Odd Jobs: the part time/temp/graveyard shift/freelance/seasonal work thread

from On the Dole Again: A thread for out-of-work/unemployed/laid-off Ilxors in 2009

basically my deal is that since my wife's career is way more important than mine and she's getting a phd, and daycare is $$$, i'm going to stay home w/ the baby 9-5, and try to make ends meet freelancing and working night and weekend hours

I thought about starting a thread specifically for discussing night jobs, graveyard shifts, and temp/part time/seasonal work, should I do that or just have those kinda convos in this thread?

― some dude, Thursday, November 12, 2009 1:47 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i would like to discuss those kinds of opportunities, in this thread or elsewhere

― max, Thursday, November 12, 2009 1:50 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

my current gig means i have a lot of odd hours so im looking to pick up an additional 10-15 a week working almost any kind of shift

do people hire dudes for coat check or is that one of those cute-girls-only professions

seems like it used to be easier to pick up this kind of work... now that everyone's suffering, everyone's competing for these jobs.

I mean, I have a degree, but the desk job I just lost was kinda shitty and didn't pay that well anyway, and I'm really not too proud to go back to the kind of restaurant jobs I held all through high school and college. But I think it'd be interesting to hear about different options for people that need to work weird hours or don't want anything super taxing or full time.

seriously, i think about just getting a coffee shop gig to supplement my freelance income but since i don't have prior barista experience i don't think i'd ever even get hired.
xpost

I'd make coffee 40 hours a week if anyone would hire me to do it. They won't, though. I'm overqualified for Starbucks, and way too old for the little indie coffee shops. It's a shame, too. I make a hell of a shot of espresso.

I have coffee experience out the wazoo.

that might be why they won't hire you, no one likes wazoo coffee

In a weird way the last couple of years of college when I had a ridiculous scattered schedule (full time student w/ two part-time jobs and some freelance writing) really suited me well, possibly better than the 8-hours-at-a-desk thing I did the last three years, so I really think I can make this work. It's just kind of a question of whether there are some oddball non-traditional things out there I could look into before I go straight to Walmart or Quizno's or something.

Wait, you know what? I know someone at Metropolis! From years ago -- we worked together in Austin! Goddamnit, I'm going in to put in an app this afternoon.

(Metropolis is, like, the best coffee house in Chicago. Or at least a prominent one. For non-Chicago people, just to say.)

i'm gonna need to start picking up more freelance/odd job stuff in a few months when i become the sole occupant of my apartment.

xp to max: the SFMoMA has male coat checkers

yeah im more asking about restaurants and clubs where you get tips on top of wages. my understanding is that you can bank a lot of money in just a couple 6-hr shifts

it could be something where there's a hierarchy/seniority system - and the prime shifts go to people who have been there longer

It's almost certainly that.

i signed up for demand studios but the pay rate is pretty lousy and the topics aren't that interesting. i created a pseudonym to write under but they've been after me to write a "real" bio, which i don't want to do.

xp Whatever, though -- caffeinate, stand up straight, kick fucking ass, and you'll get a good shift or two in no time.

that was my experience when i worked for a restaurant/bar - most of the arguments among the bartenders/wait staff were over the good shifts, but people were regularly leaving and getting hired, and new people that were good rose pretty quickly.

yeah most of my restaurant jobs have been in the kitchen, which I've always liked because there's no dealing with customers, but maybe I should try for stuff that involves making tips

how does the whole bartending thing work, do you generally need to go to bartending school or something? i guess it's probably harder to break into than other kinds of restaurant/bar jobs.

i was the bookkeeper/office manager, so i don't really know.

i would love to bartend or even work in a kitchen a few shifts a week! but i'd never get hired.

tza - you would probably kick ass at catering/planning for meals for arts fundraisers

this might be a question for another thread, but what do you guys think of the whole Kickstarter.com thing? it seems like a good time to dust off my book idea (which is probably too niche to find a publisher for but niche enough that there'd be a good amount of interested parties that might want to help make it happen) and see if I can get help self-publishing.

i know that that concept is the latest trend in arts fundraising.

I always figured that you had to be super attractive to get into bartending. or know the right people.

haha! i will let you know shortly - i'm about to launch a kickstarter page for one of my clients. we had a planning meeting last night that got me really excited.
xpost

I always figured that you had to be super attractive to get into bartending. or know the right people.

― iatee, Thursday, November 12, 2009 2:21 PM (51 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i have a friend who was a waiter/bartender for years and he says that getting the job is 90% these two things, and 10% being in the right place at the right time

actually... that brings me back to why i would love some odd jobs. the pay for my freelance work is pretty shit, but if i could supplement it in a way that allows me to do the work i love and not worry about rent as much, i'd be so happy. much happier than trying to do the freelance stuff on top of a regular office drone frustrating admin job.

coat check jobs are a lot easier to get cause theyre seasonal--i dont really think thats a seniority thing. i know a lot of people whove gotten them off the street. but theyre all cute girls.

knowing the right people is pretty much how most of the folks i know that work as bartenders got into it.

this might be completely retarded, and you probably wouldn't make fuck-all, but what about signing up to a reputable mystery-shopper website?

(i looked into these recently cuz i had this 'inspired' idea after my job turned to complete poo that i would start advertising as a 'freelance mystery shopper!' lol)

I wasn't really into that Bored To Death show but I have to say, I like the idea of deciding to try out some ridiculous profession and just putting an ad on craigslist and seeing if anyone takes you up on it.

so i just accepted a job doing customer service via email for [large company] until just before i leave to go home for christmas. i figure this brings in some bonus $$ and will help supplement my freelance jobs and since i don't actually have to talk to anyone on the phone, i'm pretty happy about it. will probably be boring, and the idea of sitting somewhere 8-5 right now is kind of horrible (may need to get a headlamp for night running?). wish it could be done from home, but oh well. also means i have to kick ass getting shit done on freelance projects for the next week. where is motivation?

if any of you have master's degrees you should look into adjunct teaching at a comm. college. lots of night classes are hard to fill. (i know this because i have to hire people.) most states require that people teaching at the college level have one degree higher than the one they're teaching.

pros: no time clocks, no shifts, cyclical schedule (usually 16 week semesters)
cons: students, grading

hit them up about three weeks before the semester starts and they're sure to be looking for people to teach sections that opened without warning, etc.

hmmmm do you have to have a masters in something useful or???

it varies -- for business classes, for instance, i bet a marketing degree would work. for humanities classes, pretty much anything goes. i teach/coordinate ESL composition classes, so we have a requirement that the person have MFA/writing or rhetoric or Linguistics. (I have Linguistics) It also depends on state requirements and their level of desperation!

I took Amanda's advice and I am interviewing on Friday for a position as a writing instructor!

re: bartending: I worked my way into a really sweet bartending gig at a terrible redneck bar and grille in NC by being one of the only waitresses who wanted to work days. I stuck around long enough to senioritize my way into an 11-7 shift wherein I was a hostess for lunch, and then the afternoon bartender from 3 to 7. That gave me the entire happy hour crowd, all of whom were very simple in their tastes (my most complicated customer drank Bud Light in a bottle with a snifter of generic amaretto on the side). I made pretty good money. I eventually quit because the redneck clientele and my horrible boss were racist/sexual harassy beyond my ability to cope.

is any paperwork and bullshitting is involved to get someone educated outside the us (so with a phd but usu. without a masters these days, and no education qualifications) into an adjunct job?

no, we have people who are from all over the place (ukraine, bosnia, spain, russia, etc) you do have to get your transcript evaluated, but that's pretty standard

haha, the closest i can get to a transcript from oxford is a document which lists my "grades" (doesn't really make sense in that system) and says "THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD DOES NOT ISSUE TRANSCRIPTS" at the top.

that's ok -- i had an adjunct from evergreen college and she had a gigantic binder. you just have to get your "evaluations" (or whatever the h they call it at oxford) and have someone evaluate it and then take that evaluation when you apply. you have a degree from oxford. no one is going to look to see whether or not you got As and Bs or whatever they call it there. they just want to make sure you're legit and they're not going to get busted by the HLC or whatever regional accrediting agency looks at their faculty's credentials.

all i'm saying is, don't let it stop you.

oh yeah, it's on my list, i just have this, uh, ennui about paperwork like that. regular postdocs for now though, and of course very few ccs are in a position to help with visas (correct me if i'm wrong)

the smallest school i've ever confirmed was willing to help with h1bs was g0nzaga and of course that was not an adjunct.

no, you're right -- i don't know what your visa situation is, so it could be way more complicated than i'm making it out to be. also it's a tenuous position -- you never know from one semester to the next if you're going to have a class or not. better for people who are looking for a little work on the side.

I ended up being able to dodge the bullet for a while of the situation I was in when I started this thread, but now I'm coming up on maybe having to think about it seriously again. Anyone have much experience with the pros and cons of different night jobs? I'm kind of at the point of just going to whatever places are open 24 hours around here (CVS, 711, gas stations, etc.) and seeing if they're hiring, but I feel like there have to be some options out there I haven't considered.

My brother (in the UK) is working at the post office on a night shift, sorting mail. Just for the Christmas rush, I think. Probably no less tedious than a gas station job but at least no public.

You could check around at human services places; I worked at a group home for people with mental illness for a while, and they would sometimes hire people just for overnights. They also didn't require a degree, though this was a rather shitty organization, and I don't know what the standards would be where you are. But with a few exceptions overnights were really easy, and I could hang around watching movies or reading for most of the time.

residential counseling is a good idea.

Kenan, I feel like I see old dudes working coffeeshops all the time. But I do have similar feelings, as far as feeling aged out of a lot of the work I used to fall back on (office temp, etc.).

Spent two days as an extra in Soderbergh's new movie week before last, so that was a good odd job.

freelancers, how frequently does this happen to you: someone reaches out to you to offer a project, and then after you reply that you're interested, they never reply back, ever again?

it seems to happen to me like half the time, and it is the most frustrating thing in the world. I wait a day or two, then send a brief follow-up re-expressing my interest, then nothing. Is it common? It seems to have happened again this week. One time I was even contacted by Twitter about a big project and asked to sign a NDA to learn more. I signed it. They never replied ever again.

my theory is that either

1) they look more into my previous work and realize i did doonaldjtrump and that maybe i'm a political liability or something (seems very doubtful)
2) they're reaching out to more people than they actually need on the project, assuming that some people won't want to do it or won't accept the pay rate. i am on the back burner of pathetic people who they can turn to as a last resort.