That said, I have been reading this sub daily for the past 2 months now and yes there's variability but in general, most agree the work is paying (check out the sub's history in the last 2 months).

It sounds like customers are tipping better, traffic is reduced so trips are shorter, gas is cheaper, parking is more abundant, and order volumes are up. These conditions are temporary and are not sustainable in the long term of course, but it's worth seeing the situation for what it is right now. It sounds like it is possible to do well in these times.

The sub is a window into what folks (admittedly a biased sample) are actually experiencing, as opposed to theoretical conjecture based on our (sometimes disconnected to reality or outdated) priors, etc.

In my line of work, I often overhear stuff from field service people, and it's always fascinating to me how different reality is from what say, software engineers are thinking. The discrepancy between "systems as found" and "systems as imagined" is interesting to me is all.

That's just one subreddit. There are other watering holes.