Today, having made almost $150 over the course of 11 hours, I feel a little better. Averaging what I made today with the earnings of yesterday, it comes out to almost $10/hour. If we assume that this is to be the approximate norm for the foreseeable future (a somewhat shaky assumption, given the wild fluctuations that are possible), then I have a tricky decision to make.

Since my recent raise in the deli kicked in, this would put the typical wage levels at the two jobs approximately even. If money is roughly equal, which job do I choose?

In terms of pure enjoyment (or lack of excruciating annoyance, as the case may be), I think I have a slight preference toward the newspaper job. Sometimes. Sort of.

On the newspaper side, I get to leisurely hang out in front of the store, hand out papers, harrass random idiots about whether they currently get home delivery, and frantically do everything I can to convince them to sign up for a subscription.

I the deli, I often find myself in a stressed out state of trying to keep up, being harrassed by random idiots, and frantically attempting to appease the picky customers while still getting the grease machines cleaned.

OTOH, there is something to be said for a STABLE wage. If I work an hour in the deli, at least I know with certainty that I will get paid for it. The wage may not be great, but it's always there.

With newspapers, I have a sucky day like yesterday, and I feel like I'm being shafted worse than a taco bell employee. If the good times had a bit of a higher yield, I might not feel so bad about it. But as it is, even when I'm doing "good", it's not SO good that it outweighs the emotional toll of the bad days.

At this point, I think it would be an honest self-assessment to say that my sales skills approach the level of mediocre competence. With a good measure of practice, coaching, work, and experience, I think I could become competent to the point of being above average. But alas, I find that I am not a natural at it. I am not one of those people who hits the top stratum within a few weeks.

I envy and admire the ones who, having started work only a month or two ago, can knock off 50 orders in a single weekend, and call it "easy money". I wish I knew their secret. How can it possibly be easy, when, for me, I claw, scratch, and bite all day, and would consider myself lucky if I could hit 10 in a day? (Hasn't quite happened yet.)

I can see some areas where I am choking, and with work, I could see myself getting to maybe 15 in a day like today. But 25-30? It seems nearly inconceivable, given the particular set of people I encountered. Maybe I was just unlucky, and got a "bad batch" of customers today?

But I know that such reasoning cannot really explain the whole of it. I know this because the store assignments are relatively random; everybody who works there long enough finds themselves in crappy stores as well as good stores some of the time. Yet somehow, there is a small group of names that almost always make it to the top bonus category, regardless of the store assignments. How?

Am I really willing to expend the time and effort necessary to discover the answer to that question? Perhaps it is something I don't understand, because it has never really interested me that much in the past. Even now, I only find myself asking because I am on the verge of desperation to find a way to support myself, and get off the parental welfare dole. I know deep down that my heart is not really in it. I just want to make a living. Money, only money. With regard to my interest in sales, I consider it a means to an end. It's a hollow means; more of a necessary evil than anything resembling a passion.

Perhaps therein lies a significant step toward answering my own question.

There is another downside to the newspaper gig that makes me suspect the deli might be a better choice. The commute. Constantly travel from one end of the metro area to the other not only takes more time, it costs me gas and wear and tear on the car. I haven't factored those into my estimates of what I'm making, but they would be significant over time.

If I was easily pulling $20/hour even on "bad days" (as my dad was claiming was normal), then that might not be such an issue. But if I'm making deli wage, it's definitely a better deal to just be driving to Boulder every day.

Scheduling. Newspaper is 2 or 3 long days per week. 10-12 hours of work on a full day. (Sometimes we do half days though.) Deli is the more typical 8 hour shifts.

I haven't decided for certain which I would prefer more. I think I slightly lean toward the 3-day LONG day work week, simply because having a nice block of days off is way cool. But there are advantages to the other.

There's this part of me that wonders if it would just be a better all around deal to suck it up, go back to work in the deli (where the management and other staff have been letting me know they value my presence lately), see if Peter is still trying to rent that room out, move to Boulder, get a bike, ride it to work everyday, only use Tobias for "special trips", and just live for a while. 'Cause Boulder is an awesome town.

I am indecisive. I hate to admit that my decision hinges on my luck in the newspaper sales for the remainder of this weekend and probably the next, but... maybe it does. Spooky.

I gotta go get some supper and rest. Peace and goodnight.