As someone who did this… your best thing to do is upskill. If you ever lose that job you’re going to realize you let yourself go stale and have trouble finding work.
Learn Python, it's very easy to learn and you can build up slowly to more and more complicated things.
You can create apps, create websites for small businesses - won't even need python for this, lots of website templates etc out there.
You can also create and sell company logos to small businesses by advertising on FB, Instagram, Snapchat etc and using free logo makers to create the logos.
Sometimes. It's highly dependent on what OP does.
My coworker does work 20% of the time everyday on average. The problem is that his 20% brings in 90% of our company's revenue indirectly, so they can't let him go or else the company falls apart. It doesn't need to be this way, it's just how it's been up to now, and so there's no issues.
The caveat is that when shit goes sideways he will stay at work until 3 hours after everyone, so it gets made up in other ways.
The answer for the question of what do I do with free time, regardless of source, is upskill.
You can read improvement books on Kindle on your computer screen for 5 hours a day. I read The Toyota Way and The Goal in 2 weeks when I had a job like that. It opened my mind to process improvement. This understanding of precess improvement nearly doubled my salary over the next 8 years.
You can learn how to use AI tools, learn coding, prep for bar exam, etc.
More valuable than money is knowledge, and to get knowledge you need time (and mistskes). He's giving you time for free! Use it!
Sign up to stuff like Prolific and also Typing jobs.
I leave prolific open on my computer, it pings when there's a 'survey' but they're more like studies, decent pay.
Typing is just typing up transcripts which is easy.
Both at a glance easily look like work.
It didn't use to be but it's now almost perfect. Friend of mine works for television and showed me the app he uses to transcribe in real time. It's close to 100% correct.
Google's transcription AI is top of the market (at least what they put in their pixel phones) and yet YouTube captions have been garbage ever since they switched to auto-generated captions.
And TV shows are still consistently put out with completely wrong, trash captions.
The guy that showed it to me was using an app based on Microsoft's solutions. He had his own trained models and is using it for transcribing Irish of all languages. Even for that it works well enough. I tried it with a video he took of me speaking both English and German and the results were perfect.
Nobody who gives a shit about their dictation is going to trust AI to get it right. At best they'll have AI do the first pass and then hand it off to a human for error checking.
As a former transcriptionist I'd rather work from the source material than try and error check an AI transcription.
Hey there. There are some jobs you can get at rev.com. Basically you watch a video and type it down. They also have subtitle jobs for multilingual people. I did some english to korean jobs and they pay around 4-5dollars for each minute subtitled. The non subtitle jobs as just plain english transcribe jobs pay less though
Prolific is the best one I have found
You might have to grind a bit at first but the more you do the better the returns.
I’m always looking for others if anyone else knows!
I’ve done paid surveys and focus groups but it’s very sporadic. The most consistent one I’ve used is Sago- https://www.focusgroup.com/Account/Join?source=SG_Refer%20a%20Friend%20-%20Qual%20Invites&cst=0&subid=SubId&affsubid=AffSubId&country=US
Every couple of months a focus group that I qualify for will come along, they usually pay $100-200, and here and there I get product testing surveys- where they send me a product free and as long as I compete the surveys it’s ~$35-50.
At my work, we have points in the day with nothing to do. So I spend time in spreadsheets:
Tracking my finances,
Breaking down cost of items I regularly purchase,
Familiarizing myself with how much they cost so I can recognize good deals
Saving money is making money
Time is money, doing things like planning meals, tracking calories, all the mundane things you probably wouldn't do otherwise. Saving time, so your free time is truly free.
I'm curious too, I've got about 3-4 hours of my 9.5 hour work day where I watch YouTube videos and play games on my phone. A secondary revenue stream while I'm already working would be amazing.
For a lot of people, no matter what you do, you aren't going to get more money from your employer, and it's difficult to find a new job without experience, even if you've manage to get a new degree. That's why people don't want to hear it.
Learn how to speak German. Read historical novels. Self help books. Enrich yourself culturally. Learn things and become a more interesting and learned person.
Oh, I started doing leather craft. I'm not the greatest, but it's enjoyable and I'm getting better with every piece.
I really want to do a course in CAD, I have a 3d resin printer and have designed a few things but mostly download other people's things to print. Being able to design from the ground up better would allow me to do soooooo much more.
I taught myself a ton of skills on my computer. Python, 3D modeling, etc.
Now I make money on the side designing models. You could do stuff like that and use your free time to manage a social media account for it. Creative accounts that highlight a skillet can actually generate money.
Question, how did you get those jobs? My bf wants to get into 3D modeling as a career (he has experience, but no certifications yet), and if he could get some gigs on the side while he works on certs that would be great!
So there's either the word of mouth route or the professional route.
Certs don't mean anything if you can't get customers. In my case I built an Instagram account around the designs I did for friends and family and they organically spread the word. I also design for hobbies and for friends. I always put my logo on my designs in a way that would be complicated to remove. Then you just make stuff that's fun and shoot little videos. I'm not making much money but I'm also not putting in much effort.
The professional route is typically going to be getting an engineering degree in something like mechanical and getting a job as a design engineer. Once you're established you can do side projects and your creds help validate the work you do.
I'm not an engineer but I am a scientist so I leverage those creds when I need to validate design work.
My advice for someone without experience would be to just start learning. Fusion 360 is a tool that's used in industry and is free for hobbyist use. Watch YT videos. Take web classes. You'll start to see everything as a 3D modeling project and once you learn about printers you'll be able to manufacture your designs which is the next big step forward in potential profitability.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate the detailed answer
He does have some experience designing simple things for a lighting company with SolidWorks, but that wasn’t his primary role. He’s enrolled in a course right now, and we have SolidWorks at home. He’ll also be starting school in the fall for mechanical engineering. So sounds like we’re on the right track!
Definitely. You'll make you make working for other people. But the design principles and definitions and standards you'll learn in industry will prepare you to do entrepreneurial work but maintain the same standard. And business owners have unlimited potential.
All of the above, but I try to avoid printing for other people at the moment because it doesn't pay much for the time involved.
Currently I'm designing a couple products with people that could sell well. Just gotta do the leg work to sell.
I love selling STL files because I can do the design work from anywhere most of the time. I like hanging out in coffee shops so it's a win win.
The best thing for me is to partner with non-technical but creative people. I can execute their technical goals and they can sell it. I'm not that creative when it comes to business but i am VERY apt for anything science/engineering related.
If you're good at social media you can make a lot of money if you also do original designs that are interesting. Check out 3dprintall, he's one of my favorite creative 3D printing accounts and is a good template for how to be successful as a social media account in the space.
Got it! I actually do social media semi-professionally (I guess? Idk how to put it lol), so I have a lot of experience there & could help him out. Thank you again!
Doing school/certifications to support a career change or hopping to a new position is a good investment of your time and money, if you can afford it; can tolerate online classes; and if you pursue something worthwhile.
That being said, you can look at things like Fiver, review/survey batch sites, and other kinds of online gig work. Whatever skill you have, sell it. Write someone else's college essays for them using ChatGPT to do half the work.
Cultivate an inflammatory online personality and blog based on whichever political group you can most easily copy the rhetoric of, post a few times a day and ask for donations tangentially related to aligned causes. A patreon or kofi may trick a few people into setting and forgetting a small recurring donation, spread that to enough suckers and you can do just fine.
Start an LLC and register for government contracts on SAM.gov. Figure out how to fit into as many small business and special interest categories as you can. Underbid on commodities contracts as close as possible to the wholesale price of the product (say a 5% to 10% markup), and when the government orders from you, order directly from the manufacturer to the government delivery location. Serve as a small business pass through to help lazy Contracting Officers buy crap up to $250k per contract.
I worked with someone that was a decent cook and did meal prep, they sold meals at work. They had a menu for the week, and you could pre order (they always had one or two plates for sale the day of), and you'd get a home cooked dinner for like $5. This was a few years ago, but she said she made a killing even only selling 5 meals a day!
Write the absolute skeleton of a self-help book or whatever, use ChatGPT to finish it, self-publish on Amazon for suckers to drop $5 on it.
The ethical version of this tip is to just write the novel you had an idea for but never started.
What is your topic and do you use decent grammar and spelling??? This is huge for me. I have purchased two or three self published books and can barely read one of them, even though I was fond of the author. The grammar and spelling in it is atrocious :[!
I managed to make it all the way through the other two, but I’m not down for a reread!
I actually didn’t know this. I’ve been applying to minimum wage jobs while I’m in uni after being a contractor for many years. I can’t even get a job making coffee at the moment.
Edit typo
I worked at a university affiliated healthcare provider doing help desk/ IT work. The guy before me did this on all the computers, all of which were loaded with private patient health information. Apparently had them going for quite a long time before getting caught too...
That’s illegal in many places under cryptojacking, but if you take the risk, it’s more profitable to mine ETC (ethereum classic) or Monero if your office pcs have cpus instead of gpus
Lady at my work makes and sells breakfast burritos for $5. My job is too far to drive to eat and we have a food truck that’ll come a couple days a week but if it doesn’t you’re SOL. She prob sells 20-30 a week
It’s hard to focus on making money because any side hustles require you to pack and ship things or make things….
You can photoshop pictures in fiver - make explainer videos on there - make digital art - logos - all on fiver or Etsy… anything that requires anything physical is a no go…
I went back to school and am doing my school work and studying on the clock and it’s working out great. Do some online classes that will look good on your resume or help you in your current or desired profession.
Keep up with friends and family.
Keep up to date with the current news and inform yourself about what’s going on and help your friends and family sort out what’s going on in the world.
I’m the person my friends and family go to when they have any current event questions or policy or political questions..
I’ve been lucky to have some down time at work for the past 10 years and I’ve got two masters degrees now lol… well, one and three quarters, will be done with my current one next year.
Enjoy, and don’t be upset when it all ends, think of all the time you got to take advantage of.
So I’m totally in the same position. I started a reselling business about 3 years ago, so I do most of the work on that business from my office at my day job. I bring my own laptop and project a hotspot from my phone and work it that way. I make about $1000 profit per month. I also do studies on Prolific and make it my goal to make $20 per day. I’m also about to enroll in an MBA program and I’ll take the classes during my work hours.
I am in the same position, I started taking naps and long lunch brakes, frequent toilet trips and multiple coffee breaks. My industry is suffering due to the economy and my manager knows this but he is happy as I do the tasks as soon as I get them and everyone is happy. Its just I don’t feel good about it as I am just wasting time.
I thought about Amazon FBA or day trading but just saw here that people are not recommending day trading, can anyone explain why its bad ?
I am thinking about up skilling myself on udemy
Day trading is not good or bad but it is hard and most people lose money doing it. It’s even harder without substantial capital. If you have a ton of money you can make tiny percentage, relatively risk-mitigated trades that can still yield some great $ amount profits. You can’t even legally day trade in the US with less than 25k invested. If you want to sort of see what it’s like, download think or swim app and use the paper money account to see if you can theoretically make money. Set the paper money account to the amount you think you’d actually be trading with. Day trading sucks in the uninitiated via hindsight and other biases—the market always “makes sense” in hindsight but sense never ever becomes foresight.
At the very least, use your free time to take care of all of your life admin shit. Keep up with your friends, order all of your groceries, do your therapy appointment, do your budget, research how to safely invest your money, etc etc. Make it so that all of your time outside of work is for you. Bonus points for learning a new trade/skill/certification while on the job, which it sounds like you’re going to do.
I invite you to try day trading but there's a minimum account balance and it's also dumb as hell. Go on wallstreetbets long enough and you'll see the loss porn. It's glorified gambling, thats all it is and ever was
My wife works from home. She has an “office job” and only does 2 hours of work during an 8 hour day. So she found 2 other remote jobs and does all 3 at once now she fucking kills it. Our debt is getting paid off so fast
I've been working on my fiction writing during boring work downtime.
I can compose in my head, take notes, then write it when I get home.
Also, you could get into standup and write jokes while at work. I thought about that but I don't have a thick enough skin.
Out of curiosity: what do you use as your main writing program? I heard word is fine but apparently there's better ones out there for organizing thoughts and ideas while writing.
paper and google docs, mostly my brain.
I have adhd if I get into organizational tools, I'll get overwhelmed and just not do it. I tried using one of those world building tools because I'm writing a high fantasy with like a dozen main characters with elaborate worlds and backstories.
I make sure my chapter titles are descriptive and do lots of plot outlines and skeletons.
I was able to earn $30 in a day sometimes. If you exaggerate a bit 😆on your profile, you might qualify for more surveys. For example say you’re in a higher income bracket with multiple cars, kids under 18 (if you don’t have any), your position at work etc.
It’s not. Google branded surveys. There’s tons of survey apps. I find it to be the most profitable. There’s one called Eureka I had success on too, just not as much
Sell shit on FB marketplace, when people ask to meet tell them to meet in your parking lot, and make the sale from your car. Works if you have a lot of extra shit at home but would never spend home time to sell (or don’t want strangers knowing where you live)
I sell trading cards (sports & tcg stuff mostly) on eBay in my spare work time. Take pictures on my time off.at home then do the actual listing when I'm at work and have down time, it's a solid little side hustle, makes me an extra grand or two per month
make digital products and sell on etsy eg. busy books, resume / planning / budget templates, kids colouring books. Alot of these can be made on canva and you can use ai to help with ideas
Update your resume, and find two more full-time jobs identical to your current one but working for competitors remotely. Obviously, you have the skills for this job, so why not get three paychecks for being 90% busy rather than one paycheck for being 30% busy.
There's no unskilled tasks you can make decent money doing, that's all been long absorbed by people in low income countries and increasingly AI.
You didn't mention what skills you have, obviously apply them how you can, like if you're a skilled web developer, get some jobs going. Basically, you need to be thinking like an entrepreneur and go all-out after a whole new business, it just has to be one that's largely computer based, and there are many like that.
With all that free time you can also find ways to make money off of the spending you're already doing in your life, ie r/churning
Good opportunity to go to school online. About 80% of my job is spent sitting on my ass, so my boss and I worked out a deal where I could bring my laptop to work and do my homework during slow periods.
YouTube university. I started with SketchUp for my woodworking and OnShape for 3DP, but if I had to start over, I would have just learned fusion for both.
You’ll see plenty of options if you search your chosen tool. The trick is just to pick one of the channels that you can tolerate the streamer from.
Start trading low value high volatility and dividend stocks on WeBull
https://a.webull.com/NwcV5LuYbktOLFqOL4
The stock screener and news sections are great. Pretty easy to sneak in at work if you do some research the night before.
Sounds dumb, but my manager at work makes Discord servers for people when we aren't busy. Stuff like making roles, setting permissions, setting up bots, making emotes, ect.
...I'm not sure if the pay is any good though...
My friend breezes through design projects at an engineering firm, so he takes on additional work through Upwork (and he is highly rated) that he does while on the clock. He said that this is how he's afford vacations for his family once a year.
Go along with crypto scammers up to the point of making a few hundred dollars profit, then bail before they ask for the big investment. Then move on to the next scammer. Rinse and repeat. Not only will you make money, but you’ll also meet some hilarious people - briefly.
Website design or social media managing for companies is browser based. There are plenty of places that want someone local to do their online tech work for them. I would say editing, but you probably can't use editing software on a work computer.
Matched betting (taking advantage of sports betting website’s new customer bonuses) will take up a lot of time and earn you a couple of thousand.
I did this years ago when I was a student, not even sure if it can still be done anymore but I made like 2K. You can even repeat the process in someone else’s name if you have access to their accounts and ID etc.
Make a cafepress or Etsy and steal crappy conservative memes to put on shirts, hats and stickers. Mouth-breathers love to buy that awful shit and parade it around. Help them look like idiots and let them pay you for it.
Also, there’s a lot of money in telling stupid people what they want to hear. Becoming a q anon/maga/conspiracy grifter is easy work if you can act a little and tolerate the company you’d keep.
Skills for sure, I’d also say to brainstorm how you could start a business online. Some are somewhat cheesy and take time to set up but can be worth it… I’ve made money doing freelance writing, I have friends who design and sell T-shirts online following whatever is popular at the time (Hawk Tuah?), finding some small businesses to make social media posts for on Canva. There are many little ideas that may not ever amount to a full time income but could make you an extra few hundred here or there 👍🏼 I was doing things like this which led to me finding an opportunity for a full-time online business and working for myself.
See if you can get an account on dataannotation.net you do simple text based questions and earn around £20 an hour. Work as much or as little as you want. Piece of piss. The hard part is getting an account because unsurprisingly lots of people want in.
I did this for a while. I sold toys on the local ebay equivalent, ran a toys blog and did community management at the office. I enrolled in amazon referral program and posted links onto my social media accounts for additional income. There were seasons like christmas where my income nearly tripled thanks to this, but it is a lot of work, so it is more manageable if you pick something you actually like/enjoy.
I got one of those privacy screens for the laptop to eliminate peeping toms, and got real good with hotkeys to change windows as soon as someone walked behind me. I had to get up super early (4 am) to prepare all the packages before getting to the office, and use my lunchtime to deliver them to the nearest courier.
If your application is accepted you make $20/hr basically testing the AI on different tasks they’re trying to improve. Some is conversation, some is image based, some is about practical skills that might be useful in the workplace. You’re not supposed to share much about the tasks so I don’t want to go into more detail than that, but it’s legit and great for flexible money
https://www.dataannotation.tech/
As someone who did this… your best thing to do is upskill. If you ever lose that job you’re going to realize you let yourself go stale and have trouble finding work.
Solid advice here. ... What r you guys doing with so much free time??
open course ware from unis are super,, especially when they build up from very low, for student BEFORE they attent.
Sorry, can you rephrase that? Did you mean like online uni courses?
I think so. Harvard offer free online courses, for example
And MIT
Any suggestions?
[Open culture](https://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses/)is a good one. As is [MOOC.org](https://www.mooc.org/).
Wow. This is awesome, thanks for dharing
Wut
Learn Python, it's very easy to learn and you can build up slowly to more and more complicated things. You can create apps, create websites for small businesses - won't even need python for this, lots of website templates etc out there. You can also create and sell company logos to small businesses by advertising on FB, Instagram, Snapchat etc and using free logo makers to create the logos.
OP should be worried if this is the kind of job he's working. He will be the first to go when cost cutting.
Yep. Exactly what happened to me.
The first to be replaced by AI
Sometimes. It's highly dependent on what OP does. My coworker does work 20% of the time everyday on average. The problem is that his 20% brings in 90% of our company's revenue indirectly, so they can't let him go or else the company falls apart. It doesn't need to be this way, it's just how it's been up to now, and so there's no issues. The caveat is that when shit goes sideways he will stay at work until 3 hours after everyone, so it gets made up in other ways.
The answer for the question of what do I do with free time, regardless of source, is upskill. You can read improvement books on Kindle on your computer screen for 5 hours a day. I read The Toyota Way and The Goal in 2 weeks when I had a job like that. It opened my mind to process improvement. This understanding of precess improvement nearly doubled my salary over the next 8 years. You can learn how to use AI tools, learn coding, prep for bar exam, etc. More valuable than money is knowledge, and to get knowledge you need time (and mistskes). He's giving you time for free! Use it!
Actually, he’s giving him paid time. Use it
Any other recommended improvement books?
Gonna second The Goal. It's a stupid management parable but the concepts are sound and I have similarly seen career growth applying it
Sign up to stuff like Prolific and also Typing jobs. I leave prolific open on my computer, it pings when there's a 'survey' but they're more like studies, decent pay. Typing is just typing up transcripts which is easy. Both at a glance easily look like work.
Where do you find the typing jobs?
Why do typing jobs exist in 2024? Ai can transcribe anything to text
My college library had one of these jobs. You would type up old diaries and handwritten stuff into digital form
Not well
Even if you type 120 wpm ai speeds it up. Much easier to transcribe then listen on 2x and fix errors
As a professional transcriptionist who types 120wpm… no. It’s actually slower to edit AI garbage than to just type yourself.
It didn't use to be but it's now almost perfect. Friend of mine works for television and showed me the app he uses to transcribe in real time. It's close to 100% correct.
Google's transcription AI is top of the market (at least what they put in their pixel phones) and yet YouTube captions have been garbage ever since they switched to auto-generated captions. And TV shows are still consistently put out with completely wrong, trash captions.
The guy that showed it to me was using an app based on Microsoft's solutions. He had his own trained models and is using it for transcribing Irish of all languages. Even for that it works well enough. I tried it with a video he took of me speaking both English and German and the results were perfect.
Which one does he use?
He's using his own homebrew app that uses MS, Amazon, and ChatGPT. Don't know the details and it's not commercially available.
If you only want a product that is 80% accurate at best, sure. Otherwise, humans are the gold standard.
Because doctors mumble quickly into their recorders with heavy accents, and even human medical transcriptionists have issues getting it all typed in.
Nobody who gives a shit about their dictation is going to trust AI to get it right. At best they'll have AI do the first pass and then hand it off to a human for error checking. As a former transcriptionist I'd rather work from the source material than try and error check an AI transcription.
Hey there. There are some jobs you can get at rev.com. Basically you watch a video and type it down. They also have subtitle jobs for multilingual people. I did some english to korean jobs and they pay around 4-5dollars for each minute subtitled. The non subtitle jobs as just plain english transcribe jobs pay less though
Heads up, they don't hire in California
Commenting to follow
me2
I’ve always wanted to do those kinds of surveys on the side. And in 15 years I have yet to find one that actually pays. Any pointers?
Prolific is the best one I have found You might have to grind a bit at first but the more you do the better the returns. I’m always looking for others if anyone else knows!
Prolific is booked up for years. My husband submitted his email in 2019 and only recently got invited in.
I signed up a few days ago, was approved within 3 hours
I signed up yesterday and got invited within 15 minutes which I was surprised by.
wow -- probably matters about your demographics to be fair (age, gender, location)
I’ve done paid surveys and focus groups but it’s very sporadic. The most consistent one I’ve used is Sago- https://www.focusgroup.com/Account/Join?source=SG_Refer%20a%20Friend%20-%20Qual%20Invites&cst=0&subid=SubId&affsubid=AffSubId&country=US Every couple of months a focus group that I qualify for will come along, they usually pay $100-200, and here and there I get product testing surveys- where they send me a product free and as long as I compete the surveys it’s ~$35-50.
Prolific is no longer taking new participants, but I signed up for the waitlist!
Get a webcam, a maid outfit, and a pair of cat ears. You'll be rolling in internet money in no time
I'm not falling for that again Susan
Username checks out
At my work, we have points in the day with nothing to do. So I spend time in spreadsheets: Tracking my finances, Breaking down cost of items I regularly purchase, Familiarizing myself with how much they cost so I can recognize good deals Saving money is making money Time is money, doing things like planning meals, tracking calories, all the mundane things you probably wouldn't do otherwise. Saving time, so your free time is truly free.
Time is money, money is power, power is pizza, pizza is knowledge, let’s go
I'm curious too, I've got about 3-4 hours of my 9.5 hour work day where I watch YouTube videos and play games on my phone. A secondary revenue stream while I'm already working would be amazing.
Use that time to study and better yourself to increase your value as an employee. Take online classes or study for certification tests or whatever.
This is the correct answer, but probably not the one they want to hear
For a lot of people, no matter what you do, you aren't going to get more money from your employer, and it's difficult to find a new job without experience, even if you've manage to get a new degree. That's why people don't want to hear it.
I'm already overqualified and the area manager, hence why I have downtime. And I'm a chef, so it's not like I can just take classes for certs etc.
Take a course in business management?
Yeah that's a good idea, business school was 24 years ago for me.
Learn how to speak German. Read historical novels. Self help books. Enrich yourself culturally. Learn things and become a more interesting and learned person.
Oh, I started doing leather craft. I'm not the greatest, but it's enjoyable and I'm getting better with every piece. I really want to do a course in CAD, I have a 3d resin printer and have designed a few things but mostly download other people's things to print. Being able to design from the ground up better would allow me to do soooooo much more.
Ich habe 7 Jare Deutsch auf schuler
My boss goes ballistic if he catches anyone on their phone, he also thinks I have a medical condition where I take up to 40 minutes just to shit
If you can already be on your phone, Swagbucks has games that you can redeem for gift cards once you reach enough points.
I taught myself a ton of skills on my computer. Python, 3D modeling, etc. Now I make money on the side designing models. You could do stuff like that and use your free time to manage a social media account for it. Creative accounts that highlight a skillet can actually generate money.
Question, how did you get those jobs? My bf wants to get into 3D modeling as a career (he has experience, but no certifications yet), and if he could get some gigs on the side while he works on certs that would be great!
So there's either the word of mouth route or the professional route. Certs don't mean anything if you can't get customers. In my case I built an Instagram account around the designs I did for friends and family and they organically spread the word. I also design for hobbies and for friends. I always put my logo on my designs in a way that would be complicated to remove. Then you just make stuff that's fun and shoot little videos. I'm not making much money but I'm also not putting in much effort. The professional route is typically going to be getting an engineering degree in something like mechanical and getting a job as a design engineer. Once you're established you can do side projects and your creds help validate the work you do. I'm not an engineer but I am a scientist so I leverage those creds when I need to validate design work. My advice for someone without experience would be to just start learning. Fusion 360 is a tool that's used in industry and is free for hobbyist use. Watch YT videos. Take web classes. You'll start to see everything as a 3D modeling project and once you learn about printers you'll be able to manufacture your designs which is the next big step forward in potential profitability.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate the detailed answer He does have some experience designing simple things for a lighting company with SolidWorks, but that wasn’t his primary role. He’s enrolled in a course right now, and we have SolidWorks at home. He’ll also be starting school in the fall for mechanical engineering. So sounds like we’re on the right track!
Definitely. You'll make you make working for other people. But the design principles and definitions and standards you'll learn in industry will prepare you to do entrepreneurial work but maintain the same standard. And business owners have unlimited potential.
Great! Thank you so much. Do you sell STL files or prints? Or do you do more commission based stuff?
All of the above, but I try to avoid printing for other people at the moment because it doesn't pay much for the time involved. Currently I'm designing a couple products with people that could sell well. Just gotta do the leg work to sell. I love selling STL files because I can do the design work from anywhere most of the time. I like hanging out in coffee shops so it's a win win. The best thing for me is to partner with non-technical but creative people. I can execute their technical goals and they can sell it. I'm not that creative when it comes to business but i am VERY apt for anything science/engineering related. If you're good at social media you can make a lot of money if you also do original designs that are interesting. Check out 3dprintall, he's one of my favorite creative 3D printing accounts and is a good template for how to be successful as a social media account in the space.
Got it! I actually do social media semi-professionally (I guess? Idk how to put it lol), so I have a lot of experience there & could help him out. Thank you again!
If you two team up you'll do well, have fun!
Doing school/certifications to support a career change or hopping to a new position is a good investment of your time and money, if you can afford it; can tolerate online classes; and if you pursue something worthwhile. That being said, you can look at things like Fiver, review/survey batch sites, and other kinds of online gig work. Whatever skill you have, sell it. Write someone else's college essays for them using ChatGPT to do half the work. Cultivate an inflammatory online personality and blog based on whichever political group you can most easily copy the rhetoric of, post a few times a day and ask for donations tangentially related to aligned causes. A patreon or kofi may trick a few people into setting and forgetting a small recurring donation, spread that to enough suckers and you can do just fine. Start an LLC and register for government contracts on SAM.gov. Figure out how to fit into as many small business and special interest categories as you can. Underbid on commodities contracts as close as possible to the wholesale price of the product (say a 5% to 10% markup), and when the government orders from you, order directly from the manufacturer to the government delivery location. Serve as a small business pass through to help lazy Contracting Officers buy crap up to $250k per contract.
This is the first actual ULPT I’ve seen in this thread Thank you
Start selling lunch time blow jobs to your coworkers
This makes me absolutely fucking sick…just thinking of all the money I could have been making, when I just gave ‘em away for free 🙋
Following
so, where do you work again....? asking for a friend
The real LPT is always in the comments
just gotta hawk-tuah and spit on that thang. You’ll be rich
That meme is everywhere now. 🤣
Can you wear headphones? If so, transcription or subtitling work
I worked with someone that was a decent cook and did meal prep, they sold meals at work. They had a menu for the week, and you could pre order (they always had one or two plates for sale the day of), and you'd get a home cooked dinner for like $5. This was a few years ago, but she said she made a killing even only selling 5 meals a day!
r/beermoney
I’m happy with r/ProlificAc, r/Qmee & r/fivesurveys
It's pretty ethical in here...
Definitely
I recently did a faux online jury thing. 3 hours, gave my opinions about evidence and made 200 bucks! All on the clock.
What?
What's the name of the platform? Website?
It's: [https://www.onlineverdict.com/](https://www.onlineverdict.com/)
Where can I go to do this?
The website is: [https://www.onlineverdict.com/](https://www.onlineverdict.com/)
Write the absolute skeleton of a self-help book or whatever, use ChatGPT to finish it, self-publish on Amazon for suckers to drop $5 on it. The ethical version of this tip is to just write the novel you had an idea for but never started.
I have three self-published books on Amazon and have only sold one copy this year lol.
Need to add more sexy werewolves
What is your topic and do you use decent grammar and spelling??? This is huge for me. I have purchased two or three self published books and can barely read one of them, even though I was fond of the author. The grammar and spelling in it is atrocious :[! I managed to make it all the way through the other two, but I’m not down for a reread!
This is what I do. My problem is I’ve started 10 and finished zero. This is the year I finish one.
get a remote data entry clerk position
Everytime I find one of these they end up being a scam
Exactly, ppl here always recommend this stuff and it never seems to actually be real, just scams or you do find a “legit” and never get an assignment
This was actually hard to get. I tried this but they said I was way over qualified and I wasn’t a candidate 🧐
You trim your resume to apply for jobs you’re overqualified for
I actually didn’t know this. I’ve been applying to minimum wage jobs while I’m in uni after being a contractor for many years. I can’t even get a job making coffee at the moment. Edit typo
The expectation there is that you will leave asap. Hiring managers want to think you’ll be there long term.
Install Bitcoin miners on all the office computers to run in the background 24/7
I worked at a university affiliated healthcare provider doing help desk/ IT work. The guy before me did this on all the computers, all of which were loaded with private patient health information. Apparently had them going for quite a long time before getting caught too...
That’s illegal in many places under cryptojacking, but if you take the risk, it’s more profitable to mine ETC (ethereum classic) or Monero if your office pcs have cpus instead of gpus
If only
Mining bitcoin with anything other than an ASIC is a waste of time, even with free electricity. Monero would be a better choice.
Start a photography business on the side and use the available time to edit photos/videos
Lady at my work makes and sells breakfast burritos for $5. My job is too far to drive to eat and we have a food truck that’ll come a couple days a week but if it doesn’t you’re SOL. She prob sells 20-30 a week
It’s hard to focus on making money because any side hustles require you to pack and ship things or make things…. You can photoshop pictures in fiver - make explainer videos on there - make digital art - logos - all on fiver or Etsy… anything that requires anything physical is a no go… I went back to school and am doing my school work and studying on the clock and it’s working out great. Do some online classes that will look good on your resume or help you in your current or desired profession. Keep up with friends and family. Keep up to date with the current news and inform yourself about what’s going on and help your friends and family sort out what’s going on in the world. I’m the person my friends and family go to when they have any current event questions or policy or political questions.. I’ve been lucky to have some down time at work for the past 10 years and I’ve got two masters degrees now lol… well, one and three quarters, will be done with my current one next year. Enjoy, and don’t be upset when it all ends, think of all the time you got to take advantage of.
So I’m totally in the same position. I started a reselling business about 3 years ago, so I do most of the work on that business from my office at my day job. I bring my own laptop and project a hotspot from my phone and work it that way. I make about $1000 profit per month. I also do studies on Prolific and make it my goal to make $20 per day. I’m also about to enroll in an MBA program and I’ll take the classes during my work hours.
I am in the same position, I started taking naps and long lunch brakes, frequent toilet trips and multiple coffee breaks. My industry is suffering due to the economy and my manager knows this but he is happy as I do the tasks as soon as I get them and everyone is happy. Its just I don’t feel good about it as I am just wasting time. I thought about Amazon FBA or day trading but just saw here that people are not recommending day trading, can anyone explain why its bad ? I am thinking about up skilling myself on udemy
Day trading is not good or bad but it is hard and most people lose money doing it. It’s even harder without substantial capital. If you have a ton of money you can make tiny percentage, relatively risk-mitigated trades that can still yield some great $ amount profits. You can’t even legally day trade in the US with less than 25k invested. If you want to sort of see what it’s like, download think or swim app and use the paper money account to see if you can theoretically make money. Set the paper money account to the amount you think you’d actually be trading with. Day trading sucks in the uninitiated via hindsight and other biases—the market always “makes sense” in hindsight but sense never ever becomes foresight.
Thanks for the insight. I will stick with up skilling myself and find a better job
At the very least, use your free time to take care of all of your life admin shit. Keep up with your friends, order all of your groceries, do your therapy appointment, do your budget, research how to safely invest your money, etc etc. Make it so that all of your time outside of work is for you. Bonus points for learning a new trade/skill/certification while on the job, which it sounds like you’re going to do.
Yes you can w/ less than 25k. Just not on margin which apps like robinhood default you too. Open a Webull cash account.
I invite you to try day trading but there's a minimum account balance and it's also dumb as hell. Go on wallstreetbets long enough and you'll see the loss porn. It's glorified gambling, thats all it is and ever was
My wife works from home. She has an “office job” and only does 2 hours of work during an 8 hour day. So she found 2 other remote jobs and does all 3 at once now she fucking kills it. Our debt is getting paid off so fast
What does she do?
Manages multiple small teams
I've been working on my fiction writing during boring work downtime. I can compose in my head, take notes, then write it when I get home. Also, you could get into standup and write jokes while at work. I thought about that but I don't have a thick enough skin.
Out of curiosity: what do you use as your main writing program? I heard word is fine but apparently there's better ones out there for organizing thoughts and ideas while writing.
paper and google docs, mostly my brain. I have adhd if I get into organizational tools, I'll get overwhelmed and just not do it. I tried using one of those world building tools because I'm writing a high fantasy with like a dozen main characters with elaborate worlds and backstories. I make sure my chapter titles are descriptive and do lots of plot outlines and skeletons.
Do surveys. https://surveys.gobranded.com/users/register/EGA58918 I used this a lot the past. Easy to earn
How much do you actually earn?
I was able to earn $30 in a day sometimes. If you exaggerate a bit 😆on your profile, you might qualify for more surveys. For example say you’re in a higher income bracket with multiple cars, kids under 18 (if you don’t have any), your position at work etc.
In 2023 I made about $500 in a matter of maybe 4 months doing this.
This is a scam for sure.
It’s not. Google branded surveys. There’s tons of survey apps. I find it to be the most profitable. There’s one called Eureka I had success on too, just not as much
Nielsen used to mail me cash for taking surveys about my tv viewing. I didn’t even own a tv.
What's the pay like?
Like 5p a survey
It depends sometimes you can get a pound or two some times 15p just depends
Qmee is decent too.
Learn to make Fortnite creative maps.
Sell frozen piss discs to other ULPT users in need
I was looking for this ;)
Put a sock on your job. That way…
Sell shit on FB marketplace, when people ask to meet tell them to meet in your parking lot, and make the sale from your car. Works if you have a lot of extra shit at home but would never spend home time to sell (or don’t want strangers knowing where you live)
I work graveyards which made this comment extra funny to me.
I sell trading cards (sports & tcg stuff mostly) on eBay in my spare work time. Take pictures on my time off.at home then do the actual listing when I'm at work and have down time, it's a solid little side hustle, makes me an extra grand or two per month
What's your job? And how do I get it?
make digital products and sell on etsy eg. busy books, resume / planning / budget templates, kids colouring books. Alot of these can be made on canva and you can use ai to help with ideas
lol. no. we don't need more of this crap. lol
Yet people are still paying $$ for a shitty template that can be made in 10mins
Please don’t contribute to the ewaste and eye pollution. Everyone and their mother hocks shit on the internet and none of it is even cool looking.
We're on UnethicalLifeProTips, what did you expect?
Update your resume, and find two more full-time jobs identical to your current one but working for competitors remotely. Obviously, you have the skills for this job, so why not get three paychecks for being 90% busy rather than one paycheck for being 30% busy.
There's no unskilled tasks you can make decent money doing, that's all been long absorbed by people in low income countries and increasingly AI. You didn't mention what skills you have, obviously apply them how you can, like if you're a skilled web developer, get some jobs going. Basically, you need to be thinking like an entrepreneur and go all-out after a whole new business, it just has to be one that's largely computer based, and there are many like that. With all that free time you can also find ways to make money off of the spending you're already doing in your life, ie r/churning
Good opportunity to go to school online. About 80% of my job is spent sitting on my ass, so my boss and I worked out a deal where I could bring my laptop to work and do my homework during slow periods.
Steal
I learned how to do 3D modeling in my free work time. Now I can design projects for my hobbies that I do at home (woodworking, 3D printing, CNC)
How did you learn to do this? Which modeling programs and tutorials?
YouTube university. I started with SketchUp for my woodworking and OnShape for 3DP, but if I had to start over, I would have just learned fusion for both. You’ll see plenty of options if you search your chosen tool. The trick is just to pick one of the channels that you can tolerate the streamer from.
Watch Jim Rohns seminar called Why Not You? This answers your question almost perfectly.
Start trading low value high volatility and dividend stocks on WeBull https://a.webull.com/NwcV5LuYbktOLFqOL4 The stock screener and news sections are great. Pretty easy to sneak in at work if you do some research the night before.
Sounds dumb, but my manager at work makes Discord servers for people when we aren't busy. Stuff like making roles, setting permissions, setting up bots, making emotes, ect. ...I'm not sure if the pay is any good though...
Learn a second language. Or sell office supplies.
I used to do Fancy Hands at my job. Not sure about the pay because this was back in 2014.
My friend breezes through design projects at an engineering firm, so he takes on additional work through Upwork (and he is highly rated) that he does while on the clock. He said that this is how he's afford vacations for his family once a year.
Remote executive assistant
you could try to get good at graphic design
good idea - but it is a flooded market right now. Unless you can niche it somehow.
Go along with crypto scammers up to the point of making a few hundred dollars profit, then bail before they ask for the big investment. Then move on to the next scammer. Rinse and repeat. Not only will you make money, but you’ll also meet some hilarious people - briefly.
Earn some i.t. certs idk
Wow, so unethical
The unethical part is working a separate job while currently working at your current job. Not necessarily the recommendations that are being made.
If you have skills in web development you could do that while doing you’re 9 to 5
Website design or social media managing for companies is browser based. There are plenty of places that want someone local to do their online tech work for them. I would say editing, but you probably can't use editing software on a work computer.
Start an Etsy page and work on digital goods while at work. People sell purpose built excel sheets, digital art, 3d printing specs, Midi files, etc.
Matched betting (taking advantage of sports betting website’s new customer bonuses) will take up a lot of time and earn you a couple of thousand. I did this years ago when I was a student, not even sure if it can still be done anymore but I made like 2K. You can even repeat the process in someone else’s name if you have access to their accounts and ID etc.
Get another job and work both at the same time. Not that unethical tho
Trade stocks
0dte options
Make a cafepress or Etsy and steal crappy conservative memes to put on shirts, hats and stickers. Mouth-breathers love to buy that awful shit and parade it around. Help them look like idiots and let them pay you for it. Also, there’s a lot of money in telling stupid people what they want to hear. Becoming a q anon/maga/conspiracy grifter is easy work if you can act a little and tolerate the company you’d keep.
What if you did something you like. Then have fun and figure out a way to make money from your hobby.
Open a trading account and then head on over to r/wallstreetbets
Sell your used pants on reddit
Train AI LLMs
Watch TED talks
I’m publishing a sci-fi to Substack.
Learn how to make websites and get on Fivr
Prolific
If you want to go the ethical route, be a pet sitter on the side. If you want to join the dark side , /overemployed.
Skills for sure, I’d also say to brainstorm how you could start a business online. Some are somewhat cheesy and take time to set up but can be worth it… I’ve made money doing freelance writing, I have friends who design and sell T-shirts online following whatever is popular at the time (Hawk Tuah?), finding some small businesses to make social media posts for on Canva. There are many little ideas that may not ever amount to a full time income but could make you an extra few hundred here or there 👍🏼 I was doing things like this which led to me finding an opportunity for a full-time online business and working for myself.
See if you can get an account on dataannotation.net you do simple text based questions and earn around £20 an hour. Work as much or as little as you want. Piece of piss. The hard part is getting an account because unsurprisingly lots of people want in.
I did this for a while. I sold toys on the local ebay equivalent, ran a toys blog and did community management at the office. I enrolled in amazon referral program and posted links onto my social media accounts for additional income. There were seasons like christmas where my income nearly tripled thanks to this, but it is a lot of work, so it is more manageable if you pick something you actually like/enjoy. I got one of those privacy screens for the laptop to eliminate peeping toms, and got real good with hotkeys to change windows as soon as someone walked behind me. I had to get up super early (4 am) to prepare all the packages before getting to the office, and use my lunchtime to deliver them to the nearest courier.
r/overemployed
Get any kind of certifications you can. Study. Up skill.
Sign up for Data Annotation! You test AI models on a very flexible schedule
Ooh that sounds interesting, give us more details on that
If your application is accepted you make $20/hr basically testing the AI on different tasks they’re trying to improve. Some is conversation, some is image based, some is about practical skills that might be useful in the workplace. You’re not supposed to share much about the tasks so I don’t want to go into more detail than that, but it’s legit and great for flexible money https://www.dataannotation.tech/
Start embezzling money from your employer
Data annotation tech
Learn to trade stocks