me money every month and is supposed to follow me even when I move to a new place. Good Pizza Karma.

 

I did this for a year in a college town. At the time I owned a very economical Jap car. I made alot of money, by doing exactly what you are doing. I paid attention to what neighborhoods, and the times where I made the most deliverys or tips.

I found out the two most profitable neighborhoods, were a very large trailer park/manufactured housing area and the fringe of campus. The fringe contained alot of frat kids/trust fund babies and junior professors.

The absolute best shifts were dinner on Fridays and the 9 pm-2 am Saturday shift.

Friday dinner was the yuppies-on-thier-way-out, and the shift-workers-and-family-time shift. Lots of single pies to houses or two pie-two stop deliveries to complexes.


Saturday was the drunky-take-them-for-everything shift. Drunks will tip like crazy if you go to a party. The whole pack of idiots idea. "Did you give the guy a tip?, no he needs a decent tip, well then you tip him." You walk away with a 3-5 dollar tip.

By carefully timing myself on deliveries, I was able to be at the shop when the 'good' nieghborhood deliveries were ready to go, and I usually only ended up with dead-end campus deliveries when the guys that liked going over there were really busy.


I generally walked away with 500-700 dollars a week in delivery charges and tips.

 

Chances are that the higher tips will come from either a very rich household, or one in which the resident is stupid about money.

If you could get only the runs to big money places and trailer trash or crack heads - you could make a killing.

(if you didn't get shot in the process)