I deserve a tip just like a waitress

What are people thinking?

Since the job availability in Campbellsville isn't the best right now, I have taken a job that I did back in high school. I am back in the delivery business.

This is what I do not understand. When you sit down at a restaurant and you have a waiter or waitress bring your food and drinks, you wouldn't just leave without leaving them some compensation for all their hard work.

On an average shift, I usually drive anywhere between 50 and 80 miles. I bring people their food anywhere from 3-5 miles up to 10-12 miles from our store. After all the work of getting their food ready and getting it to them, I am given exact change or I'm told to keep the change (meaning keep the coins and give me back all the paper money).

With gas being $4 per gallon, I personally take this as a huge slap in the face. I don't understand how having food delivered to your door should be any different than having someone walk back and forth from a kitchen that is 120 feet away. If anything, I think the delivery person is doing much more work and having much more to risk. I could very well get into an accident - or worse, killed - just by delivering your food. Your waiter or waitress doesn't have to worry about being T-boned at an intersection or having some non-attention-paying driver slam into the back of you at a stop sign or red light. Nor do they have to worry about standing in the rain or getting attacked by animals.

See all the stuff that we have to go through over and over on a nightly basis, just so the average person doesn't have to burn their own gas, miss their favorite TV show or cook their own meal?

Would it really hurt to spare a couple of bucks just so that I can pay my bills on time? Anyone who has ever had to live off tips knows exactly how I feel.

Luckily, the majority of people never have to try any line of work that requires them to live off someone else's generosity or this would never be a problem in the first place.

Just put yourself in our shoes and see how it'd make you feel.

Matthew Barnett

Campbellsville