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When Your Day Job Isn't Enough (wsj.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: A lot of people are pursuing creative side gigs while they hold down big office jobs. It used to be that many had to choose between their creative aspirations and their commitment to a corporate career, but in the era of the side hustle some manage to do both [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled]. [...] Doing both comes with trade-offs and tensions. Unlike the aspiring actor waiting tables to pay the bills, true dual professionals have to balance the demands of both their aspirations, and often face a moment of reckoning where they are forced to sacrifice a step forward in one career path for job stability and financial security in the other.
The two worlds of Theresa Vu -- also known as the rapper tvu -- often collide. As senior vice president of engineering at New York software firm AppNexus, Ms. Vu runs a team of coders who work on a digital advertising platform. As a vocalist with the band Magnetic North, she rhymes and drops beats, and helped propel the band's "Home: Word" album to No. 2 on the Japanese hip-hop chart.
The two worlds of Theresa Vu -- also known as the rapper tvu -- often collide. As senior vice president of engineering at New York software firm AppNexus, Ms. Vu runs a team of coders who work on a digital advertising platform. As a vocalist with the band Magnetic North, she rhymes and drops beats, and helped propel the band's "Home: Word" album to No. 2 on the Japanese hip-hop chart.
IT / coders need an UNION!
Baizuo:
Chinese: báizu, literally "white left") is a derogatory Chinese neologism used to refer to Western leftist liberal elites. It refers to the left faction in the culture wars in Western politics,[original research?] implying support of multiculturalism, political correctness and positive discrimination. In more than 400 answers submitted by Zhihu users during 2015 to May 2017, the term is defined as referring to those who are hypocritically "obsessed with political correctness" in order to "satisfy their own feeling of moral superiority" motivated from an "ignorant and arrogant" Western-centric worldview who "pity the rest of the world and think they are saviours". A related term is shèngm (, , literally "holy mother", title for the mother of an emperor), a sarcastic reference to those whose political opinions are guided by emotions and a hypocritical show of selflessness and empathy, represented by celebrities such as J. K. Rowling and Emma Watson.
Damn. When the Chinese create a word to make fun of you, you're pretty damn pathetic.
If you want health insurance that you can afford, getting it through your employer is the only way. And if your employer/gig doesn't offer it, good luck on the exchange - especially if you live in a Medicaid non-expansion state. And if the Republicans keep their control after the mid-terms, say good-bye to Obamacare and the law against insurance companies turning down coverage for pre-existing conditions.
That's why like every other western country, we need some sort of public option for everyone.
And retirement - having a company that will match really helps building up a retirement. And with Mitch McConnell and other Republicans saying that the entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare are causing the huge deficit and increase in government debt, you just know they're gonna cut it.
And real jobs want you 24/7 these days so a second gig is just not practical. Unless you don't want to sleep, exercise, or have any down time.
in gop 2020 jail / ER will be the public option!
I once knew someone who was an external auditor for a big-eight accounting firm by day, and a jazz saxophonist at night. Sleep always was an optional extra, but the moment of reckoning came when the travel requirements of the accounting firm and jazz band diverged. Accounting, being much more stable and lucrative, won out.
Goddamn. I can barely keep it together working one job. I dunno how anyone maintains juggling all those bosses and work schedules, but hey, right on folks. Good on you for working hard and hanging tough.
You're as curious about Japanese Hip-hop's #1 as I am : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu5G443dQ4A
What the fuck is WRONG with these people?
You're not reinventing anything.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
>> it used to be that many had to choose between their creative aspirations and their commitment to a corporate career
No, people who work for a living and then play/sing in some crappy band has always been a thing. Always.
>> As a vocalist with the band Magnetic North, she rhymes and drops beats
Cha 13, Int 14, Wis 8
A Union would simply interfere with the ability to make gainful additional employment when you're not the type of person obsessed with TV and sports.
If you're the type of person that needs "protection" to not be fired, you're probably the type of person that needs to be fired.
Unions make sense in highly physically demanding jobs where cutting corners could literally get you killed.
They don't make sense in desk jobs. If you don't like your job, get better at it and find another one.
Work Safe Porn
I'm from Germany, and around here, nobody even knows that you guys apparently work two, three, or even four jobs, just to stay afloat.
And quite frankly, it shocks us a bit.
Around here, having to work 8-12 and 13-17 for a 40 hour week, for a single job, with 28 days of paid holidays and of course health care, is already considered a bit much. We have mothers working 20 hours a week, and getting a lot more days of paid holidays, full overtime compensation (with a legal cap on allowed overtime), an 1.5 extra months of pay for Christmas and summer holiday, and of course getting paid time when they have a baby, here.
You're getting leeched dry, and massively ripped-off, from our standpoint.
And it seems you can't even collectively say no, because you yourselves have been trained to believe, that you teaming up too, to use your own market force, to balance the market, aka a union, is somehow bad. Which seems to go back to Rockefeller and his Mafia spreading propaganda, inserting false flag agents provocateurs, and literally murdering people to prevent said balancing of the market. (Corporations wanting a free market, my ass!)
And because even if you managed to say no, they would just move everything to another country where that shit still flies.
I feel bad, that I don't know what I can do, to improve the situation for you guys. :/
I can only offer to come here. But I'm afraid we currently got a nasty infection with fascists, just like you guys, and Nazis on top of it. So our situation might not last much longer either.
I have a day job in IT and have a photography business primarily for evenings and weekends. (Weekends for shoots and evenings to retouch photos and manage the business.) I typically burn up about half my vacation each year covering events for which I sell the photos. I love my photography work; I tolerate my IT work.
The photography business pays for itself, barely. I make enough money to pay for equipment, maintenance and repair, and the website where I sell my photos. I have a fantasy of supporting myself on photography when I retire from IT. But I don't know how realistic that really is.
I don't sleep much. Watching TV is a special treat, not a nightly occurrence.
I often ask myself why do I do it? Working two jobs is definitely not making me rich. Things would be so much easier if I could work a regular job, go home and watch TV for a couple hours, and then get a good night's sleep. Spend my vacation at some resort ogling the beach bunnies instead of out in a field trying not to step in horse poo.
But then I look at photos of breathtaking scenes and heartbreakingly beautiful women (I don't call them "breathtaking photos" because that seems arrogant) and it all seems worth it.
So I think the answer is, there's things you have to make the effort to do, or learn to live with the regret. I've chosen to make the effort.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
"Ridiculous expensive necessities" seems like a contradiction.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I suppose nowadays a big f*ck you to family/friends quality time is the norm.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
This isn't about a job not offering enough money. It's about intellectual satisfaction. Even as a STEM researcher which in itself is fun, I still like to pursue other more artistic activities that make money just because I have the drive and curiosity to do so.
"What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sometimes I throw on a dress and head down to the wharf. I can meet a few sailors and collect a few dollars on the side. It's good honest work...
I worked a full day time job behind a desk as an engineer. By night I was a fabricator/welder at a race shop. I enjoy engineering, but I wasn't satisfied with what I was doing and losing my mind not making things with my hands anymore. Since I grew up around racing it was a natural fit.
Before my wife had a serious talk with me, I was doing at least 12 hours and growing on weekdays, a full day Saturday, and helping at races on Sundays some weekends. Truth be told, I was eating it up. I don't do well sitting around. But in the balance of priorities it had to go.
I've since switched to metal working (machining, welding, scraping, etc) in my garage at home. Lets me get out some of the desires, but a more sane pace...
post to undo mod
Most people who have second jobs don't do it to be 'creative', they're doing it because employers are screwing everyone over and the price of everything keeps going up and up regardless. You try to explain to them that what you were paid 4 or 5 years ago isn't going anywhere near as far today as it did then, and you get a blank stare. It's not right.
eom
mfwright@batnet.com
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IT is an essential need that's constantly getting screwed by C-level decision-making reducing benefits, lengthening hours and generally ensuring we're moving closer to wage-slavery with each passing month.
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You sound like the kind of person I'd LOVE to work with!
Looking for a job?
When Uber started advertising "Side Hustle", as if working 24 hours a day at two or three jobs was sorta cool.
It's not.
Exhibit A: Brian May, forced to choose between his astrophysics doctorate and his career with Queen, didn't go back for that doctorate for several decades.
Exhibit B: Tom Scholz, electrical engineer from MIT. Also multi-instrumentalist and founding member of Boston. He had to be convinced to market his (ultimately successful) Rockman product line, because he thought it would distract from his musical aspirations.
Exhibit C: Tom Lehrer. He ultimately walked away from a successful "novelty music" career to return exclusively to academia.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
This has been going on since jobs were invented. It continues to amuse me how often tech workers think they pioneered most of the shit they're doing.
Working 12 hours a day is not for everyone. In several months i earned about 20K (I did not work 12 hours), I became a nervous wreck.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
If my side gig turned out to be able to support me, I'd gleefully run from my "Career"!
I think he will die at the office not at home or anywhere else lol :D
I have family time as well, normally every evening. We eat together and sped time together.
But outside that, every free minute goes into my blade smith hobby which turned into a side business long before FiF became a thing.
I have a large network of friends around the world that I talk to / communicate with on a daily basis. There are yearly events I travel to to meet with them and hang out in real life. Some of my best real life friends live on a different continent and I try to visit them or meet up when it is possible.
My oldest child has always been interested in knife making, and has started learning to forge things and make things in my shop. My youngest has her own tool box and often spends time with me in the shop, hammering nails into pieces of wood to write names and hearts and stuff like that. They love hanging out in my shop and doing creative things. And my wife isn't the huggy feeling person needing constant attention. We have our time together mostly during the weekend.
Non-millennial requiring a bit of an education here: for the past couple years I've been hearing younger people in their 20's and early 30's refer to a part time job as a 'side hustle'; Why the name change? Or is it not a name change and they've simply given a term for a job that isn't receiving the same participation level, the same effort as a part time job would? When I think of 'side hustle' I think of some dude dealing adirol on the side for some extra cash.
Or perhaps it's the same thing but millennials renamed it so they weren't hysterically laughed at for referring to this era as the "era of the part time job", something everyone seemed to have back in the 80's after their day job.
I think originally it was meant to convey running a small freelance business out of your home, or something less formal than a normal part time job.
Think writing blog posts, or driving for Uber just on the occasions that you've got nothing better to do.
When I was a kid it was commonly called a "side job". At some point it was called "moonlighting" although I think that also implied it was a secret you were keeping from your primary employer.
It has it's pro's and cons.
On the plus side, she is very practical and pragmatic. And she is perfectly ok with me spending (some of) my evenings in the shop without being upset.
On the flip side, if I want to be hugged, I have to ask for one. And then internally she is probably counting 'one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi' and we're done. Last time I bought a surprise box of expensive chocolates, her reaction was 'I didn't really have a need for this, but ok...'
As I said, there are good sides and bad sides to having a partner who is very practical.
Rather like the gulag option the Democrats offer.
Hmm I really have to scratch my brain on this one... I do recall 'moonlighting' as a term but I don't think it was popular outside of the TV show and people seemed to use it more to describe a night time job they didn't want others to know about like working at a gas station or fast food. I think "side job" was popular back then too but more connoted to a job that might at some point surpass one's primary job. Or maybe not...? Some people did say 'night job' too. Heck, now that I think of it maybe no one actually said "part time job" back then and that was more of a late 90's / 2000's term.
What we need is a global online Human Right Internet Court and blockchained policy voting with crowd funding replacing taxes. Micro government for all, and distributed and redundant too! =} Ââ^Ââ
You're batting zero for three so far. This is fun, want to guess some more?
I owned my job and/or company for over 20 years.
Wow it's so nice to have OTHER PEOPLE, competent marketing professionals, doing the marketing now, so that I make a lot more money. It's so much less stress to let the accounting department handle the tax stuff, while I do what I'm good at.
Self-employed professionals have to file taxes at least six times per year. I did that for many years. Screw that. Not anymore.