RE-THINKING SIDE HUSTLES
A light-hearted look at a serious subject
Folk may know that I’m currently in a respite care facility after an accident. That’s meant I have had to flex my mind to try and find possible alternative ways of earning online than those I had been considering pre-accident. I mean, I have to do something in the interim until I become an x-z tens of thousands of pounds earning writer on Medium (in your dreams, pal, are you thinking?).
I only have my smartphone at present, my laptop being in my house which is some miles away. Most places which farm out “home typing” want work done on a laptop or desktop computer. I have seen some keyboards which can be connected to Androids (and I suppose iPhones) to enable typing though they don’t seem cheap.
A chance to do some voice readings on to a smartphone app came in a few nights ago. “Goody, goody,” I thought, “I can do that”. It wasn’t sent exclusively to me of course. It’s a case of sign in and first come first served. What the folks sending the job do want is a quiet environment. Normally late at night in a care home I’d get that. However, a resident further up the corridor had a nightmare and started shouting. I could have shut my room door, but I wondered if I’d be able to open it again. So ’twas a case of, as Robert Burns said, the best laid plans of mice and men* often going awry. Extending the subject could this “boomer”** become a voice artist?
Last year I joined Tik-Tok. I did so a because there was an offer of £15 if you joined — I never got £15. I wonder if I could learn the art of the Tik-Tok clip. I’m not in a position to film pranks….or send in cute clips of my kitty — but if I put my thinking cap on perhaps, I can think of something that might engage people.
I’ve done surveys sometimes. While my relationship with surveys may not exactly be “How do I hate surveys? Let me count the ways”, I do prefer short surveys to long ones….and surveys in general are more a way of earning pocket money than a wage. Long surveys are more remunerative, but I’ve sometimes done, say, 75% of a survey and then had the royal order of the boot into cyberspace which has dampened my enthusiasm. On the plus side I can sign up to survey sites for free.
This morning one of the ladies who does activities with residents had us painting on the theme of summer. I daubed a lawn with dandelions growing as that’s what happens in my garden in summer. I don’t mind using my imagination — and neither did a lady who produced a beach scene — but some residents weren’t so keen. They would have preferred a more precisely defined task. I wondered if they might have been happier with a pre-printed scene to colour in. Could Patsy O learn the skill of selling printables? No doubt, that has proved lucrative for some folk. It’s a corner of the online marketplace that is already very full so it would require approaching the subject inventively.
Perhaps now is the time to start that blog I’ve been contemplating for several years. I miss being able to go for a walk — some of my ideas for articles came to me while having my daily “constitutional”.
You’ll likely realise I’ve approached this article in a somewhat light-hearted vein — though I have genuinely been thinking along these lines. I will let my readers know if any of these musings come(s) to fruition.
*I’m a woman of course, not a mouse or a man but the poem by Scots poet, Robert Burns, to which I have alluded mentions “mice and men”.
**”boomer” as in age bracket not as in speaking in a loud voice. Though would I need to “boom” if I were to work as a voice artist?
