As I mentioned a little short of a month ago, I have been teaching English online. Very minimally at this point: I honestly have three hours of class time scheduled a week. I am hoping this picks up after the Christmas break, and also after winter vacation and/or summer vacation has been concluded.
The main thing I want to address is one of the most salient facts about the gig economy for me, and one that might get lost in more technical economic discussions. The fact is, that a gig job is still a job, and that the day I worked a single hour, my employment status went from unemployed to employed. And that furthermore, this status change applied to both the good things and bad things about being employed.
Without getting into too many details, the amount of work I am doing right now is pretty marginal in terms of my finances. It would pay for about 5 days rent. Or my combined internet and power bill. Luckily I have some money saved up, and my salary, when it arrives, will barely contribute anything to that, right now. But yet, by working, I now look at myself in the mirror and think "employed person". I am no longer wondering "What the hell is wrong with me?", and I feel more confidence in myself and purpose in my life. Also, I believe that one of the best ways to get a job is to already have a job: both in my self-perception, and in the perceptions of others who see that "-Present" on my resume, I am now an employed person who wants to advance, rather than an unemployed person who is desperate for anything. And all of that kicked in the minute I started to work.
But another thing that kicked in? Answering work e-Mails over wifi in a grocery store checkout. Having a brief moment of panic when I see an e-Mail from "my boss". Spending a Sunday copying an excel spreadsheet on google docs, and then filling it out. And on a day that I work for an hour, and get paid for an hour, I still have to get up at a certain time, and go to bed at a certain time, and wake up to an alarm, and worry about being clean-shaven. Just as the feeling of accomplishment kicked in at a single hour a week of work time, so did the feeling of being hectored and wondering if I was screwing stuff up.
So here is the thing about all of us gig workers, especially us gig workers working from home, that normal people and journalists and sociologists and economists should remember: we are employed, and in some ways it is a sweet deal. I get to pick and choose my hours and am not tied down to anything and get to work from my living room without putting on shoes. But we also have to be answering our e-Mails, giving up our free time, and dealing with all the rigmarole of being an office worker---without any guarantees of having enough regular salary to make the rent, no job security, and with "benefits" being a distant mirage. Socially and legally, the status of gig workers in a post-pandemic world will probably be a subject of discussion for the next few years, and one of the key things to remember is that even while marginally employed, we are still, for better and worse, employed.