My journey into the Gig Economy
I have been in Canada for 20 years. In my first 5 years, I went to school. My first gig was to tutor Spanish to Spanish students.
After graduation, I worked for one year as a financial adviser. I hated my job, I was supposed to sell overpriced investments products to people who didn’t know any better.
The following 14 years I have been a gig economy worker.
My main gig has been as a dance teacher, but I have driven for Uber, hosted for Airbnb, and most recently I do photography.
I consider myself an expert in the gig economy and I would like to share some of the reasons why you should consider being a gig economy worker, even if you have a secure job.
Income security
The illusion of a secure job is disappearing. Employees are no longer loyal to a corporation and corporations are no longer loyal to employees. The image that some people have in their mind, of working 40 years in a company and slowly climbing the corporate ladder until age 65, doesn’t exist anymore.
The Internet is changing everything. Companies are able to hire less expensive workers in Indian and Bangladesh. Why would a company hire a graphic designer in Canada and pay them $50/hour when they can hire a similar graphic designer in India and pay them $5/hour? People who think they have a secured job, they are in fantasy land. The competition is fierce and is global.
As a freelancer, you don’t have one employer, you have many employers, your clients are your employers. If you offer a product or service that people value, you will have a line of customers waiting to do business with you. On the other hand, if your product or service is inferior, you will be out of business soon.
Time Flexibility
Face it, when you are a 9 to 5 cubicle worker, you are not the master of your time. Do you want to pick up your kids early from school? Forget it! Do you want to go on vacation at a time that suits your whole family? That’s funny.
However, as a gig worker, you are, for the most part, master of your time. As a dance teacher, I want to be available at the times when most of my students are able to take classes, that is, after 5 pm on weekdays and on weekends. In general, I have different working hours than most people. But I am always in control of my time. Do I want to take Wednesday afternoon off? No problem, I just write or call my client and postpone the class for another day or even for the following week. I want to take a vacation at any time of the year. No problem, I just tell my students that I am on vacation. Sure, I tend to go on vacation when there is little work and I tend to stay when there is a lot of work, but one way or another, I am in total control of my time.
Income flexibility
At one time I was an Uber driver. I love that I was able to work whenever I wanted to work and I didn’t work whenever I didn’t want to work. The other thing that I liked is that I determined how much money I wanted to earn. If I didn’t care much about money, then I worked less. If I needed money, then I worked more.
Income flexibility allowed me to see life from a different perspective. If I bought a lot of stuff, then I needed to work more to afford the stuff. This made me realize that I was paying for stuff not with money but with hours of my life. When I consider buying something, I make a mental calculation to figure out how many hours of my life I would have to give up to purchase that object. You see because most people have a 40-hour work-week, and this is not flexible, then they don’t make this equation. But when you dictate your hours of work you want to work just enough to pay for the things you have to pay.
Personal and professional growth
As a dance teacher, I am constantly learning new and different moves. My style of dance continues to evolve. I also learn more and more efficient ways to teach.
With photography, I feel that I am constantly learning new tricks to create better images, which give me a feeling of personal and professional growth.
Whenever you are learning in the job, your mind is engaged and you enjoy your time, you feel challenged in a good way and those challenges can make you grow as a business and as a person.
Portrait of a successful gig worker
Successful gig workers are not those who just pay their bill, instead, a successful gig worker is one who builds a life around their gigs and they get paid for something they enjoy doing.
As a dance teacher, I am paid to teach people to dance, but I am also invited to all kind of events where there is dancing involved. Those tend to be happy events with a lot of social interaction. If I didn’t get paid to be there, I would gladly pay to be there.
If you find some activity which gives meaning to your life, something which makes you happy, you are already a successful gig worker.
If you are gigging just for the money, let’s say driving for Uber, we can say that your gigging life is a work in progress.
Comments
One response to “Everyone Should Participate in the Gig Economy”
[…] this point, regular readers of the blog will know what the gig economy is and how it works. But, there is a difference between understanding the basics and using it to make […]