Reasons I'm Meant to be Famous and Self Employed

For comedic purposes only! But really, who doesn't want to be famous?

Reasons why Rebs doesn't get jobs and is meant to be famous and self-employed:

1. "Not enough experience". I've been writing for 10 years now. Is that still not enough?

2. Being so tired and burned out from everything (only 1 allnighter since labor day) that I start having narcolepsy-like symptoms on the train, before, during, and after the interview. There was no complimentary coffee in the holding room and I downed my bottle of water. I almost had to call my friend to pick me up from the train on the way home. In fact I did, but he was in the shower and me and my large pumpkin spice latte mustered up the energy to walk 10 minutes home and proceed to take a 4 hour nap once I hit my bed!

3. My skill set is way too diverse and I am multi talented, which is bad for a "job". I can drive a car; I can do many things very well, but my rational brain doesn't tell me it's wrong to be a jack of many trades. My heart concurs.

4. I'm way too eccentric and extroverted. I want to go to work wearing a cute top, jeans, and brightly colored eye makeup, topped with pink sparkly mascara and happily show my piercings and ink. Hey, I can still be professional. It's all about the attitude. I will give you a genuine smile and have an intelligent conversation with you any day of the week. It's not like I have 500 facial piercings and a spider web tattoo on my face...

5. I am very free spirited. I need to create and make a difference. Sitting in a cube alone will cause me to be dead weight to you. I'll still take your money though as long as I can ;)

Where is Success When You Can't See It? Life as a Twenty Something

Ranting, the verbal activity I seem to do the best at… but it sometimes annoys my friends, so I generally keep it to myself.

A common theme that comes up in my life is how to find yourself as a twenty something and function as an “independent” adult. Something you unfortunately need to do as an adult is pay bills. I left college with almost zero knowledge of money management, a skill I wish was taught in a remedial college course.

When I graduated from college, I thought I wanted to be a Web Developer, get a job, stay there forever, move up in the ladder, and go from there. Not so long after I started my job, I was certain I was a bit too free spirited for Corporate America and needed to be in a place where I’m able to create. I did everything in my power to keep the job alive, but my will caved and I decided to jump out the window, with my parachute in tact, thankfully knowing where the ground was. I knew I was going to get screwed over at my job and marked on my calendar the day I knew would be the end of the road. Leading up to that day, I did everything in my power to get a new job. With no luck, one of my dear friends I live with told me my car would pass an Uber inspection and criteria and should become a driver. As reluctant as I was to do so, I did my research, gave it a test run, and felt decent. A few days before my “doomsday”, I knew being a driver and a free bird were in my fate, and handed my manager a 2 weeks notice letter.

Fast forward 8 months of being an Uber Driver and I am officially ready to throw stones and look for something else. The first thing is I feel like is slavery still exists. I don’t mean the stuff you saw 100 years ago; it’s more under the table. People are so damn greedy; the head honchos only want money and productivity. If you’re not wringing everything out of yourself and not making enough money, you’re not doing well enough, was a major theme of my last job, and even ridesharing. For starters, I have to pay for my own gas and repairs, as well as they take 25% of my fares right off the bat as a “commission” to them for using their service. Lately, I’ve had days where I’ve made as little as $7.50 per hour, which is less than the legal Chicago minimum wage. Thankfully, that’s pretty rare, but I’d drive overnight, drive myself into not sleeping, drive myself into depression and isolation, and drive my knees and energy down the toilet. I’d be out as many as 29 hours at a time, just to make sure I “make it” to my next bill payment and have a little extra for groceries. I have to wear a knee brace while driving because with my car, you have to push harder on the gas pedal; lately, my other knee has been starting to give me trouble too. I have barely been able to see my friends lately, including the ones I live with (it’s been a bit more under control now though). Those I am close with, I would bombard them with texts of how tired I was, how shitty I felt, or some sort of stress or anxiety-related thing was bothering me. Thanks for bearing with me, guys! I’ve had to decrease my attendance at open mic nites, karate classes, my “nerd” group called, “Belegarth”, everything, just to pay my bills and get by. I even created an “emergency fund” when I knew I was forsure going to leave my job, which I recently exhausted all of it.

But here I am. I am still willing to search for a better opportunity for myself, still willing to drive and do what it takes to make money (and still paying all my bills on time), and I am even here today. For that, I am successful!

The Not So Glamorous Life of Being a Rideshare Driver

My apologies for not being able to post for awhile. I have recently had my entire savings wiped out (by me to pay bills) and have been so busy working I haven't been able to update. Fortunately, I still share my love to passengers by informing them of my blog, have my "advertisement" on my back window in pink chalk marker, have been sharing ridesharing stores in some of my latest storytelling performances, and I still am consistent about updating the Facebook page (click here to see and like the Facebook page)

A lot of the time when I'm driving, I am asked how much money I can make, if I drive full time or part time, and if I am able to make a sustainable living.

I am on month 8 of driving for most of my moneys and at this point, I average about 40-55 hours a week depending on my schedule and energy levels. A lot of people when describing what they do usually omit talking about what's "not so good", but honest Rebs is about to be honest. I have uncovered a variety of reasons why I'd like to throw stones at being a rideshare driver.

1. Driving between 10am and 2pm on a weekday (especially earlier in the week) is the worst time to drive. I feel like I get barely any rides during that time. An instance of such I'll share in another bullet, but yesterday (Monday, September 12, 2016), I made about 75 bucks from driving between 10am-5pm (had to stop at home because I finally sold a few things on craigslist). You don't always make that little money, I promise, but it happens sometimes.

2: Tuesdays are the worst day to drive, period, from my observations!

3: Now that there's no guaranteed fares, with this new "oh so lovely" formatting of "paying their drivers less money while still reaping 20-25% of your fares", if you don't get rides, you don't get paid.  If you're picking up someone and it's a 10 minute venture to them, you don't get paid for that 10 minutes, as well as the time you wait for the passenger. As someone who likes sharing optimal customer service, I'm more generous than the average driver with waiting for someone in most situations. If you get canceled on, you don't get paid either.

4: I just had another episode of no rides for an extended time of 40 minutes this morning (Tuesday, September 13, 2016) before I said "fuck it" and went home. After about 25 of those minutes of waiting around with no rides incoming, I told myself if I can drive to Dunkin Donuts (about a 6 minute drive from where I was) and get coffee in the drive through and come back without receiving a ride, I'm calling it quits until after my doctor appointment. Surely enough, me and my "deeeenken deeeenets", as I'd call it in my made up lingo, parked my car next to my apartment, without a ride, turned my app off, and went inside. At least I'm not in money emergency mode right now!

5: Fact -- you can still make a living with Uber (and not live with parental units), depending on your situation and how many (outstanding) expenses you have. You have to be strategic though and go at ideal times (morning rush hour and weekends all day/night are the most lucrative times from what I've found). You also have to be willing to put in the time!

6: Other fact -- you have to be willing to accept there's going to be bad days where you make shit for money or "slave wages" as I'd call it (less than $15 dollars an hour, or even sometimes less than the legal minimum wage). I had a day last week where I ended up making equivalent to about $6.50-$7something an hour before overhead expenses. It was probably a Tuesday. I don't know how people said they've made $1000 dollars a week driving full time, because my biggest haul has been > $750 and I was probably out 40-55 hours. I have seen (real) screenshots of people who have made between $1600 and $1950 IN A WEEK driving for Uber full time. It may have been when there were the "guaranteed fares", because I'd want to see how much I would end up making if that policy was still in existence. I've never worked this many hours in my life, but I'm thankful to still be standing and affording rent!

Happy Driving, Y'all! Here is a picture of my distaste face with a pumpkin macchiato from Dunkin Donuts!