I’ve been in the restaurant industry for about 10 years and I’ve always struggled. I’m a server, used to working 2 jobs at a time just to put food on the table. If I could make close to $100 a day, 5 days a week I’d be fine. But most restaurants these days need full-time availability while only scheduling part-time hours. Plus with the pandemic, it’s much harder to make money since people don’t like to go out as much, and those who do tend to be the assholes who don’t like to tip.
I majorly lucked out about 8 months ago and found a serving job at a swanky hotel. With this job I am pulling around $300 a day. I already live in a cheap apartment in an affordable area as that’s all I could manage to make work in the past, so I really only need to work 2-3 days a week now to keep up with my expenses and I do just that. If I need extra money, I can pick up more hours if I chose, but I’m perfectly content spending 2-3 days a week at work and having the rest of the time to do whatever I want. And if I do get scheduled more shifts and I don’t want them, finding a coworker to pick them up is never an issue. This week I only worked 2 days and made around $700. My rent is only $600/month. The days I do work are extremely hectic, stressful and exhausting, but having a lot of time off in between shifts definitely makes it worth it for me.
I wish there were more jobs like this. Honestly this should be how it is. We should have more time off than time working and still be able to have our basic needs met, with the option to work more for people who want to make extra money. I feel like I hit the anti-work jackpot being able to survive like this. I don’t want to seem like I’m bragging but I thought some people might be interested to hear that jobs like this do exist, and it should be much more common. I used to feel like a lazy POS for hating work so much but now I realize that no one wants to work 40+ hours a week, they just don’t have a choice. I really wish that more people could experience this lifestyle, we’ve been tricked into thinking we have to grind away our lives just to survive when the money actually is out there.