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My wife and I tried DoorDashing on the side. We thought it would be a fun way to get to know our new city and to have funny stories to tell. Not to mention, make a little bit of money. It turns out we made pretty much zero dollars after gas. I have honestly no idea how anybody is making a living off of doing food delivery. We would be paid like three dollars to go 11 miles or something like that, it was crazy.
Had same experience and it was not worth it.
I was a virtual assistant for a very short time. The fact that it didn’t work out was more based on who I was working for. I knew going in that the pay wasn’t much, but it was my first one, and the previously discussed responsibilities snowballed to the point where I felt like I was losing money based on the time it was taking me.
What type of work were asked of youyou?
I tried to offer IT services myself, complete with business cards. Unfortunately, I'm not a salesperson - I'm an analyst. I couldn't get customers enough to cover minimal expenses. It was something to do when I had free time or laid off, and I still help friends (at a discount), but it's not enough to bother promoting.
If someone local was willing to sell me to local business clients and could get 1/3 of the week filled with a regular schedule, I'd jump at the chance - and I'd use open time slots to help local nonprofits - and I'd give them a commission for doing so, but I'm no good at selling myself.
Hey Michael, thanks for the details. I'm curious about a few specifics:
Walk me through your last automation project at work - what manual task did you automate, how much time did it save them, and what was their reaction?
When you help friends with IT issues, what's the most recent problem you solved? How did they describe the issue to you, and what would have happened if you hadn't fixed it?
You mentioned nonprofits need help - have you actually seen a specific example? Like walked into one and noticed them doing something manually that you knew you could automate?
I'm asking because there might be a pattern here that could help you and others with similar skills package their expertise better.
What's actually the hardest part for you - finding people who need help, or explaining what you do in a way that makes the value clear?
I tried working for a reading tutoring company that advertised itself as offering a flexible part-time position. They said that training would a few hours a day for about a month, and I thought I could manage to schedule it in. Once the training started, it turned out to be much more than they made it seem. We were required to watch hours of pre-recorded videos, complete assignments (including recording mock lessons), and then spend 4+ hours on Zoom with a facilitator just doing icebreakers and sharing our opinions on the videos. Their strict attendance policy also didn't align with their advertised flexible workplace culture. I also realized the amount of work they were expecting us to do did not match the low pay.