So, a little background. Uber requires that I complete one ride per month. Anything more than that is at my own discretion and on my own schedule. I can, and I have, got up at 4 am when unable to sleep, drive for a few hours, go home and take a nap, maybe go have breakfast and maybe drive some more. Or dozens of variations on that theme. Also, I’ve been assured by Uber that if for some reason I needed 30 days off, the requirement can be waived for unusual circumstances.
Technically, being an Uber driver is not a “job”. I am not an employee, I am an independent contractor and on paper running my own small business.
What other jobs, or small businesses for that matter, offer that degree of flexibility and control over your work schedule? The only thing that comes to mind is some kind of online mail order business, though even with this if you take 29 days off monthly from shipping your orders you will be out of business very soon.
My friend does medical transcription. She has to complete X words (lines?) per week but she is free to do it whenever it best suits her, around her schedule as a stay-at-home mom.
Another friend has his Masters degree and he grades college papers/essays through a service (as in, he’s not a professor or TA). I assume he has a quota and deadlines but he is able to fit it in around his schedule as a stay-at-home dad.
Plenty of gig economy things, I shop for Shipt and set my own schedule. Now, whether or not I can actually get shops in my metro, that’s another story.
We have friends who are both Starbucks baristas that we hire to do our pet-sitting/house-sitting, which has now grown into a side business because they love animals, and are more than happy to sit at someone else’s house, using their electrical, A/C, Internet, and cable instead of their own and make extra money on the side. While they commit to dates in advance, they only do what they want and its strictly by word of mouth.
I have another friend who has a side business as a seamstress who does alterations or custom work on the side to supplement her Etsy shop. She marked up 10 pairs of pants for me when I lost a bunch of weight and altered them all for $80 in her spare time, which is a bargain relative to what people charge around town. She only takes jobs that are either small or else don’t have a hard and fast deadline.
Much like Uber and Lyft, there is also a service here in town that does dog walking for you if you can’t get home to take Rover and Spot out for a stroll. It’s a great deal if you were otherwise planning to go out and get some exercise walking anyway and someone wants their dog walked nearby. The only requirement is that the customer either has to be home if the dog is inside, or the dog has to be available through a side gate if they aren’t.
For that though, you do have to follow through at reasonably specific times if you commit to a gig. You can’t decide to skip today and walk Rover twice tomorrow the way you can with transcription etc.
Actually if you use Fulfillment by Amazon then you don’t spend any of your time shipping products to customers–Amazon handles the fulfillment. So you can travel the country buying stuff some of the time and ship it off to Amazon to process the orders.
You do have to follow through once you commit- but you don’t have to commit. I have a friend who is a dog walker, but she doesn’t take on clients who need their dogs walked Mon- Fri every week. She covers for other dog walkers who are on vacation and will take the job when that transcriptionist has to go into the office for a meeting one day - if it’s convenient for her. If she wants to take off the whole month of September, she can.
And about transcription - it’s not just medical that can be done this way. Pretty much anything can be transcribed at home from an audio or video recording. Maybe not actual court cases , but I’ve definitely seen administrative hearings done that way.
Yes, I have an ebay hobby business selling footwear online. I buy closeout merchandise (often less desired sizes) and flip it. It chews up about 3 hours a day on average and yields about $ 30,000 net income annually after all expenses. I do the work in the evenings.
However …
1: I have to know very precisely that what I am buying will have a high probability of moving saleswise, and it took me almost 7 years of doing this to be able to make those determinations with a fair degree of success, and I still make mistakes on occasion. I had a number of expensive screwups when I started.
2: Unlike your ability to decide not to work if you choose once the merchandise is up for sale (and I have almost 500 SKUs) I’m on deck 24-7 and I have to ship in 24 hours and respond to customer inquiries ASAP to keep my gold plated satisfaction rating. Going out of town for more than 3 days is almost impossible. Like you I can choose when I want to work but I can’t choose (like you) not to work unless I close the store down or take it offline which would be a mind boggling PITA. You can’t just switch it on and off.
3: I have tens of thousands of dollars in debt tied up carrying this inventory.
4:Large sections of my house have become a warehouse for merchandise. I cannot entertain or have guests over while this situation persists. If I was married this scenario would not be possible.
So yes to the dollars for hours worked and time flexibility but there are big tradeoffs per the above.
After I left my full time law firm job in January, I looked into doing at home transcription for the company we used to use for our overflow transcription - I happened to see their ad on Craigslist. Unfortunately for me, they require that you use a computer that isn’t a Mac, and that’s not happening in my house. Legal transcription is mostly correspondence and pleadings, though in the speciality I worked in (workers comp) having medical terminology experience/skills is a big plus.
My neighbour, retired from full time work, drives for Budget. They move rental cars from our city to various other cities.
When he gets a call he can say yes or no. If he says no, they just moved on to the next guy. When they get to the bottom of the list, they start over at the top.
Some weeks he will do one drive, other weeks, up to three trips.
He is paid anywhere from about $50 to $120 per trip, depending on the distance.
Seems like the perfect part time job if you like driving.
There are lots of telephone jobs a person can do at home at your own chosen hours; telephone psychic, talking dirty on the phone, etc.
Years ago, just out of curiosity, I responded to an ad for telephone psychics. There was a couple hour session during which the guy said “If you really think you are psychic you don’t need to stay for this training.” I went home, dialed a number to log in, hung up, and my phone rang almost immediately with a customer … could sign in and work any hours … paid $10/hour and they did pay. I think I put in about 20 hours before the guilt got to me.
My wife and daughter both did this. While you can turn down jobs, you can’t turn down too many and expect to make money. Also, holiday times when people are away are peak times. Also, lots of people have specific times for feeding and walks, and you have to schedule around them.
My wife is a freelance writer, and does a lot of on-line encyclopedia articles. She can take as many of these as she wants, and though there are deadlines can work on them whenever she wants - morning, noon or night.