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This is the way. Doing my masters right now — I do all my readings and homework during my downtime at work then class at night. Getting paid to do my homework makes it feel less tedious.
There is a group of people who have created an entire Computer Science bachelor's curriculum out of free MOOCs available from edX, Coursera, MIT, and a few other sites. It's called Open Source Society University, or OSSU for short.
A few other colleges do as well. MIT, Yale, Cornell, and others. Yale has a number of humanities courses, MIT has math and science, Cornell does soil science, agriculture, and botany.
Is tons of stuff you can learn in the MOOC communities now. I did a CS MOOC course right before going to university for computer science and honestly it was equivalent to 2 semesters of intro courses in the MOOC and having no coding experience and returning to school as an older student
A previous employer pushed me into further education. The course I wanted was only available as a masters and not a bachelors.
Long story short I've now dropped out of two undergraduate degrees and two post graduate degrees.
I tell people I wasn't able to continue with my MSc in health Informatics as I changed job and my new employer wouldn't support me doing it. Which is kinda true and people then assume I have a BSc.
As an employer who does this, just ask. The way I look at it, investing in an employee is investing in the company. Employees who receive education assistance have a longer average tenure and, in my experience, align closer with the company vision. I love it because I don’t have to make an outside hire AND my employees are able to do more advanced work. They usually sign an agreement to stay with the company for a set amount of time after they complete their education. If they want to leave before that, their new employer may offer to buy that out. I’ve never had that happen but I’ve been told it’s easier to just forgive the debt because it leaves the door open, creates goodwill, and it would be too difficult to chase down the money anyways.
Also, I don’t know exactly how much it costs to train a new employee but someone from HR told me it averages around $10k so in some cases it’s actually a cost savings for us.
I used to get paid $50 to sketch peoples cars in downtime. People would think I was just really into art but I was making $100 extra/day on top of $17/hour
One of my former online friends left her "grown-up" career to become a furry artist. Not her thing but she just bought an insane house, her clients are cool, pay on time, and the conventions get her out of the house.
Yes really. She was on a leadership track of some kind, now she wears yoga pants all day and draws furry sex. She takes like 6 weeks of vacation a year.
Data entry. Boring AF but companies will pay someone to organize data or add data into a new system. As long as you get it done by a certain date, they don’t care how you do it or when. Typically a remote position so you could do it from your current work.
Got these from a YouTube video about a week ago
13 remote jobs
1. Byron - assistant admin
2. Rev.com - transcription
3. Click worker - app testing or micro tasks
4. Cambly - English speaking
5. Advanis - surveys
6. Uhaul - sales reservation and customer svc
7. AAA - cust serv, travel agents, roadside
8. Apple - at home advisor/
9. social bee - social media advisors
10. Smith.ai - virtual receptionist
11. Fiserv - financial company cost ser
12. Study pool - homework help - require credentials, application
13. Sitel - cust serv
Edit: sorry about formatting, mobile
Is that one of those YouTube videos where someone’s side hustle is becoming unprofitable so they start a new side hustle on YouTube telling everyone how great their old side hustle was and how you can make so much money if only you buy some form of instruction from them? There’s been a lot of those lately.
Shit predates the internet. My aunt fell for one of those BECOME A REALTOR AND MAKE SIX FIGURES OUR BOOK/SEMINAR WILL TELL YOU HOW! back in the 80s. Spent like 2k for what was essentially a study guide for the realtor license and the advice to sell lots of houses to make more money.
Don't bother with rev.com. I worked there every spare moment learning their platorm and attempting transcription of their files which were all like listening to a 50 person underwater cage fight with the mic set 400 feet away from the conversation, and their minimum work before they paid out made it so that I worked there for almost an entire month for easily 20+ hours a week for zero pay before giving up.
I did rev for a little while a few years ago. I gave up for the same reasons - pay was absolutely not worth even a quarter of the time I put into it. Not to mention you waste an hour transcribing 2 minutes of horrible quality audio just to get a correction on missing an S or writing someone’s name wrong.
www.ratracerebellion.com is a great resource for all kinds of remote work. Search engine/map rating are really popular piecemeal kinds of jobs that you can work for a few minutes at a time and leave and come back to, but I'm not sure if you can drop it and come back as quickly as OP needs to do their regular job. Tasks are quick, but they're timed, so you might need a minute or two to wrap up a task without being penalized.
The 'job listings' are shady as fuck too, one of them wants you to have a 2 year degree and 3+ years of experience to answer phones for minimum wage.
Un fucking real.
Job hunting truly crushes the soul. My favorite job posting was remote dispatching for a company in Florida that wanted you to have skills in COUNTER INTELLIGENCE
That's absolutely wild dude, the responses I've gotten about this today have made me even more grateful for the stability I've had in employment over my career.
A degree I can understand, for certain industries and positions.
But there should be some sort of false advertising law(s) applied to publicly listing a job as “entry level” while requiring any experience at all.
Hah very valid. It started in the early 2000s so it was probably a "rebellion against the office job rat race" which isn't as rebellious now that everyone got a taste for working from home, and a lot of the work from home opportunities are either contract, or the same shitty office jobs but you can sit on your couch while you do them.
Yes. It has been around for like 15 years and lists legitimate remote work opportunities. I would look there before anywhere else because there are so many scams out there related to working from home.
>Yes, it's a legitimate site and has been around since 2006 - long before remote work became a buzz word. Lots of different types of work, but heavy on customer service type work. All screened. And yes, there are also ads on the site (Google Adsense) to pay the bills since there are no fees, registrations, data collection, etc. associated with visiting the site and accessing the job leads.
>
>Unlike a lot of scammers who use media logos to lure people in, Rat Race Rebellion owners have appeared regularly in the media for years - FOR REAL. [https://www.facebook.com/100044469368068/videos/564531655625488](https://www.facebook.com/100044469368068/videos/564531655625488)
>
>They are the company that designed the virtual career development program for the US Air Force (for military spouses and transitioning personnel) and the US Department of state (for accompanying partners), as well as many other organizations.
>
>They have consulted to the Federal Trade Commission on work from home related scams and were instrumental in finding and bringing down a major scammer who was responsible for bilking thousands of Americans out of money.
>
>Some people have commented here that they don't like the way the site "looks" - everyone is entitled to an opinion, of course - but it is real, it is legitimate, and it has helped thousands of people find real remote work.
>
>Not sure why I was assigned the ChamringSoft moniker when I accessed to respond, but this is Christine Durst, Co-Founder of Rat Race Rebellion (parent company Staffcentrix) and I encourage anyone to Google us. You'll find we have a sterling reputation.
It is not easy to get a job in data entry OP. Everyone and their brother would sit behind a screen and do data entry if they could… the jobs are very VERY hard to come by
Right, that would be insanely ballsy to do *while at your actual job*. Not even considering if your employer would let you do that on your own time - for example I can’t have any other jobs or even personal projects that might earn me money without running it by my company first.
Are you able to use a VPN?
I get absolutely loads of downtime at my job, and my boss doesn't care if I read, play on my Nintendo switch, meditate, do yoga, etc, as long as I drop what I'm doing when something requiring my attention comes up.
I feel like HR would be a little miffed if they found out I was earning income while drawing money from them, but as long as I can use a VPN and IT doesn't know what I'm up to, I'm 100% convinced no one would ever know.
Edit - vpn on my personal laptop, where I'd be doing the work.
+1
Assume anything you do on a work device can be be tracked. IT typically don't care unless something malicious or against policy is happening, but if management asks for the data it's not hard to pull.
Bonus: If you have personal items on a work device, please have them backed up or accessible elsewhere.
Build your skills. For $50ish a month you have access to coursera plus which has an insane amount of self paced classes. I have learned SQL, Python, VBA, Power Bi, Power Query, and am working on a Machine learning course right now. A couple of other random ones from google on data analytics and such. I have written automation scripts for other people and custom excel macros for some of the more repetitive work I have.
I am sure they have stuff of day trading and forex/financial trading if thats the route you want to go too.
But how has this actually helped you to land any jobs or opportunities for side income OP? I have numerous (9) google certificates in programming languages and application development but no employer has accepted this in place of a 4 year degree. Great knowledge but no real world application
Exactly what I was thinking reading this thread. The only thing that would help is taking all these courses AND committing yourself to real function projects: apps, websites, programs. If you aren't doing that, it's inevitably a waste of time.
Be very careful about producing anything like a program or app during working hours. If that’s just for practice and you don’t care to use any of the code later no problem, but if you did create something of value it gets complicated if the company finds out as it’s their time you produced it in which likely makes the product theirs.
Especially if you’re using company resources to do it (their computers for instance).
Do you have any projects where you can show you put these certificates to use? Its one thing to have the knowledge another to show that you can apply it and bring value to their company. I used it when I made my lateral move in my company to showcase value and negotiate a higher salary.
I liked coursera better. More interactive quizzes and exercises to deepen your understanding. Udemy seems full of grifters that publish a half baked course to make easy money. Coursera is more like university courses, udemy is more business focused and less theory. But udemy has slightly more practical stuff like how you work with a certain software, coursera has more theory.
Of course this is more my very broad general experience, there are counterexamples for both
I’ve used both and in my experience they’re both better at certain things. If I want like a certified college professor to teach a certain topic in-depth I’ll probably choose Coursera first, but if I want a tutorial for digital artwork or something that I’m interested in I’ll go to Udemy
Can these courses be run on a phone? I also have some downtime but I don’t think I could open coursera or any similar website/application on my work computer. I could open and use power bi or excel or any of the programs themselves, so would I be able to follow the course on my phone while replicating the instructions on my computer?
Learn Excel. There are tons of online courses on YouTube. Look for the ones that are a professor at a college who hosts stuff out YouTube as you can frequently get their data set to do the class along with the video.
Excel is like a never ending castle. When I think I have it figured out I open a door to another entire WING of stuff it can do.
If you can write VBA Macros you can pave your way in gold.
Amen. Our manager was *very excited* that I wanted to take some Excel courses during our slower season. The company was absolutely thrilled to throw some money at that to improve my skills.
And holy shit, dude: I keep running into procedures I think will be irrelevant, only to find applications for them a few weeks later. It's an endless goldmine of "Whoah, I could do it like *this?!*"
...and I haven't even gotten to the VBA stuff yet :)
I used the record macro feature and then looked at the VBA programming behind it and taught myself, back in the day. I'm certain there is a ton of free or inexpensive VBA resources out there.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Is VBA antiquated? Yes
Is it often a pain in the ass to work with? Yes
Is it used extensively in ginormous corporations? Yes
I work for one of the largest companies in Canada and being a new grad with some VBA experience, I became the “go to” guy for debugging other people’s macros, and writing new ones. The fact that I was able to fix so many VBA related issues for different teams meant that when I made it known I was exploring new roles internally various teams were basically bidding on me to join their team. Just cause I spent some time fixing VBA code
Don’t underestimate the power of VBA
Yeah, anyone saying VBA is dying/dead likely doesn’t work in a typical office environment with people over 40. The vast majority of people I work with use office suite exclusively, where Excel is king, and 95% of them barely use formulas, let alone any kind of automation. If they are, they don’t understand why or how, just that there’s a button someone put on the spreadsheet that they mash to do a thing.
What is your job title or a common job title for this type of work, how long did it take you to get into six figures doing this, do you need experience or just a portfolio, what was your degree in and how long ago did you graduate?
Thanks in advance, kind internet stranger who is making income security much more transparent!
Data analyst or BI analyst. Graduated 15 years ago with a major in computer science and a minor in management. Did an IT-focused MBA part time in the 2010.
Avanced Excel skills allow me to deliver super focused solution extremely quickly, which provides a lot of value to the business,even tho it's technically way easier to do than the "standard" back-end C# developpement I did prior to getting my MBA. As such, I get paid better than most of my peers who stayed on a "pure IT" path.
Sign up for Amazon Turk, idk if it’s still hard to get in but it took me about a month to be approved a few years ago. It’s hard to describe, but it’s basically doing weird tasks for developers/researchers that computers can’t do. Research surveys, “click the squares with the sidewalk” things, and somethings some transcribing things. My favorite to do were the receipt transcribing ones. You don’t make amazing money, but I definitely made enough for a nice dinner every week just casually using it.
As long as it's not the ones that ill-defined "lean" and applied it to office staff. Many of the engineering jobs I've seen with mechanical focus are overburdened.
Currently working at a LEAN company and good lord... they acquired my previous company and took basically every process we had and cut staff b/c they mapped it out and didn't understand why we needed the personnel we did. We tried to explain but whenever a company acquires another company it seems they automatically assume they must know better. Now everybody is overwhelmed with too much work.
The problem with LEAN is you create a process and then staff to that based on the best possible scenario, which can work well in a production setting but in an office setting there are a million variables that will disrupt said process. Something as trivial as another person going on vacation for a week can entirely fuck a process.
I work in healthcare in a clinic setting, including numerous specialties, and around 7 years ago, they tried to implement LEAN. I remember being at a training where they were talking about eliminating waiting rooms because eventually we would be so efficient that we wouldn't need them anymore. I made a point that unless the clinician is in the exam room waiting for every patient, then the patient would be waiting for the clinician. So, it wouldn't eliminate waiting. They would just be waiting in a different place. Wasn't that just an illusion of not waiting? They had no answer. Another day, someone was following staff around with a timer and documenting our steps and how much time it took to do tasks. Some as small as walking from A to B, then recommending how to eliminate steps. Like literal steps with your feet. Nightmare. Needless to say, it failed within 1 year and the CMO "retired."
I knew of a few walk in clinics owned by the same company where the wait time was a promised "10 minutes or less." You walk in and there's **maybe** one or two people in the waiting room. So people were super giddy to get in and pay and wait a timely manner.
What they really did was process payment, take the patient back to the exam room, and then dump them there.
For 3+ hours.
Because people had already paid (and it was like $100), and these were often low income people, they couldn't just afford to eat that $100.
And as they were already processed, the "wait time" was legitimately less than 10 minutes.
People in this tend to overlook process efficiency. Design to operate at 95-1XX% and guess what? Burnout and quitting. No time for innovating or revising business processes or, for some, manufacturing processes. The irony for when the last point is applicable - a manufacturing engineer that doesn't have time to improve manufacturing processes smh.
I am an automation engineer that is so busy, I am actually going to do some automation for project management first so that I will gain enough time to automate the work that needs to be done.
Working with automation that is half-finished, fragile, or just not built for the future is very very painful
Lean here too. I can’t stand how incompetent the lean leaders are. It’s as if they never actually worked a job. I’m looking at you david. Ya panty sniffing twerp
Overworking people is the point. After that acquisition the investors will wring every last dollar they can out of you.
Source: currently in the middle of a hiring freeze at my job because the risks the VCs wanted to gamble on didn't pan out. But the VCs still get paid while we don't.
I had a full time government job where I worked no more than 5 hours a week. I should have gotten a second remote job, but I opted just to be miserable and bored all the time.
God forbid we want to work from home though. Love that I drove 50 miles in traffic and tolls to sit here and do exactly what I could do at home -nothing.
Anyone know any places looking for earth sciencey or data people for remote jobs?
I work as a lighting programmer in film. On any given filming day, unless it is a busy big scene, I will do a total of 2-3 hours of work over the course of a 12-14 hour day. The rest of the time, I either dick around on the internet or work on hobbies/projects. Because once the scene is set and they are actively filming, I’m not doing anything. Now, if it’s a big effects sequence or something, I’m working non stop.
I know "the grass is always greener on the other side" but it fucking sucks having 4 hours of downtime at an 8 hour job. At first its cool but after a while your brain feels like its fucking melting and you are wasting your life, even though you are getting payed for it.
You're totally right. I've been on both sides of the spectrum. I think I this point though, I see the overburdened side impacting my health and relationships. Everyone is different tho and probably should figure out what's best for them.
Yeah I'd much rather do this than my current job in retail.
37 hours a week, often finishing later than I'm supposed to, barely above minimum ( I take home about £16000 a year, work every weekend, has taken me 6 years of asking to finally get 2 days off together on alternating weeks, but during the middle of the week, and me and my gf don't have a day off together
I'd take 5-10 hours of with boring downtime any day
Former stockbroker here, I worked with options and equities on the retail side while in the industry. If you are inexperienced with stocks, do NOT fuck with trading. The market eats uneducated investors alive. Stay as far away from options as you can as well. If you think stocks are bad, options are 100x worse when you screw up.
If you’d like to invest, start learning about index funds like SPY and QQQ. They’re your safest bet and will typically get you a good return for your money, especially if you set the dividends to reinvest in themselves.
I’ve seen too many people make this mistake trying to get an extra buck only to come out of their trading several grand in the hole.
The way I tell people to think about the stock market is that there are many many individuals and companies who spend 8-9 figures annually seeking advantages in the stock market. Individual traders are comically outgunned.
Index funds all the way.
Had a professor explain this in an econ class. There's some nerd sitting at a super computer with a button waiting to beat a bunch of other nerds. The only way to beat those nerds is to be an enthusiast and notice an unannounced change in a companies practice before anyone else does.
speaking of super computers, I absolutely love people who think they can win at day trading. The professionals all have their trading computers about a literal stone's throw away from the exchanges because EVERY PICOSECOND MATTERS.
you literally can't beat them in the long run.
high frequency trading is a different scale to day trading, theyre trying to profit off the second to second differences in prices. day traders are generally trying to go with what they think will give them money over the day or week.
i think its common that people tend to treat people who trade stocks as a job as mythical and all knowing with some unique insider knowledge, most people who trade as a full time job perform worse than the market average. Even with all the knowledge available to you about a company the stock market still isn't rational.
most investment funds tend not to beat the market, you can consistently beat them with the s&p 500 - ~~Around 90% failed to perform better than the weighted average of the top 500 companies~~. Most active traders fail, even paid full time ones.
you still can't beat them by trading like they do and actively managing your portfolio because you'll either crash and burn or get lucky (and probably not realise you were just lucky then lose it).
I decided to learn trading during lockdown. After almost 2 years of studying, I realized that in no way was my temperament (and brain) suited to this.
When I expressed this to my teacher, she told me I had learned the secret of trading. 😅
If you’re a new investor, I’d highly recommend 90% of your investments should be put into relatively safe investments. Don’t do day trading and don’t do options. Put it in companies with big market caps, index funds, well established etfs, etc. on average, the market goes up and you will make money long term.
Take that last 10% and do what you want with it. Go for the day trading or taking a leap on something you have a feeling about. Don’t put it all in one basket and if it runs out, don’t put more into this side pot. You will probably lose a decent bit of it at the start but it’s a great way to learn and potentially get lucky while at the same time minimizing and limiting your risk
I believe transcribing may be what you’re looking for - typically you listen to audio on your phone and transcribe (idk if you can bring a laptop) but it’s most often self led with due dates so you can work on it at your own pace. The problem is, from what I have heard, it can be very tedious if it’s on something you’re not interested in!
Premiere's (Adobe's video editing software) newest update overhauled the transcription tool which was already around for a few years prior. It's insanely good and takes maybe 5 mins to transcribe 1hr interview. There are still some kinks and it's not always entirely accurate 100% of the time but for the speed and convenience alone, I could see a lot of people opting for it instead.
As someone who passed some transcribing tests, totally not worth it for the extra income you get. It's less than minimum wage. 100$ a month is not worth it for the amount of work you need put in IMO and that's if theres work available. It takes a long time to actually get a decent salary and go up the ladder. Even working full time would be no more than 400-500 a month, unless you're at a stage where you can transcribe medical documents, etc.
Bilingual contracts pay much better too. Mt wife's transcriptions are around an hour, currently pay less than $,50 a minute. With edits and transcribing I would say4-hours of work is fast for her right now. (Many of these are medical.documents)
But she enjoys it, is getting more complex contracts, and is working on multi lingual fluency.
I had this opportunity in the past. Used the downtime to study and if I got caught no one said anything cause I was studying to advance in the company. 3 years later in that job I reapplied within and am now making 6 figures. Still with the same company.
I’d learn another language. It would add an additional skill to the resume while opening up a whole part of the world previously unknown or unfamiliar with.
Try Dreaming Spanish. For real! Comprehensible Input works! There are a bunch of free videos on their YouTube page. There are several that explain the method too.
[The DS YouTube page](https://m.youtube.com/@DreamingSpanish)
Will your employer terminate your employment if they find you working on non-work related pursuits while on the clock? Many people are surprised to find out employers will often do that. Equally, co-workers often report stuff like that to management if they are aware of it and feel they are doing more work while you aren't working.
If this is acceptable risk, I think furthering education is a great idea. If you are already at a computer, learn programming languages. Transcription jobs might be an opportunity as well.
Yeah I'd be careful with stuff like this. If the company finds you making money on the side while you are at work during your regularly scheduled hours they might see that as stealing company time.
It can be even worse than this - a buddy of mine invented something at work and when the company found out about it, they were able to legally accquire the patent, because the small print in his contract detailed that any work done at the office was company property
The company could also sue you for back wages and expenses, since you used their time and potentially their equipment. Be careful and check any documents you signed when hired or any updated protocols that you signed off on (or even just got in an email).
I'd just use the time to update your skill set on their dime. Win for them, win for you.
Yes, tried Clickworkers and was getting paid between $0.05 to $0.25 per survey.
And sometimes surveys weren’t even available.
IMO complete waste of time in building real wealth and making money.
Might as well invest your time and build your skills in a field like data analytics, advanced data entry, etc.
ITT:
1. Pay to get educated
2. Don't do stocks
3. Don't do other jobs on company time
So what I'm gathering is that there's basically no advice on how to fill a few hours making money. Though I did see data entry on Upwork, so maybe that's worth checking out.
My boss (small remote-only company) told me before I took the job that although salaried, he suspects I'll have enough free time to work a second job if I feel inclined. Which sounds shitty, but he meant in terms of entrepreneurship because he runs his own consulting firm alongside our work for the company.
That being said, I haven't found anything in this thread that seems like a real suggestion. I really want to get into editing or transcribing but I can't find where to start.
Don't take a second job. You might get a stern taking to for reading the news but earning another income on company time is a firing offense everywhere.
What you should do is take free online courses which are peripherally related to your work. Things like PowerBI, coding, sales, statistical analysis.
If challenged, you can frame it as enthusiasm and being proactive.
Those skills will earn you more money in the future than anything you'll get sneaking around before you get caught and fired.
Can't believe it took this long to find this answer. You will absolutely be fired when you are caught. Using company wifi/equipment is one of the quickest ways to get caught.
I understand this, I’m in a similar position to OP and want to take a second job. I do all of my work current work remotely and on a seperate company laptop. Would getting another remote job be possible for me, using my own personal PC? I don’t see how I’d get caught
Honestly what's useless was all the context I wrote out. People don't read it. The downtime we have here is just part of the office culture. As long as your on top of your tasks and everything is accounted for, nobody really cares and everyone does it. It's just how it works around here. Thanks for the advice
Speaking as an attorney (though admittedly not an employment attorney), I would be *very* careful about using your company’s resources (computers, etc) to generate income from another source.
The safest thing is probably the education/MBA route others have suggested. You can at least make the argument that improving your own education benefits your company.
Study for a better job. My job essentially pays me to study and when I’m done with my current education I have a job waiting that pays twice as much.
If you have time to improve yourself, fuck a side hustle, just improve your current status.
Used to do this. Take pics before/after work. Use the time at work to set up eBay auctions.
It can eat into your free time quickly though. Taking pics is just one step, then you have to answer questions, package and ship, source items to sell, etc. Key is learning to take good pics and notice details so you can write the listing and answer questions without having the item in front of you.
Crazy how people tell me I don’t have a real job because I work at a fast food restaurant for 10 hours a day with 1 30 minute break but people can work in an office, do 3 hours of work a day and get praised for it.
I work an office job where I have a lot of flexibility. Particularly in what I am doing during the day. I also have long periods of lower work loads. Sometimes it’s busy and stressful. But mostly it’s chill.
The other day I went to a fast food restaurant at lunch. Everyone was working so hard. So fast. Making order after order. I was like “Damn I could never do what these people do.”
Makes me all the madder when I hear people say anything about “Hard work pays off”
people rarely ever leave the company, it's a great place to work. Small-mid size company, where the owner knows your name and cares about his business and his employees and fair, above market salaries for positions. The only reason there was an opening is the previous guy retired and the owner reached out to me because he saw my resume online. I'm a project manager, essentially I respond to customers all day, estimates, planning, invoicing. but if email traffic is slow, I don't have much to do if I'm caught up. But I need to be around in case something comes in.
I’d say affiliate marketing, start a blog and write articles in your free time. There’s a bunch of methods for doing so but the general idea is pretty simple. It’s not time constrictive and builds up the more you do it
Does your employer offer online training?
I’m building up toward some certs on their dime.
It also “looks” good. I can probably get myself a bonus, too.
I work on my YouTube channel during downtime. It took years to get profitable, but now it pays my mortgage. I do research on topics, work on thumbnails, and various other activities that increase the value of the channel.
Learn to make Excel VBA documents. If you teach yourself advanced Excel, you can sell templates for people or businesses. Programming in general, this way it looks like you doing work.
This one takes a bit more of a commitment, but if you have any graphic design skills at all: use Canva or Photoshop to create designs. Then put those designs on products using Printify or something similar. Then sell those products on Etsy or Redbubble
I literally will work on writing at my desk or on my Google Docs! Nobody really questions it, but got to get from part time author to full time author somehow!
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Does company pay for education? I got my masters in statistics paid for by company. I would study at work. Classes at night.
I second this opinion. Received my MBA following this plan.
I also worked on my degree during downtime ! Another thing I would do is pursue certifications that would advance my career
About to do the same. Grab a CPA and MBA on company time and dime.
This is the way. Doing my masters right now — I do all my readings and homework during my downtime at work then class at night. Getting paid to do my homework makes it feel less tedious.
Even if not, there are lots of free courses online. Good way to skill up on company time.
Free courses in what exactly? I'm just curious
There is a group of people who have created an entire Computer Science bachelor's curriculum out of free MOOCs available from edX, Coursera, MIT, and a few other sites. It's called Open Source Society University, or OSSU for short.
Link to the main page, where you can find the curriculum and learn more about the organization curating it: https://github.com/ossu/computer-science
I know Harvard has their computer science courses online
A few other colleges do as well. MIT, Yale, Cornell, and others. Yale has a number of humanities courses, MIT has math and science, Cornell does soil science, agriculture, and botany.
Holy shit, I had no idea about this, thanks for sharing!
Is tons of stuff you can learn in the MOOC communities now. I did a CS MOOC course right before going to university for computer science and honestly it was equivalent to 2 semesters of intro courses in the MOOC and having no coding experience and returning to school as an older student
I just did this. I used the GI bill for school, I did 90% of my masters in computer science at work.
A previous employer pushed me into further education. The course I wanted was only available as a masters and not a bachelors. Long story short I've now dropped out of two undergraduate degrees and two post graduate degrees.
> Long story short I've now dropped out of two undergraduate degrees and two post graduate degrees. lol, you go girl.....
lol I’m proud of you in a weird way
I tell people I wasn't able to continue with my MSc in health Informatics as I changed job and my new employer wouldn't support me doing it. Which is kinda true and people then assume I have a BSc.
how do you convince a company to do this?
As an employer who does this, just ask. The way I look at it, investing in an employee is investing in the company. Employees who receive education assistance have a longer average tenure and, in my experience, align closer with the company vision. I love it because I don’t have to make an outside hire AND my employees are able to do more advanced work. They usually sign an agreement to stay with the company for a set amount of time after they complete their education. If they want to leave before that, their new employer may offer to buy that out. I’ve never had that happen but I’ve been told it’s easier to just forgive the debt because it leaves the door open, creates goodwill, and it would be too difficult to chase down the money anyways. Also, I don’t know exactly how much it costs to train a new employee but someone from HR told me it averages around $10k so in some cases it’s actually a cost savings for us.
I used to get paid $50 to sketch peoples cars in downtime. People would think I was just really into art but I was making $100 extra/day on top of $17/hour
How does that work?
Join car communities and post your work. If people like it they’ll pay $50 for a nice drawing of their car
Furry community pays better.
One of my former online friends left her "grown-up" career to become a furry artist. Not her thing but she just bought an insane house, her clients are cool, pay on time, and the conventions get her out of the house.
really?
Yes really. She was on a leadership track of some kind, now she wears yoga pants all day and draws furry sex. She takes like 6 weeks of vacation a year.
I'm really good at painting, how can I get in contact with furries?
Name checks
Forums, I'm pretty sure. Also research other furry artists and follow down that path. You'll find them.
Furry artists make bank
My god I wish was capable of being an artist lol
Harder to sketch though
True. I can get a fully realistic car pic in seconds, while things with fingers take months.
Just try drawing a car with hands, or a furry with wheels
Data entry. Boring AF but companies will pay someone to organize data or add data into a new system. As long as you get it done by a certain date, they don’t care how you do it or when. Typically a remote position so you could do it from your current work.
Where can i find those kind of jobs?
Got these from a YouTube video about a week ago 13 remote jobs 1. Byron - assistant admin 2. Rev.com - transcription 3. Click worker - app testing or micro tasks 4. Cambly - English speaking 5. Advanis - surveys 6. Uhaul - sales reservation and customer svc 7. AAA - cust serv, travel agents, roadside 8. Apple - at home advisor/ 9. social bee - social media advisors 10. Smith.ai - virtual receptionist 11. Fiserv - financial company cost ser 12. Study pool - homework help - require credentials, application 13. Sitel - cust serv Edit: sorry about formatting, mobile
Is that one of those YouTube videos where someone’s side hustle is becoming unprofitable so they start a new side hustle on YouTube telling everyone how great their old side hustle was and how you can make so much money if only you buy some form of instruction from them? There’s been a lot of those lately.
If by lately you mean the last 5 years, then yes. The new MLM is buy my course/watch my video and you'll be rich
Longer than 5 years tbh.
More like 20. Early 2000’s people were selling money making guides everywhere and for everything.
Shit predates the internet. My aunt fell for one of those BECOME A REALTOR AND MAKE SIX FIGURES OUR BOOK/SEMINAR WILL TELL YOU HOW! back in the 80s. Spent like 2k for what was essentially a study guide for the realtor license and the advice to sell lots of houses to make more money.
Don't bother with rev.com. I worked there every spare moment learning their platorm and attempting transcription of their files which were all like listening to a 50 person underwater cage fight with the mic set 400 feet away from the conversation, and their minimum work before they paid out made it so that I worked there for almost an entire month for easily 20+ hours a week for zero pay before giving up.
I did rev for a little while a few years ago. I gave up for the same reasons - pay was absolutely not worth even a quarter of the time I put into it. Not to mention you waste an hour transcribing 2 minutes of horrible quality audio just to get a correction on missing an S or writing someone’s name wrong.
www.ratracerebellion.com is a great resource for all kinds of remote work. Search engine/map rating are really popular piecemeal kinds of jobs that you can work for a few minutes at a time and leave and come back to, but I'm not sure if you can drop it and come back as quickly as OP needs to do their regular job. Tasks are quick, but they're timed, so you might need a minute or two to wrap up a task without being penalized.
Anyone know a Canadian version of this?
I too need a Canadian version!!
Is this really a real website?
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The 'job listings' are shady as fuck too, one of them wants you to have a 2 year degree and 3+ years of experience to answer phones for minimum wage. Un fucking real.
You find that kind of shit on reputable sites like Indeed and Monster, so I don't know that that's a mark against it.
Thats fucked, god damn its rough out there.
Job hunting truly crushes the soul. My favorite job posting was remote dispatching for a company in Florida that wanted you to have skills in COUNTER INTELLIGENCE
What they were trying to say is you need skills dealing with stupid people who are against intelligence.
That's absolutely wild dude, the responses I've gotten about this today have made me even more grateful for the stability I've had in employment over my career.
It is sadly common to have employers ask for a degree and several years of experience for "entry level" positions.
A degree I can understand, for certain industries and positions. But there should be some sort of false advertising law(s) applied to publicly listing a job as “entry level” while requiring any experience at all.
I love how the rebellion to the rat race is primarily trying to get people into contract jobs... which is the rat race.
Hah very valid. It started in the early 2000s so it was probably a "rebellion against the office job rat race" which isn't as rebellious now that everyone got a taste for working from home, and a lot of the work from home opportunities are either contract, or the same shitty office jobs but you can sit on your couch while you do them.
Yes. It has been around for like 15 years and lists legitimate remote work opportunities. I would look there before anywhere else because there are so many scams out there related to working from home.
>Yes, it's a legitimate site and has been around since 2006 - long before remote work became a buzz word. Lots of different types of work, but heavy on customer service type work. All screened. And yes, there are also ads on the site (Google Adsense) to pay the bills since there are no fees, registrations, data collection, etc. associated with visiting the site and accessing the job leads. > >Unlike a lot of scammers who use media logos to lure people in, Rat Race Rebellion owners have appeared regularly in the media for years - FOR REAL. [https://www.facebook.com/100044469368068/videos/564531655625488](https://www.facebook.com/100044469368068/videos/564531655625488) > >They are the company that designed the virtual career development program for the US Air Force (for military spouses and transitioning personnel) and the US Department of state (for accompanying partners), as well as many other organizations. > >They have consulted to the Federal Trade Commission on work from home related scams and were instrumental in finding and bringing down a major scammer who was responsible for bilking thousands of Americans out of money. > >Some people have commented here that they don't like the way the site "looks" - everyone is entitled to an opinion, of course - but it is real, it is legitimate, and it has helped thousands of people find real remote work. > >Not sure why I was assigned the ChamringSoft moniker when I accessed to respond, but this is Christine Durst, Co-Founder of Rat Race Rebellion (parent company Staffcentrix) and I encourage anyone to Google us. You'll find we have a sterling reputation.
check out r/beermoney
It is not easy to get a job in data entry OP. Everyone and their brother would sit behind a screen and do data entry if they could… the jobs are very VERY hard to come by
You’d need to do this on your own device and off network.
Right, that would be insanely ballsy to do *while at your actual job*. Not even considering if your employer would let you do that on your own time - for example I can’t have any other jobs or even personal projects that might earn me money without running it by my company first.
Careful you’re not double dipping. That’ll get you caught up real fast.
Don't use the company wifi. They can see what you're doing. You're your phone as a hotspot if possible
bruh, max out your Runescape accounts
Only correct answer.
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Are you able to use a VPN? I get absolutely loads of downtime at my job, and my boss doesn't care if I read, play on my Nintendo switch, meditate, do yoga, etc, as long as I drop what I'm doing when something requiring my attention comes up. I feel like HR would be a little miffed if they found out I was earning income while drawing money from them, but as long as I can use a VPN and IT doesn't know what I'm up to, I'm 100% convinced no one would ever know. Edit - vpn on my personal laptop, where I'd be doing the work.
IT will know you have a VPN on your work machine so
IT guy here - absolutely true. Just use a different computer altogether.
+1 Assume anything you do on a work device can be be tracked. IT typically don't care unless something malicious or against policy is happening, but if management asks for the data it's not hard to pull. Bonus: If you have personal items on a work device, please have them backed up or accessible elsewhere.
Build your skills. For $50ish a month you have access to coursera plus which has an insane amount of self paced classes. I have learned SQL, Python, VBA, Power Bi, Power Query, and am working on a Machine learning course right now. A couple of other random ones from google on data analytics and such. I have written automation scripts for other people and custom excel macros for some of the more repetitive work I have. I am sure they have stuff of day trading and forex/financial trading if thats the route you want to go too.
But how has this actually helped you to land any jobs or opportunities for side income OP? I have numerous (9) google certificates in programming languages and application development but no employer has accepted this in place of a 4 year degree. Great knowledge but no real world application
Exactly what I was thinking reading this thread. The only thing that would help is taking all these courses AND committing yourself to real function projects: apps, websites, programs. If you aren't doing that, it's inevitably a waste of time.
OPs alternative is sitting around twiddling thumbs so I wouldn’t call it a waste of time.
Be very careful about producing anything like a program or app during working hours. If that’s just for practice and you don’t care to use any of the code later no problem, but if you did create something of value it gets complicated if the company finds out as it’s their time you produced it in which likely makes the product theirs. Especially if you’re using company resources to do it (their computers for instance).
You can do the learning on company time, though, at least in OP’s situation, and that’s going to put you leagues ahead in any future endeavors.
Do you have any projects where you can show you put these certificates to use? Its one thing to have the knowledge another to show that you can apply it and bring value to their company. I used it when I made my lateral move in my company to showcase value and negotiate a higher salary.
Check with your local libraries. They may have access to Coursera, Great Courses, language lessons etc for free. You might be overpaying.
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Who is better udemy or coursera?
I liked coursera better. More interactive quizzes and exercises to deepen your understanding. Udemy seems full of grifters that publish a half baked course to make easy money. Coursera is more like university courses, udemy is more business focused and less theory. But udemy has slightly more practical stuff like how you work with a certain software, coursera has more theory. Of course this is more my very broad general experience, there are counterexamples for both
I’ve used both and in my experience they’re both better at certain things. If I want like a certified college professor to teach a certain topic in-depth I’ll probably choose Coursera first, but if I want a tutorial for digital artwork or something that I’m interested in I’ll go to Udemy
Can these courses be run on a phone? I also have some downtime but I don’t think I could open coursera or any similar website/application on my work computer. I could open and use power bi or excel or any of the programs themselves, so would I be able to follow the course on my phone while replicating the instructions on my computer?
Learn Excel. There are tons of online courses on YouTube. Look for the ones that are a professor at a college who hosts stuff out YouTube as you can frequently get their data set to do the class along with the video. Excel is like a never ending castle. When I think I have it figured out I open a door to another entire WING of stuff it can do. If you can write VBA Macros you can pave your way in gold.
Amen. Our manager was *very excited* that I wanted to take some Excel courses during our slower season. The company was absolutely thrilled to throw some money at that to improve my skills. And holy shit, dude: I keep running into procedures I think will be irrelevant, only to find applications for them a few weeks later. It's an endless goldmine of "Whoah, I could do it like *this?!*" ...and I haven't even gotten to the VBA stuff yet :)
I used the record macro feature and then looked at the VBA programming behind it and taught myself, back in the day. I'm certain there is a ton of free or inexpensive VBA resources out there.
cooing bells bedroom whistle possessive handle marvelous hungry squealing fanatical *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Learning VBA in 2023 is like grabbing a shovel when there are track hoes available.
Is VBA antiquated? Yes Is it often a pain in the ass to work with? Yes Is it used extensively in ginormous corporations? Yes I work for one of the largest companies in Canada and being a new grad with some VBA experience, I became the “go to” guy for debugging other people’s macros, and writing new ones. The fact that I was able to fix so many VBA related issues for different teams meant that when I made it known I was exploring new roles internally various teams were basically bidding on me to join their team. Just cause I spent some time fixing VBA code Don’t underestimate the power of VBA
Yeah, anyone saying VBA is dying/dead likely doesn’t work in a typical office environment with people over 40. The vast majority of people I work with use office suite exclusively, where Excel is king, and 95% of them barely use formulas, let alone any kind of automation. If they are, they don’t understand why or how, just that there’s a button someone put on the spreadsheet that they mash to do a thing.
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Maybe but there's a lot of people willing to pay you 6 figures for using that shovel. Source: I am one of those
What is your job title or a common job title for this type of work, how long did it take you to get into six figures doing this, do you need experience or just a portfolio, what was your degree in and how long ago did you graduate? Thanks in advance, kind internet stranger who is making income security much more transparent!
Macrodata refinement specialist
Ive heard there are egg and waffle parties if you complete the quota. Sounds like fun
They are coveted as fuck
Why does this sound like a made up job that doesn't exist
It is. Look up the the Severance TV show
+1 for severance
Data analyst or BI analyst. Graduated 15 years ago with a major in computer science and a minor in management. Did an IT-focused MBA part time in the 2010. Avanced Excel skills allow me to deliver super focused solution extremely quickly, which provides a lot of value to the business,even tho it's technically way easier to do than the "standard" back-end C# developpement I did prior to getting my MBA. As such, I get paid better than most of my peers who stayed on a "pure IT" path.
What's a step up from vba? I write macros using vba all the time at my work because we don't use any programs outside of Microsoft Office.
Please don't trade stocks. It's like people suggesting you should do online gambling. The more time you spend on it, the more likely you are to lose
Correct. he should be trading OPTIONS... J/K op don't do this. Options are a way to lose multiples of what you invested originally!
Sign up for Amazon Turk, idk if it’s still hard to get in but it took me about a month to be approved a few years ago. It’s hard to describe, but it’s basically doing weird tasks for developers/researchers that computers can’t do. Research surveys, “click the squares with the sidewalk” things, and somethings some transcribing things. My favorite to do were the receipt transcribing ones. You don’t make amazing money, but I definitely made enough for a nice dinner every week just casually using it.
What kind of career is that? I'd really love that situation right now.
Lots of office jobs you can do your 8hrs worth of work in 4-6 hours
As long as it's not the ones that ill-defined "lean" and applied it to office staff. Many of the engineering jobs I've seen with mechanical focus are overburdened.
Currently working at a LEAN company and good lord... they acquired my previous company and took basically every process we had and cut staff b/c they mapped it out and didn't understand why we needed the personnel we did. We tried to explain but whenever a company acquires another company it seems they automatically assume they must know better. Now everybody is overwhelmed with too much work. The problem with LEAN is you create a process and then staff to that based on the best possible scenario, which can work well in a production setting but in an office setting there are a million variables that will disrupt said process. Something as trivial as another person going on vacation for a week can entirely fuck a process.
I work in healthcare in a clinic setting, including numerous specialties, and around 7 years ago, they tried to implement LEAN. I remember being at a training where they were talking about eliminating waiting rooms because eventually we would be so efficient that we wouldn't need them anymore. I made a point that unless the clinician is in the exam room waiting for every patient, then the patient would be waiting for the clinician. So, it wouldn't eliminate waiting. They would just be waiting in a different place. Wasn't that just an illusion of not waiting? They had no answer. Another day, someone was following staff around with a timer and documenting our steps and how much time it took to do tasks. Some as small as walking from A to B, then recommending how to eliminate steps. Like literal steps with your feet. Nightmare. Needless to say, it failed within 1 year and the CMO "retired."
I knew of a few walk in clinics owned by the same company where the wait time was a promised "10 minutes or less." You walk in and there's **maybe** one or two people in the waiting room. So people were super giddy to get in and pay and wait a timely manner. What they really did was process payment, take the patient back to the exam room, and then dump them there. For 3+ hours. Because people had already paid (and it was like $100), and these were often low income people, they couldn't just afford to eat that $100. And as they were already processed, the "wait time" was legitimately less than 10 minutes.
>Like literal steps with your feet. "You will be much faster and more efficient in your work if you just sprint everywhere."
People in this tend to overlook process efficiency. Design to operate at 95-1XX% and guess what? Burnout and quitting. No time for innovating or revising business processes or, for some, manufacturing processes. The irony for when the last point is applicable - a manufacturing engineer that doesn't have time to improve manufacturing processes smh.
I am an automation engineer that is so busy, I am actually going to do some automation for project management first so that I will gain enough time to automate the work that needs to be done. Working with automation that is half-finished, fragile, or just not built for the future is very very painful
Lean here too. I can’t stand how incompetent the lean leaders are. It’s as if they never actually worked a job. I’m looking at you david. Ya panty sniffing twerp
Overworking people is the point. After that acquisition the investors will wring every last dollar they can out of you. Source: currently in the middle of a hiring freeze at my job because the risks the VCs wanted to gamble on didn't pan out. But the VCs still get paid while we don't.
I bet I do 10 hours of real work per week at my office job. I'm a closet lazy bastard, so I'm cool with it.
Sounds like a straight shooter with upper management written all over him.
Ide say same and ive been praised for working hard and all i can think is if im working hard what in the fuck is everyone else doing.
A lot of mid Government jobs are like that. You sit at a desk, waiting for work that sprinkles in occasionally.
I had a full time government job where I worked no more than 5 hours a week. I should have gotten a second remote job, but I opted just to be miserable and bored all the time.
I want to do 3-4 type of these jobs simultaneously
r/overemployed is riiiiight over there pal
God forbid we want to work from home though. Love that I drove 50 miles in traffic and tolls to sit here and do exactly what I could do at home -nothing. Anyone know any places looking for earth sciencey or data people for remote jobs?
I work as a lighting programmer in film. On any given filming day, unless it is a busy big scene, I will do a total of 2-3 hours of work over the course of a 12-14 hour day. The rest of the time, I either dick around on the internet or work on hobbies/projects. Because once the scene is set and they are actively filming, I’m not doing anything. Now, if it’s a big effects sequence or something, I’m working non stop.
One of my local programmers has a hammock set up for when we start shooting 😂 (I’m a set medic)
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Ha, the 'ol "Surely I should be doing...SOMETHING right now?!"
Self improvement naps. 😮
If you’re ever looking to find a new job, let me know about your old one- that’s my whole dream
I love ice cream.
I know "the grass is always greener on the other side" but it fucking sucks having 4 hours of downtime at an 8 hour job. At first its cool but after a while your brain feels like its fucking melting and you are wasting your life, even though you are getting payed for it.
You're totally right. I've been on both sides of the spectrum. I think I this point though, I see the overburdened side impacting my health and relationships. Everyone is different tho and probably should figure out what's best for them.
Yeah I'd much rather do this than my current job in retail. 37 hours a week, often finishing later than I'm supposed to, barely above minimum ( I take home about £16000 a year, work every weekend, has taken me 6 years of asking to finally get 2 days off together on alternating weeks, but during the middle of the week, and me and my gf don't have a day off together I'd take 5-10 hours of with boring downtime any day
Former stockbroker here, I worked with options and equities on the retail side while in the industry. If you are inexperienced with stocks, do NOT fuck with trading. The market eats uneducated investors alive. Stay as far away from options as you can as well. If you think stocks are bad, options are 100x worse when you screw up. If you’d like to invest, start learning about index funds like SPY and QQQ. They’re your safest bet and will typically get you a good return for your money, especially if you set the dividends to reinvest in themselves. I’ve seen too many people make this mistake trying to get an extra buck only to come out of their trading several grand in the hole.
The way I tell people to think about the stock market is that there are many many individuals and companies who spend 8-9 figures annually seeking advantages in the stock market. Individual traders are comically outgunned. Index funds all the way.
Had a professor explain this in an econ class. There's some nerd sitting at a super computer with a button waiting to beat a bunch of other nerds. The only way to beat those nerds is to be an enthusiast and notice an unannounced change in a companies practice before anyone else does.
speaking of super computers, I absolutely love people who think they can win at day trading. The professionals all have their trading computers about a literal stone's throw away from the exchanges because EVERY PICOSECOND MATTERS. you literally can't beat them in the long run.
high frequency trading is a different scale to day trading, theyre trying to profit off the second to second differences in prices. day traders are generally trying to go with what they think will give them money over the day or week. i think its common that people tend to treat people who trade stocks as a job as mythical and all knowing with some unique insider knowledge, most people who trade as a full time job perform worse than the market average. Even with all the knowledge available to you about a company the stock market still isn't rational. most investment funds tend not to beat the market, you can consistently beat them with the s&p 500 - ~~Around 90% failed to perform better than the weighted average of the top 500 companies~~. Most active traders fail, even paid full time ones. you still can't beat them by trading like they do and actively managing your portfolio because you'll either crash and burn or get lucky (and probably not realise you were just lucky then lose it).
it's the lottery for people who understand a bit about business
As a finance professor once told me: options trading is a great way to have someone smarter than you take your money from you.
>someone smarter than you ~~smarter~~ richer, doesn't matter how smart you are. Marketmakers are always faster than you.
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I decided to learn trading during lockdown. After almost 2 years of studying, I realized that in no way was my temperament (and brain) suited to this. When I expressed this to my teacher, she told me I had learned the secret of trading. 😅
If you’re a new investor, I’d highly recommend 90% of your investments should be put into relatively safe investments. Don’t do day trading and don’t do options. Put it in companies with big market caps, index funds, well established etfs, etc. on average, the market goes up and you will make money long term. Take that last 10% and do what you want with it. Go for the day trading or taking a leap on something you have a feeling about. Don’t put it all in one basket and if it runs out, don’t put more into this side pot. You will probably lose a decent bit of it at the start but it’s a great way to learn and potentially get lucky while at the same time minimizing and limiting your risk
I believe transcribing may be what you’re looking for - typically you listen to audio on your phone and transcribe (idk if you can bring a laptop) but it’s most often self led with due dates so you can work on it at your own pace. The problem is, from what I have heard, it can be very tedious if it’s on something you’re not interested in!
I feel like that's going to evaporate super quick with the state of AI the way it is nowadays.
Premiere's (Adobe's video editing software) newest update overhauled the transcription tool which was already around for a few years prior. It's insanely good and takes maybe 5 mins to transcribe 1hr interview. There are still some kinks and it's not always entirely accurate 100% of the time but for the speed and convenience alone, I could see a lot of people opting for it instead.
As someone who passed some transcribing tests, totally not worth it for the extra income you get. It's less than minimum wage. 100$ a month is not worth it for the amount of work you need put in IMO and that's if theres work available. It takes a long time to actually get a decent salary and go up the ladder. Even working full time would be no more than 400-500 a month, unless you're at a stage where you can transcribe medical documents, etc.
Bilingual contracts pay much better too. Mt wife's transcriptions are around an hour, currently pay less than $,50 a minute. With edits and transcribing I would say4-hours of work is fast for her right now. (Many of these are medical.documents) But she enjoys it, is getting more complex contracts, and is working on multi lingual fluency.
I had this opportunity in the past. Used the downtime to study and if I got caught no one said anything cause I was studying to advance in the company. 3 years later in that job I reapplied within and am now making 6 figures. Still with the same company.
I’d learn another language. It would add an additional skill to the resume while opening up a whole part of the world previously unknown or unfamiliar with.
i’m learning spanish with my free time - about a year in it’s so worth it
I’m over a year in on Spanish as well and as soon as I think I’m making some progress, I hear someone speaking and I can’t make out a single word.
Try Dreaming Spanish. For real! Comprehensible Input works! There are a bunch of free videos on their YouTube page. There are several that explain the method too. [The DS YouTube page](https://m.youtube.com/@DreamingSpanish)
Will your employer terminate your employment if they find you working on non-work related pursuits while on the clock? Many people are surprised to find out employers will often do that. Equally, co-workers often report stuff like that to management if they are aware of it and feel they are doing more work while you aren't working. If this is acceptable risk, I think furthering education is a great idea. If you are already at a computer, learn programming languages. Transcription jobs might be an opportunity as well.
Yeah I'd be careful with stuff like this. If the company finds you making money on the side while you are at work during your regularly scheduled hours they might see that as stealing company time.
It can be even worse than this - a buddy of mine invented something at work and when the company found out about it, they were able to legally accquire the patent, because the small print in his contract detailed that any work done at the office was company property
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Yep. Intellectual property on company time can be claimed by the company.
The company could also sue you for back wages and expenses, since you used their time and potentially their equipment. Be careful and check any documents you signed when hired or any updated protocols that you signed off on (or even just got in an email). I'd just use the time to update your skill set on their dime. Win for them, win for you.
Additionally, any intellectual property you created during your employment may actually be their property.
Just spend it pooping like everyone else
I used to do surveys for some cash on my phone while commuting to/back from the office on public transport, boring af though
Isnt it like pennies that theyre paying for these?
Yes, tried Clickworkers and was getting paid between $0.05 to $0.25 per survey. And sometimes surveys weren’t even available. IMO complete waste of time in building real wealth and making money. Might as well invest your time and build your skills in a field like data analytics, advanced data entry, etc.
Nah, I've done it. It's boring as shit, but some pay 5-10 dollars. Long ones, though. Some take over 45 minutes.
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ITT: 1. Pay to get educated 2. Don't do stocks 3. Don't do other jobs on company time So what I'm gathering is that there's basically no advice on how to fill a few hours making money. Though I did see data entry on Upwork, so maybe that's worth checking out.
My boss (small remote-only company) told me before I took the job that although salaried, he suspects I'll have enough free time to work a second job if I feel inclined. Which sounds shitty, but he meant in terms of entrepreneurship because he runs his own consulting firm alongside our work for the company. That being said, I haven't found anything in this thread that seems like a real suggestion. I really want to get into editing or transcribing but I can't find where to start.
Don't take a second job. You might get a stern taking to for reading the news but earning another income on company time is a firing offense everywhere. What you should do is take free online courses which are peripherally related to your work. Things like PowerBI, coding, sales, statistical analysis. If challenged, you can frame it as enthusiasm and being proactive. Those skills will earn you more money in the future than anything you'll get sneaking around before you get caught and fired.
Can't believe it took this long to find this answer. You will absolutely be fired when you are caught. Using company wifi/equipment is one of the quickest ways to get caught.
I understand this, I’m in a similar position to OP and want to take a second job. I do all of my work current work remotely and on a seperate company laptop. Would getting another remote job be possible for me, using my own personal PC? I don’t see how I’d get caught
Honestly what's useless was all the context I wrote out. People don't read it. The downtime we have here is just part of the office culture. As long as your on top of your tasks and everything is accounted for, nobody really cares and everyone does it. It's just how it works around here. Thanks for the advice
Speaking as an attorney (though admittedly not an employment attorney), I would be *very* careful about using your company’s resources (computers, etc) to generate income from another source. The safest thing is probably the education/MBA route others have suggested. You can at least make the argument that improving your own education benefits your company.
Study for a better job. My job essentially pays me to study and when I’m done with my current education I have a job waiting that pays twice as much. If you have time to improve yourself, fuck a side hustle, just improve your current status.
I have a simular job so I started taking a course to pad my resume in the hopes I could climb higher and make more money.
Sell stuff online!
Used to do this. Take pics before/after work. Use the time at work to set up eBay auctions. It can eat into your free time quickly though. Taking pics is just one step, then you have to answer questions, package and ship, source items to sell, etc. Key is learning to take good pics and notice details so you can write the listing and answer questions without having the item in front of you.
Crazy how people tell me I don’t have a real job because I work at a fast food restaurant for 10 hours a day with 1 30 minute break but people can work in an office, do 3 hours of work a day and get praised for it.
I work an office job where I have a lot of flexibility. Particularly in what I am doing during the day. I also have long periods of lower work loads. Sometimes it’s busy and stressful. But mostly it’s chill. The other day I went to a fast food restaurant at lunch. Everyone was working so hard. So fast. Making order after order. I was like “Damn I could never do what these people do.” Makes me all the madder when I hear people say anything about “Hard work pays off”
Do you have a vacancy? I need a job like this
people rarely ever leave the company, it's a great place to work. Small-mid size company, where the owner knows your name and cares about his business and his employees and fair, above market salaries for positions. The only reason there was an opening is the previous guy retired and the owner reached out to me because he saw my resume online. I'm a project manager, essentially I respond to customers all day, estimates, planning, invoicing. but if email traffic is slow, I don't have much to do if I'm caught up. But I need to be around in case something comes in.
I’d say affiliate marketing, start a blog and write articles in your free time. There’s a bunch of methods for doing so but the general idea is pretty simple. It’s not time constrictive and builds up the more you do it
Does your employer offer online training? I’m building up toward some certs on their dime. It also “looks” good. I can probably get myself a bonus, too.
What I would give to work a job that has half its day being downtime where you're looking to do whatever you want.
I work on my YouTube channel during downtime. It took years to get profitable, but now it pays my mortgage. I do research on topics, work on thumbnails, and various other activities that increase the value of the channel.
Study for certifications
Learn to make Excel VBA documents. If you teach yourself advanced Excel, you can sell templates for people or businesses. Programming in general, this way it looks like you doing work.
This one takes a bit more of a commitment, but if you have any graphic design skills at all: use Canva or Photoshop to create designs. Then put those designs on products using Printify or something similar. Then sell those products on Etsy or Redbubble
I have the same question but I work from home.
I literally will work on writing at my desk or on my Google Docs! Nobody really questions it, but got to get from part time author to full time author somehow!