I sold tickets on the phone for a small-medium ticket company. Some nights were busy, but usually I had plenty of free time.
Ask HN: What's a good low profile job where I can hack at the same time?
21–30 of 89 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's a good low profile job where I can hack at the same time?
#22Or, you could pick up a part time job doing what you're good at (hacking), earn as much money as a full time "mostly idle" type job, and use your actual free time for your projects.
The jobs you mention can't pay much more than $1500/month, which is 30 hours at $50/hour (or much less if you bill higher). One freelance project per month will fund your hacker lifestyle, and will probably look much better on your resumé later on in life.
Re: Ask HN: What's a good low profile job where I can hack at the same time?
#23Actually I've had that situation several times in technology jobs. It's not so much the job itself as it is the company. I had a great gig at a company in Marin County (read: north of the Golden Gate, laid-back, hippies) where I was able to learn Perl, the WWW, and Unix. Find a non-critical role in a company that isn't audited heavily (non-public company, smaller division of a large company) and hack away. One option…
In this case, though, you need to be careful if you decide that you want to turn around and sell your 'hacking' as a product. Because you used company resources (at-work time and equipment) to produce it, there is a strong legal precedent allowing your employer to claim ownership of your creation. I'm in the position of working full-time and starting a company part-time, and am very careful to keep my two worlds sepa…
Too true; be careful. You're probably safe using company time to learn (as mentioned in the parent^2), which the company might not actually mind if you put your skills to use for them as well, but if you use it to create your own product, you're on thin ice.
Re: Ask HN: What's a good low profile job where I can hack at the same time?
#24I worked at the University library and it was a dream. In a given 4 hour period I probably did 20 minutes of work.
Re: Ask HN: What's a good low profile job where I can hack at the same time?
#25Trevor has always said that his dream job was to be a projectionist in a movie theater.
I've been a projectionist for about 2 years.
It's a nice job, but don't expect much time to do other things!
Mounting a film only takes about 3 to 8 minutes (depends on if the film roll is already at the right projector or not)
But then you have to start it right on time, check if everything is sharp and framed well, then come back 5 minutes later to check again and preferable come back yet again after another 5 minutes. This is because sharpness, framing may vary or the automatic lens change between commercials and the movie may screw things up.
I worked in a small theater with only 4 screens, but it was hectic none the less. Sure you have some time between films, but usually management finds more jobs for to do. I also often helped behind the snacks counter or had to clean the seats and alleys after a screening.
Re: Ask HN: What's a good low profile job where I can hack at the same time?
#26why not a sys admin? its fairly easy work 95% of the time ...
Re: Ask HN: What's a good low profile job where I can hack at the same time?
#27Night security at some office building sounds like a dream job to me. I would do it for free and maybe I would even pay to do it since I would get more (computer) work done there than working out of my apartment.
This is what Bill James did when he wrote his Baseball Abstracts way back when. I wouldn't generally recommend it as a lifestyle choice, but there's 1) a desk and 2) a general lack of interruptions.
Re: Ask HN: What's a good low profile job where I can hack at the same time?
#28Front desk at a small hotel.
My wife had this job when we first got married. When she was pregnant, the hotel actually let me cover some shifts for her. It was awesome. I'd bring my laptop and once the check-in rush was over (6pm-ish), it was real quiet and I could hack away.
Re: Ask HN: What's a good low profile job where I can hack at the same time?
#29Well if you're in Europe, what about: 'unemployed'? 80% of your current paycheck for the first 6 months, then you really should start looking for something that resembles a job. I know people who travelled the world on 'unemployment'. If you're looking for quiet time, why don't you just skip the social obligation of 'having a job'?
Re: Ask HN: What's a good low profile job where I can hack at the same time?
#30Incidentally, this is RMS' (Stallman, of course, not our own 'rms') suggestion for those who are unable to find a day job doing free software: do something unrelated to software (with the idea being the avoidance of contributing to proprietary software) that gives you free time. Hearing that in person from RMS was the beginning of the end of my interest in RMS style free software.