Imagine not being able to look things up on your phone the instant you think of them
“unskilled labor”
Not this again.
“Unskilled labor” means that you do not need special skills to apply for the job; you will be trained on the spot.
I really liked being a pizza delivery driver pre-GPS. It did require some skill, but you learned quickly about how things work:
- Is it a complex of some sort (e.g., trailer park, apartment, condo)? Look for a unit map.
- Evens on one side of the street, odds on the other
- You learn all of those weird roads that have the same name in two disconnected parts of town
It was easily the best “shitty job” I’ve ever had.
Apartments and multi tenant buildings in my country have numbers in a pattern, 1001 bottom first floor first to the left, 1002 next…1101 next floor same etc etc
Finding the right apartment even without a name of the owner becomes a breeze.
Do you think the postal and delivery workers have learnt this? …nope…
Pizza delivery though? No issues at all
Same. I loved the independence of it. But it didn’t pay enough to cover the repair bills it generated.
I remember buying my first mapsco and thinking: well shit, I literally can’t get lost now…
I was one of those land pirates, once upon a time- and after a few weeks on the job we didn’t need the paper maps, either.
Something that seems immediately apparent to me is that these folks are not fresh high school students. Adults used to work these jobs.
And they were a proper fleet who has delivered in the same areas for years, making them extremely experienced in navigating those streets.
This also led to better customer service. You had a relationship with your driver.
I can’t even remember what jobs teenagers were supposed to have. Newspaper delivery? Ice cream bike guy? That’s all I got.
If you didn’t mow lawns, you were never a tween/teen.
teenagers as a group designation used to not be a thing. you were a child until you could do adult jobs and then you were an adult.
children would have menial jobs like coal miner, day labourer, the guy who sticks their hand into the mechanical loom when it gets stuck…
How about none ? You’re a teen, you just need to learn, socialize and have fun. Don’t work before your an adult.
Ah, privilege. Parents had ok jobs. As soon as I needed sports equipment or wanted to go out to eat/pay for friends etc etc it was lawn mowing, paper route, construction from 6th grade.
Bagging groceries. That job doesn’t even exist anymore
Work that grocers have passed onto their customers that they used to do themselves:
- Gathering the groceries from the shelves.
- Bagging the groceries.
- Checking out the groceries.
Good ol shadow work.
Ikea is the greatest.
- You look up the items in inventory and find their warehouse locations
- You traverse the warehouse, locate the items, and load them on your dolly
- You take them to the front and self checkout
- You load them in your delivery vehicle and complete last mile delivery
- You unbox and assemble the item with minimal instruction and provide your own tools
All of those used to be paid work, some even being part of the “white glove” service. Instead, we pay with our time, a finite resource.
At least it’s good exercise
When is comes to Ikea, what you pay in time is taken off the price, according to my experience
In theory, yes, I agree. But make sure you properly value yourself! You only have so much time to give.
Though, that was also said about digital games instead of physical ones, that the savings get passed onto the consumer. Not a 1:1 but that one is going swimmingly right now 😅
In some countries it’s still a thing…well without the paper map
By the end of the century, modern fantasies is just going to be the 90s.
Has been for years.
Already is
They also stopped doing the 30-minute thing because they kept getting sued over the wrecks caused by trying to meet the 30-minute deadline.
So that’s where the idea in SnowCrash comes from!
When the Deliverator puts the hammer down, shit happens.
Pizza dude’s got thirty seconds.
Wise man say, “forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza.”
Sometimes it was 31 minutes, and free
Where the heck is 122 and an eighth?
Would you believe it’s right after 121 and 7th? Not 121 and 8th; that leads to the one way bike path. Obviously. And if you make that mistake you have to use 3 highway ramps in perfect conjunction to get back there. Crossing all lanes for each exit.










