1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !uspolitics@lemmy.world
7) No Hit-and-Run questions.
Please don't delete your post for no apparent reason. If you plan on deleting a question later, say so in the post, or if you feel that you have a good reason to remove it, message a mod beforehand. It's not fair to the ones who took their time to answer, and it's not in the spirit of the community.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
Front desk at a hotel. Night audit in particular, you're liable to end up getting paid for 8 hours of work while doing around 2-3 hours of actual work on an average night.
Only wrinkle is the occasional interesting workday (fire alarm goes off at 3am, power goes out for hours, water heater for the building dies, and so on), where you definitely earn every penny.
As a hotel night guy, I've managed to successfully finish the first part of my MSc, and whenever I'm not doing uni work I'm just playing videogames and arguing online. I don't know why men don't do this more often, lol, the paycheck is also considerably higher than that of the day staff. This job is unironically such a blessing! π
Just a quick note, there's no such thing as unskilled labor. All labor requires skill of some sort. You have skills, what you lack is specialization.
I spend all of my free time on things like reading, drawing, writing, thinking, occasionally learning something new.
These are all skills that can be leveraged to earn a job. Here are a few things that come to mind which you could potentially leverage with your skills:
As somebody who has worked many skilled and unskilled jobs, and would not devalue the worth of a job due to it being βunskilledβ, there are absolutely unskilled jobs.
I've worked some very simple jobs before as well, and disagree. The simplest I've ever done is collecting medical waste from hospitals and packaging them to get mailed out from the site. There were still skills involved.
I wouldnβt call any of those menial tasks skills. Like at that point you might as well list breathing and eating.
A skill is something that any random off the street couldnβt get up to speed on in a day or two. Theyβre something you have to develop and hone over time to become proficient in.
We can respect and value people in unskilled jobs without playing pretend.
Meh. If you can learn it well enough to do unsupervised within a week, it's unskilled.
Exactly. Like, the folks at my grocery store who basically have all the fruit and veggie codes memorized. Like, yes, it's absolutely a skill and one which I do not have, but it is also one that they fully expect to be able to teach to anyone who works there.
Gotta say, on our end we wouldn't recommend the graphic designer job, itβs soul crushing. Video editing though is pretty fun and if your an artists its not hard to pick up
Custodial work for a government or school district, consistent hours and benefits, can even give you time to just sit around and do whatever you want if you are efficient, also usually union.
Yeah, if you aren't scared of dirty things, its an easy and even relaxing job. Although a lot of them are at night when no ones around. Which makes it chill.
Clean offices. Vacuum, empty garbage, clean bathrooms , clean lunchroom. Done. I did this for a while and I never even felt the need to wear gloves. Just washed with hot water and soap after.
I wouldn't do it at a gas station. No way am I cleaning those toilets.
i seen janitors at colleges, and thier jobs seems chill, and htey get alot of benefits. i think they pay better than school districts.
Security guard. The guards at my job sit in the guard shack (air conditioned micro-building) and monitor cameras, ocasionally doing a door check where they walkthrough the buildings verifying entry points, and oversee visitor badge distribution and sign-in/out sheet.
They might have other duties that I'm not aware of.
I had a magnificent stretch where I was working night security "guarding" a tent full of stuff. On day 1 manager explained the essentials: "stay sober and bring a lot of movies or whatever."
I worked security for a brief eternity.
I think you've nailed it. Watch, patrol, repeat.
I would always suggest joining the IBEW and becoming an electrician. You can start with no experience and get trained up over a few years for a career that will pay at or near 6 figures.
All while providing health insurance and retirement.
I was going to say water and sewer work is usually hired with no experience as long as you're capable of learning on the job and getting a CDL. Which usually, they will pay for. (This info is for the US idk where OP lives)
If you are interested in cars and live in a state that requires vehicle inspections, you could do that. My son did a two day class to get licensed. Then he easily walked into jobs.
Like the emissions tests?
Yeah. I think the class cost about $100 and two days. His first job was $15/hr plus $1 per car. Over the last 7 years he's worked in several shops and now makes about $30/hr as a tech/unlicensed mechanic.
School bus driver isn't strictly unskilled, but it's 80% a skill you already have. You can even be a van driver instead of a bus.
School bus driver does require a commercial driver's license with bus status on it, or approval, or whatever the term is. Edit: endorsement.
Many school districts will sponsor potential bus drivers to go through the schooling to get that license because they are in such desperate need for bus drivers.
Yeah, I see signs in my area about testing paid and $5k sign on bonus.
I work in 911 dispatch, exact qualifications and work conditions will vary from place, but often you don't need much more than a high school diploma/GED, basic computer literacy, and acceptable typing skills, and of course the ability to keep a cool head and deal with emergencies.
Technically, I work slightly more hours than a regular 40 hour week, but I have more days off overall, and especially on night shift you can often count on having a decent amount of downtime where you can work on pretty much whatever personal stuff you want between calls as long as you can put it down when the phone rings.
And the pay is going to be better than minimum wage, not that you're gonna be making a killing, but you'll also have access to pretty great benefits and job security.
It can be stressful and not everyone is cut out for it, but if you are I think it's a pretty great gig, I've been doing it for 8 years now. There is a lot of turnover from people either getting burned out or just using it as a resume builder to move to other public safety sorts of jobs, but that means that basically every dispatch center in the country is almost constantly hiring.
In the UK you can expect to have 0 downtime. It's likely calls will be queud on the board constantly day and night. You're also expected to help people with CPR and child birth. It's an incredibly stressful job.
Night watchman if nights are OK. I'm not in touch with how available such jobs are these days, but I had a gig once for a couple of months when I first got out of college, decades ago. Was great to get some reading and thinking done.
Prep cook at a small restaurant. Tell them you only want to work part-time and they'll make it happen.
Then just put on your headphones and chop vegetables and meats for a few hours. Lowest stress position in a kitchen. And you usually have your own separate kitchen area and nobody will bother you.
Don't know how set on minimum wage you are but you can find warehouse forklift work that is 4 days a week but 10 hrs a day. They mostly hire immigrants who aren't afraid of the hours or the work but they'll train anyone from nothing.
I used to do college on the weekends at first, and two of my coworkers actually completed their degrees that way. I ended up just using the time to have a social life nobody my age was enjoying. It's not a bad racket, certain companies will try to fuck you though so just stay away from big box stores
alot of warehouses, the managers will monitor your metrics like a hawk.
Pizza delivery is a good one, most of the time the places will be hiring for the dinner rush, so you'll work a few hours and then just go home for your free time. In your car, you can listen to whatever you want, so your reading could become audiobooks!
Stagehanding
If you live in a city of somewhat reasonable size, there will consistently be concerts, political rallies, plays, corporate events, etc, that need a stage. Thus, there is a large industry dedicated to unloading trucks, moving things from here to there, building the stage, assembling set pieces, running AV, lighting, and pyro, taking care of anything and everything before, during, and after a show, and then packing everything up again. And this industry constantly needs fresh faces to show up to push this thing over here and tighten this thing with this wrench.
The upside is that it requires no work experience at all, is constantly hiring, has potential to teach you other more marketable skills like getting a forklift cert, and you can choose your shifts - working for multiple different companies at once and picking the shifts you want to work for who and when. Also, your coworkers tend to be cool, or at least characters - the whole industry has a sort of island of misfit toys feel. Your lunch table might include a college student working their summer job, a retiree making some extra income, an aging punk, a gruff blue collar guy, and an ex-felon, all shooting the shit about whatever is going on that day. And speaking of lunch - you typically get fed when you have a day that goes over 5 hours, and concert catering is gooooood.
The downside - lots of the guys who tour with the band, who are going to be the ones in charge of you for the day, can be real assholes. The rock'n'roll schedule will take its toll on your sleep cycle - lots of shifts will start at 10:30PM and end at 3AM. The work actively discourages thinking or creativity, as your tour guy already has everything figured out for exactly how he wants it, and will shout at you if you take the initiative to do it your own way. And if you are shy and have trouble advocating for yourself, you could just be stuck pushing boxes for years.
In my experience it's a difficult industry to get a foot in, even tho I've had experience running cables, doing sound and flashing lights. Any tips on how to get a foot in the door? It is my dream industry, not gonna lie
iatse.net is a good place to start. I was an IA stagehand. Not sure of where you are..but you can check on this page.
The unions are often hiring, and if you've a skillset they can work with, you stand a good chance of being picked up.. Depending on the local, if it is a mixed one, you can be seting up conventions doing rod and drapes or working to unload and load theatrical productions.. TV commercials, political rallies.. rock concerts, WWE wrestling!
The thing is, you will meet peopple in other production firms, like lighting and sound companies and if you network and get a good reputation as a solid, responsible worker, then either move up in the local, or take a withdrawal and go to one of the non-union shops. Try IA first.
I did some stage-hand work on the side for extra money, it was great. I got in by asking stage hands how they got in, which happened to be a couple bigger firms that contract out labour to shows. I signed up online, did half a day of paid safety training and was hired. The best part was being able to pick up or refuse whatever shifts came my way.
Isn't garbage pickup usually done in the morning? This will be different depending on the country and probably even city but can be an option in some places.
I think most jobs like this would give you plenty of free time as they're almost universally part time jobs where you only work 3-4 hours per shift so that they don't have to pay you benefits.
Look into the public sector in your area. Local or state government.
Probably better than minimum wage, plus usually great benefits. Many are union as well.
CCTV monitoring - a lot of time to read, write and think; but friend's boss had an issue with them scrolling on the phone. The hours are quite long but uneventful.
Look at the trades. Can be fun and lucrative with the right crew.
Have you also trued doing commissions for art? Or writing some books off your interests and publishing them? Just a thought.
Otherwise an employment office helps you find work too! Oh and StarBucks while kinda oof with only minimum 20 hours itβs actually pretty chill, just apply to a slow location if you dont mind having little to no tips
Firefighters have a lot of downtime
Firefighting positions are quite skilled, require training and certifications, and are typically quite competitive and nepotistic
theres a skilled requirement, obviously you need to be physically fit, and there are some clique-ness to it. i also wouldn't say they have alot of downtime, they are pretty much on-call, and they often lean politically in one direction. also it seems like stressful job, since you are in a stressful situation when a fire or emergency breaks out in a city, you pratically live and breathe in a fire station, the opposite of chill/downtime. ive seen inside fire station near me, and the people pratically live there 24/7.
Drawbridge operator. I think at least. Around here there are drawbridges that I have never seen actually open. But there is a little booth for someone to sit in all day.
I'm sure it requires a little training, but then you just sit there all day.
