this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2024
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I don't any more disability hit me.
But, back when I was still able to, it was variable.
My main job was as a nurse's assistant. I was technically full time the entire run. When I first started that meant 40 hours, and you could still get overtime. As the years passed and they didn't want to give benefits, or overtime, you tended to get cut off as soon as you hit 32 a week.
In facilities, that was usually an 8 hour shift. In home health it could be anything from one patient all of those hours, to a dozen or more spread out across three counties. I did do a modified Baylor shift at one nursing home 12 on Saturday and Sunday, plus one eight hour during the week, and you got paid essentially the same as working 40, plus got benefits.
However, the pay sucked, and home health can be erratic about losing patients and taking a while to get the next one, even for me (big, male, and very good at the job, which means you have to do something horrible to not get work).
So I always had a side gig of some kind. In terms of an actual job job that I had a schedule and such, the main side gig was as a bouncer. Not always at the same place, but for two different employers between their bars and clubs. That was usually weekend work. I'd be on from open until close at the one I worked at the most, with an 8 hour shift being the norm at the others. So it would usually take me up to 60 odd hours a week, depending.
When I would do a turn as a cook, it was one or two shifts at 8 hours a week, keeping me around that same rough weekly time.
Iirc, I topped out at a sustained rate with one eight hour patient 5 days a week; one private patient (not through the company) overnight 3-6 days a week, plus whichever bouncing gig I was doing with the main one being 10 hours for two nights. Technically, the overnights meant I was working 24 hours a day those days, but it was really only 2 to 3 hours of actual work for roughly 12 hours total. Added up, it came up to between 66 and 78 hours for the week.
But there were times I'd end up running myself into the ground doing over 80 between everything. Which didn't include stuff that I made money with, but wasn't a job per se. It was a lot less rigid. Like, I sharpened stuff for extra cash. But I'd do the work while watching TV, so it wasn't taking away from anything the way going to a job does. Same with the various writing gigs I'd do, though when I was doing research for people, that could be time consuming away from home, so I'd usually turn it into a vacation trip to wherever it would be necessary to go.
Those research trips were usually awesome because I'd take vacation time from whatever job I had (when it was there to take), get it expenses covered for all of it, and get paid for it all as well. Honestly, it paid way more than all the rest combined, but it wasn't steady. I'd get a job for that maybe twice a year, three at most.
The custom writing was the best pay overall because I could charge by the word, do the work in my downtime even at a job sometimes, with loose or no deadlines. I wrote this one erotic novel that paid me more for about a month of work than everything else I did that year.
Can't say I'm surprised my body wore out early tbh.
Yeah, but I do respect the hustle - not the need for it ofc but the fact that you could do it, if that makes sense?
Totally :)
And thanks!