Part-Time Driver, Full-Time Guilt

Yup, So Me

For the last three weeks, folks, I've been almost entirely *not* a ride share driver. There's a new contract job for my actual career that's occupying my whole head and nearly bringing in enough to keep me from thinking about money and debt and obligations every minute of the day. Since it's a contract gig, it's also not one that I can say a lot about, or anything that I feel overwhelmingly secure in... but so far, it's going pretty well, and I'm doing all I can to make sure they can't live without me, for, well, ever.

All of which means that the job that I was doing pretty much full time (and truth be told, 1.5 - 2X full time, because money) has more or less gone poof. Here are the hours to prove it.

Jan	60.6
Dec	213.7
Nov	261.55
Oct	233.8
Sept	162.9
August	258.45

Keep in mind that almost all of the January hours are in the week before the new gig started. There was also a very high spike around New Year's. I track this stuff by the week more than the month, because that's how you are paid, so this isn't perfect, but it's close enough for trend analysis.

Now, it's not as if I've suddenly gotten a *ton* of my time back. With commute, the day gig is pretty much a 60 hour a week job,  a rough swap out for the time that I used to spend behind the wheel. I could and likely will do more ride share hours on nights and weekends, especially if something unfortunate happens with the accountant or the kids or the house or my teeth or what else.

But what is clear to me is that the nearly 2K hours that I logged in 2018, and the nearly 3K hours in 2019, is much more likely going to be in the 1K range this year. Maybe even less, if other opportunities crop up. (Which is the reason why September and October dropped, by the way.)

What happens if you are a full-time driver that stops doing the work? Well, Lyft has been seeing less and less of me for the better part of a year now, just because they aren't as good at keeping drivers busy in central New Jersey, where I live now. That's been an interesting back and forth of carrot and stick, in terms of trying to bribe me into driving enough to reach a higher status. Uber actually texted me the other day to see if anything was wrong, and they've been offering re-start bonus structures with dramatically lower ride counts. In other words, pretty standard reactivation marketing tricks.

The bigger mental hurdle involved after you've been Gig Economy for a while is that... well, you start to put a price on your leisure. And maybe even your sleep, or your health. Tonight, I had to catch up on some work for the contract job, and I also wanted to watch a basketball game... which I'm pretty sure "cost" me a couple of hundred bucks, given that I missed a Saturday night with college kids in the area, not to mention those bonus bucks. 

When you can sell any free hour of your week, and you've spent years doing more or less that... well, it feels *wrong* not to. Selfish, even.

That's the really dark side of gig work, folks. How easily it puts money to choices that you never had before. Go to the gym? We've got bills to pay. Help with the education of our youngest? Take care of some housework, play with your dogs, read a book or play music or enjoy a video game or... 

Anything, really. 

Clock's running. 

Don't you need the money more?