Joining the Gig Economy
I am a member of the Gig Economy.
I didn’t plan to join. It just evolved.
Giggers don’t count. We’re under the radar. The U.S. Bureau of Labor can’t find us for all its employment reports. We’re a step above underground. We exist in the netherworld between employed and unemployed, worker and slacker. Above all, we are free agents, with shallow allegiances, if any.
Nothing is secure. Nothing is long-term. Nothing is permanent. But then again, that applies to most traditional jobs nowadays, except for government employment. Those who convince themselves otherwise are fooling themselves.
If I don’t work, I don’t get paid. In my circumstance, sometimes even when I do work, I don’t get paid. There are no benefits – except the ability to say “yes” or “no” to anything, and to make your own choices, agreements and schedule. No paid vacation, no sick leave, no retirement savings programs, no health or life insurance. Not even any guarantee of hours or certain amount of pay per week.
Income is unpredictable. One thing that is predictable is that Giggers will constantly be scrambling for income, replacing one lost or concluded gig with another.
An October 13, 2016 CNBC report said employment in the Gig Economy is growing “far faster” than traditional payroll employment, according to a Brookings Institution study. An author of the report said the data showed a trend indicating a “potentially seismic reorganization” of the economy and employment arrangements.
Until a year ago, I counted. I was included in the Labor category “Employed.” For the previous 10 years, I held two traditional jobs, with a salary and benefits. As long as I showed up each day, I could get paid the same, whether I surfed the Internet all day and took two-hour lunches or hunkered down and grinded on the corporation’s mission. Not anymore.
At the same time I began the two-year internship portion of my interminable master’s degree program in counseling – a minimum 12-to-15 hour weekly commitment – my full-time public relations job started going south because of institutional disarray. My employer and I soon ended our union. I was suddenly without the safety net of the full-time, permanent gig, except for the frayed, patchwork, hole-ridden net of the Gig Economy.
I fell back on teaching tennis, which I had done during other periods of unemployment, and ramped up my hours as a counseling intern at an outpatient mental health center, something that was impossible to do while working full-time and which significantly aided me in meeting my master’s degree requirements. But my income was in the toilet.
I landed a great gig for the summer, between academic semesters and internships, as a tennis teacher at a resort in Bethany Beach, DE. But like many gigs, it was short-term,
A gig at the Bethany Beach, DE Bandstand, where I had a summer gig as a tennis teacher.
offered no benefits, and produced an unpredictable income stream. For the time I taught on court, I made decent money. If I wasn’t teaching – waiting around at the club for the next paying hour or bumped out of teaching because of too little customer demand and my low ranking on the pecking order of tennis pros – I made minimum wage. I taught a good amount over the summer – but also spent much time earning $8.25 per hour. The job ran parallel with vacation season, late May to Labor Day.
At 4 p.m. on Labor Day, the gig was up and my income ceased. Now I’m cobbling together an income from three sources – another counseling internship, where I’m lucky I get paid at all, but only at half-rate and only when erratic and inconsistent clients show up; a writing tutor job at Loyola University, where I’m a student; and itinerant tennis teaching. I’m working erratic hours seven days a week. And I’m still searching for more work – more regular and consistent tennis teaching to maximize income for my still-available, Swiss-cheese hours.
The nature of membership in the Gig Economy is to be in a constant state of searching and scrambling for the next gig, the most reliable gig, the best-paying gig for the time we must devote to it. We can’t rest, lest the hour glass runs out. We have to see beyond the horizon, because everything ends or fizzles out. We have to be chess players, thinking three or four moves ahead.
But membership in the Gig Economy has its advantages. I’m much happier with my work than I was at my last job. I have flexibility and control over my schedule. I have variety. I’m not bored at anything I do. I can move on when I feel like it with little angst. I like the direction I’m moving. I’m more free and self-directed.
I may hold other permanent jobs in the future, likely in a counseling capacity. But I’m also pretty certain I will be retaining membership in the Gig Economy for the rest of my working life in one form or another. It’s just a matter of putting all the necessary pieces together. I am a free agent, and I like it that way.
midlifedude 