[@Kenny1]
I don't really want to rush anything, but the question is kind of 'what is there to rush'? We're in a restaurant doing our jobs, so we can see our daily lives already. We can show bits and pieces of our school lives and the like in the aforementioned time skips, if we need to at all.
If you have anything interesting planned here, keep doing this thing. It's admittedly a bit fun to watch Zachary get screwed over, and Ash and Eric are pretty interesting characters that I'd be interested in getting to know.
Exploring our characters can happen in the time-skips, though. Or in the actiony bits.

I don't want to pressure you too much, and I don't want this without unanimous approval (while I'd prefer a timeskip, I'm not so inclined that I'd ruin the fun for other people - and isn't that the point of roleplaying?), but my vote is on speeding up the tragedy, or whatever.