Monday was Chinese New Year. I celebrate the holiday much like 4th of July: by calming my dog down every time firecrackers explode from around the neighborhood. And every once in a while, a customer will reward me by closing for the day (and—this is the important part—leaving a nice big sign readable from the street that says, “Closed for Chinese New Year,” so I don’t have to get out of the truck with their packages). But this year, one customer actually handed over a little red envelope, and inside was $5. She stumbled over the Chinese phrase her boss had taught her, and told me to spend the money anytime, but keep the envelope all year for luck.
Tips are not standard for package car drivers, but that only makes them all the more appreciated when we receive them. They are most the time unexpected, and they somehow leave me feeling weirdly validated. Although, at this point, it’s the luck I need.
I’ve been told my new route is a gold mine at Christmas, but considering how many complaints I’m still getting on a daily basis, I’m not getting my hopes up. It’s no exaggeration to say that not a day has gone by since I’ve started my new route when I haven’t gotten a complaint. At this point the whining is not only feeding my propensity for self-righteousness, but also my low self-esteem. Let’s all take a moment to be glad that I don’t have children to be the recipients of my displacement.
And my management team has offered me almost zero support (surprise!). I’ve given them many suggestions of how things can be changed to run smoother for me, but all I get is resistance. For instance, I’ve been told the last driver left early. So I asked for an earlier start time (8:15 instead of 8:30). Nope. My truck is filled down the middle everyday so I can’t walk in it which makes it difficult (not to mention unsafe) to work in and slows me down. It’s a fight every morning to find the packages I’m looking for. A typical truck goes out with 200 to 250 packages a day. My piece count has been hovering around 350. So I’ve asked for a larger truck to help both me and my loader. Nope. How about taking the residential stops off the truck so I can use the space in the truck for business stops? It would help to have extra room to sort through packages. Hell No.
How about I go about what I’ve been doing: pissing off customers by getting there later than they would like, and then calling you all for help when I can’t finish my business, causing you to frantically look for someone to take stops off me because I can’t finish them all before 5:00. OK.
Great. Now I feel weirdly invalidated.
What’s the lesson here?
It’s going to take a lot of red envelopes to provide the luck I need in order to charm my customers by December.
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