There Are Hidden Costs To Business

I’m starting this as I am waiting for the portable vacuum cleaner to charge. In a perfect world I’d already be on the road making that Uber money. Once I hit my target number I get to come home and play South Park, The Fractured But Whole. I haven’t really stopped in a few weeks and I am starting to feel the burn. When you see the story on my Instagram sharing this, I have South Park loaded. 

The grind must come first. Since I’m not that accustomed to car ownership, there is a lot of maintenance stuff I’m learning about. This article may come off basic, but my ignorance serves to illustrate greater points. Either way I had to write this blog today so I may as well take the blessing of this window of time to get it done.

This blog is really about the hidden costs of business. I lied, this blog is me whining. 

Montreal winters make a car disgusting

The other day I got a car wash. Bonnie had made it clear to me that once bird poop had hit the car, it was time for a wash. She drilled home this was my work car and I need to make it nice. So we drove on over to the lovely folk at Car Wash 88 and got the car washed. Then the next day the weather made my car look like armageddon hit.

I am good with getting regular car washes. I now know that both Couche Tard and Petro Canada have solid deals on car washes and there are plenty of services for deep cleans and hand washes. Those gas station car washes are everywhere. I had never seen them before owning a car. (I tried to get my car washed today, I would have waited over an hour in line). 

The truth is, I can make back the cost of a car wash pretty quick. That shit would take me hours on my own, I remember doing it with my dad when I was young. When I got into the Uber game however, I wasn’t considering the cost of cleaning. 

Things like trying to deal with the giant puddles in my rubber mats. The salt gunk piles that appear. The endless grey smears where people’s feet rub against the car. The white stains that are all over the back seat. Now I get that this is regular car stuff and the job is to have a lot of people get in the car making it gross. It is also my job to clean the car.

I am not compensated for cleaning the car. That makes it a “hidden cost” for me. It may be evident, and something people do. But it was not something on my budget sheet ahead of time. This example is basic, but it’s also real. I may have to spend like 5-10 minutes a day cleaning the car. If I grind 5 days a week, that’s a solid 20-30$ of lost revenue plus the cost of cleaning materials (even if they are tax deductible, I still spend money).

But real talk, driving with a car fresh out the car wash is worth the money. Scrubbing seats and vacuuming salt kind of sucks and feels tedious. Plus I have an oil change next week (that cost was not hidden, it was real clear ahead of time).

Anticipate you don’t know everything

When you get into a new endeavour you probably don’t know how much it will cost or how long it will take. We can plan for days, anticipating as much as we can, then still be surprised by the obvious oversites when reviewing in hindsight. Hindsight always makes us sound smart until the next time we plan and still get caught off guard.

I was aware that Uber was going to come with unexpected costs. Discovering them is painful. As I learn each lesson I get better at managing my time. The better I manage my time, the more efficient I can make that money. The more money I make the less I feel the costs of doing business. More importantly, I can plan for those hurdles now that they are expected. 

We all have blindspots. Despite how often the examples I use from my life are easy to point and laugh at, if I went through your life, I’d find a few blindspots for you too. I’m just good with using my life as a candid example when convenient. Those blindspots we all have lead to those “aw fuck” moments when we poorly assessed a situation.

I knew last night as I was hustling Uber to keep going, that if I didn’t make just a bit more I would regret it. Given my caffeine intake is down I slept nicer and was up early. Only to realize I gotta get my car clean. There is cat hair all over the backseat. That one may have been me, instead of the passengers.

Because I made a bit more last night, I didn’t stress it as bad. In the past, I stopped early when the Uber was hott and regretted it. I did not expect the vacuum cleaner to die. This did further throw off my day, it is going to take a good hour to get a solid charge back in that bad boy. The art in time management is knowing how to pivot with the unexpected. Instead of writing my blog later, I am doing it now. (This is later me saying I still had to edit it at like 9:50 PM, but I made my money AND worked out). 

This isn’t what I wanted to be doing now, and I am missing some good Uber time. Not charging the vacuum turned into a hidden cost. Lesson learned.

The curse of knowing it all

Despite what people may think, I’m pretty comfortable with the boundaries of my knowledge. When you see me being hella stubborn, I may be wrong, but I have a proper reason for my conviction. I don’t learn new shit daily for the fun of it. I want to know things and make wiser choices.

Over the years the hubris of my knowing shit has gotten in the way of my success. Today it’s easy to be wrong, that wasn’t always so. I got into so many ventures and spent a lot of money on things I didn’t need. As an example I was convinced VR was the future.

During my thirst to get a PC that could run an Oculus a few things happened. One is that my wiser homie told me about this philosophy thing I can’t remember the name of. The gist of it is, the tools we seek out to hit the next level are honestly irrelevant. I spent like 3000$ getting VR ready, only for Oculus to device the Quest 2 was lit and the computer Oculus was out. 

Within 6 months I had obsolete tech. My VR adventures did a lot to establish myself as a nerd who learns shit in my community. But it was ultimately irrelevant to my bigger goals. I could have made that point spending way less money. Most of my monetization did not end up coming from that endeavour. 

When we get into entrepreneurial grinds, we think we know what we are getting into. Most of the time we are not actually prepared. I suppose the wisdom of age teaches us a bunch of shit that doesn’t work. My future endeavours are going to be executed way cleaner. It just took spending a lot of time and money. 

The grind to organized

A lot of my life has been chaotic lately. I will probably write that sentence a lot in my life. It’s often chaotic. I’m also edgy on my caffeine withdrawal phase. I just felt that there was a lesson to be learned in this. I have days where I don’t do Uber. I can deal with car cleaning on those days. 

Or I can plan the day in a way where the car cleaning and other maintenance is taken into account. I low-key miss having a regular schedule. This grind I’ve been on has me playing catchup a lot. Once my commission check is in I can take a day off to focus and plan. Until then the money is not in the bank and I gots to hustle. 

Had I been more wiser, and more organized, I would have taken time to research all the car maintenance stuff Uber people deal with. I didn’t. I then discovered these probably obvious and not so hidden costs on the grind. This is where the experience kicks in. 

In brighter news, the vacuum is charged enough for me to get on with the day. When I get home I can edit this and then do a little workout. Then I can play some video games. 

Live Long and Prosper Everyone