Jobs for Moonlighting Geeks?

BreadWinner asks: "My wife and I are adopting a baby in 2003 and it's very expensive. I work for a non-profit that can't pay me what I feel I'm worth. However, I really like my job, my boss, the time off, and my co-workers. So I'm considering moonlighting. I've done private contracting, but I don't think I can do my private clients justice when I'm working full-time. So what kind of job can I find that: I can leave at the job; maximize my $/hour? Anybody done commission-based electronics sales? I'm not an uber-geek, but I'm interested in whatever you folks at Slashdot can suggest."

Comments

You have a JOB????

[lostindenver]

Share the secret of how you have a full time job...

#1 of a top ten list that I got a giggle out of.

[roseblood]

This is #1 from a top ten list of ways to make money with your computer:

#1) Get a nice solid all steel serve case. Hide in a dark alley. As people move through the dark alley hit them with the case. While they are outcold take their money and other items of value. Wash, Rinse, repeat.

Somewhere near #5 was:
Find a not-too-ugly exhibitionist [female] and a web cam. Start collecting the checks and mailing out the once-worn panties at $20 a pop.

Hitman

[sporty]

A hitman is the perfect job for you. You go, shoot someone. When they ask where you were, say you were at work! :)

Lease the baby back out at a profit

[Sloppy]

Find other couples who are interested in adopting a baby, but maybe part-time, and let them rent the baby at a rate greater than or equal to your expenses.

If it works out well, you could even expand and get more babies. This is great, because your revenues will scale linearly with the number of babies (at least until you start to reach market saturation), but some of your expenses will scale up at a lower rate (that first baby is the most expensive, doesn't have any hand-me-downs, etc).

Another good thing about a massive baby rental business, from a geek point of view, is that you can handle some of the issues in innovative ways. For example, suppose the couple on the street behind you wants a baby for the evening, and they have a special request for Little Joey. But here's the problem: do you have Little Joey in stock right now, or is he still rented out to the Finkelstein family? You go out to the baby stockade where all the cribs are, but it looks like the cubicle complex in Tron (which you recoginize due to being a geek). Fortunately, you've planned ahead: every time a baby gets back, you use your CueCat to scan the barcode that is tattooed on the back of each baby's neck. This updates your MySQL or PostgreSQL database so you you always know which babies are available. When the family on the street behind you asks you on the phone if Little Joey is available, you have an instant answer.

But that's not all! Put a web-based front end on the database, and they can look up the availability themselves, without you having to man the phones. Now do you see how well this whole adoption thing can work out? Well, we're still not done. You see, that other family wants you to take the baby over to their house or get a large discount if they have to pick up Little Joey themselves. But as a geek, you can come up with all sorts of clever ways to handle the transportation. There's solar-powered rovers with robot drivers (fun to design!!), pheumatic tubes, etc. And it can all be automated and run at a profit. The sky is the limit!