Skunked

So, I work in a tipped position. I am expected to make a certain amount of money each night - well, hourly actually - and my paychecks are taxed as if I have made that amount of money on top of my hourly wages.

Well, every night, I have a goal to make that much money so I am not losing anything simply by being clocked in for my full 8 hours. Sunday night was the first night I made absolutely nothing. ZERO DOLLARS :( I was a sad zebra. I keep track of my nightly tips and when I got home and had to write down that goose-egg, I was frustrated. Seriously, I expect to make less when I'm on the slow side, and I understand certain times when I don't see many cars why I would make less money. But it was fairly busy and people seemed to be in a decent mood -- much better than Saturday night, but that's another post. I don't know, but it was weird.

Sidenote: I'm a math person, so numbers and different ways to look at them fascinate me. Tip average per car, per hour, per shift, based on which side I'm working and how many HighRollers I open the gate for are all numbers I have floating around in my mind. For the last 3 shifts (Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday), I have made 1/6th of the tips I will be taxed on. That's less than 17% of my expected! Grrr....

Back to the topic at hand: tip, people! There is no excuse to leave without tipping the people in the service industry who have made your night a little brighter.

Alternative reason for the title of this post: Skunk. The number of cars that I had to move Friday night that were still full of a smoke fog (due to a certain type of clientele being there for a concert) was ridiculously high, pun intended. I lost count at 27. All night I had a dull headache and strange urge to eat Doritos... Weird! ;)

More mumblings soon.
~A