The arbitrary 8.5-9 hour workday drives me nuts, because a lot of the time, I really only have 3 or 4 hours worth of work to do. I generally work quickly and I value my time. Can I make a decent living doing something that gives me this kind of flexibility?
You’d be surprised how many jobs just requires you to sit in a chair all day looking busy.
I do my dayjob, in an office with the screen not visible to anyone else, and when there is no work to do I go ahead and do some of my independent work. I look busy as heck all 8 workhours. I get no extra reqests to “help out”, or last minute critical whatever.
I make 2.5-3x my job salary.Was a window washer for years. If you work for yourself the pay can be good… really good, like 6 figures part time good.
If you get routine work from local businesses you can just show up when it’s convenient, do your thing, get paid, and decide if you want to hit another one of your jobs or call it for the day.Great, honest work.
I’m on track to completing my doctorate next year but I’m thinking about apprenticing in one of the trades afterwards…
Honestly it’s never a bad idea. I’ve been to college as well, and I think the two experiences are vastly different and both contribute to being well rounded.
@GizmoLion The swishy smooth lines you guys make with the squeegee on the giant plate glass windows were my one of my favorite parts of the day when I worked at gas stations.
Haha awesome!
After doing it for a few years I got to the point where I could make full circles, and soap/squeegee at the same time. Was always fun to pull that out for a new customer and watch their reaction.
This sounds really, really interesting. Do you have any tips for getting started with this?
Very possible in tech. You want to look for somewhere product-focused (no agencies), large, and well-established that will give you a WFH position. I do design work and have this type of schedule, though I am always very responsive and available between 9-5 if someone needs something from me so I’m not holding anyone up and making anyone annoyed. I keep up with my deliverables comfortably and have flexibility to have both really productive and really meh days without it being problematic.
Just don’t do IT, unless you can find a job with flex time.
IT or software development.
As someone in the field. I assure you, you do not work just a few hours and then go home. Software development take infinite time and any well run shop will definitely notice if you work a half day by your output vs others. IT is even worse since problems are basically constant.
I guess you can work at badly run shops, but enjoy being laid off and then failing to get a job eventually from having a stale resume.
failing to get a job eventually from having a stale resume.
People have been saying this but I have yet to encounter such issues as a network engineer or sysadmin. I’m going to dodge this recruiting hell others are willing to go through until the day I die. More than 2 rounds of interviews are just HR buffoonery. Expecting expertise in every single branch of a field is nonsense and only accomplishes that applicants lie on their resumes. There are days when everything is running smoothly and all I have to do is sent 3 emails out of home office and there’s nothing wrong with that.
For software engineer resume rot is definitely a thing. Everything has a 5 year timer on it even thr stuff that doesn’t out right die. C# has been around for like 20 years something like that but try to only know about the ecosystem from more than 5 year ago and you’re gonna have a bad time.
I can’t speak on network or sysadmin stuff, but I do know from a coworker friend that they get paid way less are are considered more expendable, so you’re probably right that it’s work that doesn’t change much. Still I’m surprised to hear you say that you have a lot of downtime or maybe I have only worked at trashfires
I’ve been around for a while and there are plenty of IT Jobs that’ll burn you out but there are also super chill positions. My last job change was a downgrade money wise and my boss who I was supposed to replace soon made fun of me for that decision but he missed his daughter growing up because he was working 24/7. She’s an alcoholic now and doesn’t want anything to do with him but “if you want to succeed you have to make sacrifices” he always said. The guy next door to my office literally died in his sleep after being completely stressed out for a year. Heart just stopped. Mid fifties. I quit shortly after. I now only take jobs that are chill as fuck because I’ve learned from their mistakes.
Resume rot and working and to you drop are very different ideas. It’s not worth taking a chill job if it means that you’re unhireable for your next job. There are plenty of chill jobs that grow your resume.
Maybe if all you’re doing is turning a crank to shit out boilerplate all day
I literally don’t understand what you mean by this? Software development isn’t typing all day, but it is engagement all day. Coding, documentation, meetings about so much shit. So much more. There is always some kind of work to be done and that’s why if you’re not careful you can easily overwork yourself in this field. It never stops. You stop it, but at the same time deadlines exist and it takes effort to even make those sane.
Yeah, but someone who fixes 12 bugs a week doesn’t make any more money than someone who fixes 6 bugs a week.
This was a lesson that was hard for me to learn, but finally I figured out that working my ass off every week wasn’t actually getting me ahead. The stuff that actually got me attention only took a few hours every week.
So now I set reasonable expectations. Sure, if I worked every minute I could crank out 12 bug fixes, but I don’t want to have that much stress. I’m going to sign up for 4 I know I can fix with time to spare, giving myself lots of buffer in case one ends up being a lot harder.
In fact, sometimes signing up for just 1, but it’s the hardest one, is actually the most impactful but the least stressful.
Not taking on too much means I can take a break in the middle of the day, or finish a little early, knowing I’m meeting my expectations.
But more importantly, I can spend a few hours every week looking for opportunities to go above and beyond - something that’s annoying everybody but never seems to be prioritized by anyone. I also have more time to mentor others. And THAT sort of thing is what gets me recognized when it comes time for bonuses and promotions.
All of that without working overtime.
My general point in the context of this discussion is that you cannot just work 3 hours a day and think nobody is going to notice or that it’s not going to have an impact on your ability to get jobs in the software development space. You should also not come into it thinking it’s possible to run out of work. Neither of those things are true.
It’s also true that you can have a good work/life balance and not work more than your 40. That’s usually enough to keep everything on track and it’s what I do.
That a said, the people who solve 12 bugs over 6 most certainly do get paid more because they get promoted faster if they’re not a dick and don’t make the mistake of making themselves too irreplaceable at their current level. I literally got a 12% raise at one job for some above and beyond work I did and I continued to get more pay by basically holding the company hostage with my wealth of skills.
Solving 12 bugs a week over 6 gets you promoted to Senior and that’s it.
If you want to advance further in your career, it’s entirely about your impact, not the quantity of work. It’s about seeing the big picture - like recognizing a whole class of bugs all come from one poorly-designed interface, and taking the time and effort to create a better one and get everyone to migrate. It’s hard work but it doesn’t necessarily require a lot of hours. It’s about working smarter and not harder.
You got a 12% raise for some above and beyond work.
Getting promoted beyond Senior often means a 100% raise.
Yeah as long as it’s not a start-up, or you can work from home
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I think they call that freelance/independent contractor.
Get into a trade, and start your own business maybe? Like carpentry etc. You gotta learn and it’s a life long process since every job is different, but I’ve gained some much needed autonomy this way. The job is done when you are done, and that’s when you get paid.
It’s not for everyone, and takes some capitol and experience so that’s a fairly large barrier to do this, but after 16 years I’ve finally gotten some much needed freedom.
2nding the trades. Become an electrician and join the union. Once you get your journeyman’s license you work exactly the shift it says on the call you took from the job board, and while you may be offered overtime there’s no shame in not taking it.
“Is there a job that will pay me a full wage without requiring me to sit at a desk all day because I’m ‘supposed to’?”
“Yeah, just invest 16 years in learning a trade and building a business, you can totally work 4 hour days.”
What is with the comments here? Did you even read the post?
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Be a residential plumber.
Maybe for the installation. Service is 24h for the right price
Nope, I even had one of those it was in maintenance. I had a set list of daily, weekly, monthly tasks , as well as w/e can up in between those, and on call certain days on a rotation with the other guy. As soon as our work was complete we could clock off and just go onto call frte remainder of our shift instead of mill around doing nothing waiting for a call. But with weekly and monthly routine maintenance tasks to do it was usually only a few days a week that we could knock off early and just be available if needed.
Then all of a sudden the manager got all whiny, “I have to be here mywhole shift , why don’t you guys” blah blah blah. Fucking cry baby.
Anyway I refused to follow their orders of staying till the end of my shift until I eventually was fired. Because I was following the shift I was hired to do, and given no valid reason of why the shift needed to change, other than some butthurt sack of shit.
So the tl:Dr of that is it might start that way but eventually some piss baby is going to get it changed on you.
Damn near every workplace becomes a little tyranny run by a petty person who flexes their power for no reason other than to justify their existence.
We all need unions.
I mean, I sort of do that. I’m a software engineer. If I finish all my work early, I just stop working. Or I can start working on my task for the next day. My team works in three weeks sprints, so I get all my tasks for the next three weeks. If I finish all of those tasks before the three weeks are over, I really can just slack off. Usually I’ll ask for another task, as it makes me look better when it comes time for raises (once a year), but for people who are happy with how much they are being paid, they can just do as little as required and work fewer hours than 8 a day.
I wish I could do that, even if I finish all of my sprint tasks there is always more work coming, you’re supposed to ask for a task as soon as you’re free
If they know you are free. 😉
fiverr, taskrabbit
You’re setting yourself up for failure through. if you work for 3-4 hours, they’re only going to pay for for 3-4.
Being there for 8 with only 3-4 hours done gets you paid for 8 with being available for another 8.
You’re better off finding a place that is understaffed and can keep you busy for 8.
Historically, I’ve used the idle time to learn new skills.
This is (typically) contracting. Usually you’ll have some meetings but otherwise it’s deliverables
delivery driver/postal carrier? you are given a route and do it. it might take more or less than 8 hours etc, but you aren’t sitting around killing time until it’s time to go home
Postal carrier is BRUTAL. Mandatory overtime like crazy. You’ll never see your family.
UPS is preparing to strike because the job has so much mandatory overtime and other pressure for not enough pay.
I’m a project manager in software development. I’m beholden to clients’ schedules for meetings and such sometimes, and occasional off-hours deployments, but otherwise I am efficient enough to get my work done when and how I want and have plenty of free time in my day. I work from home 100% so that’s time with my kids, etc.
Find something that is based off deliverables or project completion rather than time at your desk. Maybe contract work or freelance. Maybe run your own business. Another option is remote work.
The standard isn’t just a few hours a day though so you’ll likely have less pay than you might otherwise. Also if you’re just an employee you’d be working part time so no benefits either. This probably wouldn’t be decent pay, especially if you want to save money while also paying for things.
If you are your own boss you could decide to work less but generally it’s a lot more work to run your own business. The business and freelance work would both have the issue with a lack of benefits.
Nursing offers a different kind of flexibility. Obviously there’s no option to “get the work done” and leave a particular shift early, but full time is only 3 days a week for me. We do self-scheduling, so I can manipulate my schedule to be able to do what I want. And I’m working the entire time I’m on the clock, as opposed to sitting in a office staring at a wall doing nothing.
There are also so many options for different working environments, per diem jobs where you can work whenever you want as much as you want, lots of bonus pay.
I have a two year degree and carry the same license as four year degree Registered Nurses (United States).
I’mma be real, I don’t see how nursing is in any way an answer to this question. This person is trying to escape their 9-5 grind, do you really think they’re interested in going to school for the next 4 years? I wouldn’t call the schedule of an RN “flexible” either.
That’s why I mentioned I have a two year degree with a full RN license. It’s a very viable career switch option. I got my license at age 40, after a couple decades slogging in office management jobs.
And flexibility of schedule is one of the top cited benefits that nurses mention they love about their jobs. I’m surprised more people aren’t aware of that
https://wheniwork.com/blog/flexible-scheduling-in-healthcare
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Well, the TV also convinces people that CPR is a gentle procedure that people pop right back up to full health from as opposed to a violent, invasive intervention that a minority of people even survive. And that doctors do bedside work.
So I’m gonna go with maybe let’s not put much stock in television depictions of nurses.
