Coolest side gig

[mizzourah2006]

Wondering about the coolest side gigs people have had?

I just got offered a 10-20 hour a week consulting gig with an MLB team as a data scientist for the next year. The thing that makes it cooler is it’s the team I’ve been a fan of since I was born, lol. So it’s basically a dream come true and I get to continue my current, role which I love, and I can continue to work remotely.

It just got me thinking that others have probably ended up with amazing/dream side gigs and I’m interested to hear about other amazing side gigs/opportunities people have had. 

[HPstache]

That is a really cool side gig.  What team?  Cardinals?  Royals?  (Guessing from your screen name)

[mizzourah2006]

Haha, thought I was being discreet, but I guess my UN does give something away, it is indeed one of those teams. I’m excited to get to play with baseball data and get paid, considering I watch all of the games already anyway. Also taking it as a very cool opportunity to learn from some very smart people.

[BTDretire]

Can you wrangle free seats out of that?  :-)

[Scubanewbie]

Cool, congrats!  Im not a sports fan but am in analytics and half my coworkers would climb over broken glass to do likewise.

[Focus_on_the_fire]

That's fantastic! Congrats!!

[SKL-HOU]

Haha, thought I was being discreet, but I guess my UN does give something away, it is indeed one of those teams. I’m excited to get to play with baseball data and get paid, considering I watch all of the games already anyway. Also taking it as a very cool opportunity to learn from some very smart people.

My guess was Cardinals (having lived in STL for many years myself). That is awesome! Do you get game tix with the gig? :)

[secondcor521]

Posting to follow.

I don't really have any of my own.

My middle son gets paid in various ways from video gaming, which he loves playing.  He coaches, boosts, and plays competitively (now representing his university in e-sports).

My daughter is likely going to get a couple of music scholarships.  According to the likely terms, she'll *have to* take lessons (but they're free) and will *have to* play in the orchestra and the band, which she wants to be in anyway.

[HPstache]

Haha, thought I was being discreet, but I guess my UN does give something away, it is indeed one of those teams. I’m excited to get to play with baseball data and get paid, considering I watch all of the games already anyway. Also taking it as a very cool opportunity to learn from some very smart people.

My guess was Cardinals (having lived in STL for many years myself). That is awesome! Do you get game tix with the gig? :)

That's my guess too.  Would have been hard to be a life long royals fan except until about 5 years ago.   I know cardinals have a huge following.

[mizzourah2006]

Haha, thought I was being discreet, but I guess my UN does give something away, it is indeed one of those teams. I’m excited to get to play with baseball data and get paid, considering I watch all of the games already anyway. Also taking it as a very cool opportunity to learn from some very smart people.

My guess was Cardinals (having lived in STL for many years myself). That is awesome! Do you get game tix with the gig? :)

;)

Not really sure of specifics. They just reached out to ask about interest a couple days ago. I’ll be doing this remote, so, tickets wouldn’t be extremely valuable to me as it’s a several hour drive. But I know the offices are in the Stadium, so if you’re at the office when the games start you can just walk out into the press boxes. So if I’m ever in town and at the office, perhaps by default I’ll get 1 free ticket, lol.

Posting to follow.

I don't really have any of my own.

My middle son gets paid in various ways from video gaming, which he loves playing.  He coaches, boosts, and plays competitively (now representing his university in e-sports).

My daughter is likely going to get a couple of music scholarships.  According to the likely terms, she'll *have to* take lessons (but they're free) and will *have to* play in the orchestra and the band, which she wants to be in anyway.

That’s actually a really cool side gig, especially for a college kid. I was in college at the beginning of online gameplay. At one point I was a pretty good Madden player (ranked in the top 500), but you could only make money in tournaments. I won a couple local ones and participated in the Madden Challenge, but didn’t make it out of the local tournament, so never got to go to Vegas.

[Channel-Z]

Lifelong Royals fan here... Missouri is mostly Cardinals country. The Royals aren't exactly a data-driven organization either.

[secondcor521]

That’s actually a really cool side gig, especially for a college kid. I was in college at the beginning of online gameplay. At one point I was a pretty good Madden player (ranked in the top 500), but you could only make money in tournaments. I won a couple local ones and participated in the Madden Challenge, but didn’t make it out of the local tournament, so never got to go to Vegas.

He was a top-20 Overwatch player at one point but is actually playing COD:MW right now because that's the team the school has started.  I asked him if they were going to give him a scholarship next year for it and he didn't think so but he did say something about the team getting to keep any tournament winnings, which somehow seems odd to me but I guess it could happen.

[maisymouser]

When I reflect on my various side gigs I've had, the most fun ones were paid studies at universities. Especially the ones run by the psychology department, where they would have really terrible undergraduates acting like the study was about one thing when clearly it was about something else. Once I earned $15 as a check in the mail for having a 10-minute phone conversation about my feelings on placenta consumption.

Now that I don't live in town anymore and i have a 1-year-old to take care of, I don't have much time to participate in the local uni studies, but it was pretty easy to make a few bucks each week back when I was in school.

[Metalcat]

I'm paid very well to eat expensive meals and drink expensive wine at fancy restaurants and private clubs.

...crap, that makes me sound like an escort...

[minimustache1985]

I'm paid very well to eat expensive meals and drink expensive wine at fancy restaurants and private clubs.

...crap, that makes me sound like an escort...

Hahaha, I’m assuming mystery shopper.

[Metalcat]

I'm paid very well to eat expensive meals and drink expensive wine at fancy restaurants and private clubs.

...crap, that makes me sound like an escort...

Hahaha, I’m assuming mystery shopper.

No, not at all.
I'm head of business development for the healthcare division of a high end financial firm.

[mozar]

Sounds like you're still an escort, assuming you are wine-ing and dining your business associates.

[minimustache1985]

I'm paid very well to eat expensive meals and drink expensive wine at fancy restaurants and private clubs.

...crap, that makes me sound like an escort...

Hahaha, I’m assuming mystery shopper.

No, not at all.
I'm head of business development for the healthcare division of a high end financial firm.

Fancy!  Paid to take other people to expensive meals with expensive wine :)

[Metalcat]

Sounds like you're still an escort, assuming you are wine-ing and dining your business associates.

Interesting comment...

[Metalcat]

I'm paid very well to eat expensive meals and drink expensive wine at fancy restaurants and private clubs.

...crap, that makes me sound like an escort...

Hahaha, I’m assuming mystery shopper.

No, not at all.
I'm head of business development for the healthcare division of a high end financial firm.

Fancy!  Paid to take other people to expensive meals with expensive wine :)

I do have an expense account, but I'm rarely the one footing the bill.

The sales guys do the wining and dining dinners with clients, I'm not in sales, so my job is more to connect different people in the industry with each other.

So if there's a new technology, I'll help organize a focus group of doctors to check it out. Or if a corporation is looking to expand their CSR program, I connect them with the appropriate non profits. Etc, etc.

So, apparently just like an escort? Lol

[jscully81]

Wondering about the coolest side gigs people have had?

I just got offered a 10-20 hour a week consulting gig with an MLB team as a data scientist for the next year. The thing that makes it cooler is it’s the team I’ve been a fan of since I was born, lol. So it’s basically a dream come true and I get to continue my current, role which I love, and I can continue to work remotely.

It just got me thinking that others have probably ended up with amazing/dream side gigs and I’m interested to hear about other amazing side gigs/opportunities people have had.

Not nearly that cool but ice hockey referee. Got $60 a game and reffed roughly 15 games a month. Extra $1000 and was paid monthly. Not bad considering the time spent doing it.

[seattlecyclone]

Shortly after I left my job I spent three days working as an extra on a TV show. It was quite a bit of fun! The amount of such work available around here isn't enough for anyone to make a real career out of it, but I met several folks who were trying to string as much acting together as possible, and maybe work their way up to speaking parts and eventual stardom. I was just in it for the cool life experience.

I also participate in a program sponsored by a major retailer where they send me samples of new products in exchange for writing on honest review on their website. The products are then mine to keep. They keep a tally of estimated resale values for these items and then send me a 1099 at the end of the year, which I then report as self-employment income. Besides getting me a bunch of nearly free stuff, most of which I would have bought anyway, it also gives me the ability to shelter a small chunk of cash in a solo 401(k) and deduct my health insurance premiums in FIRE.

[socaso]

In high school I had a nanny gig 5 days a week and it was a breeze. I loved the kid, I loved the family and it was only a couple of hours a day. Most of my friends didn't even realize I had a job because I was free by 6-6:30 every evening and I did multiple theater productions and went out on the weekends. I don't know if you could call it a side gig because it was my only money making gig but I have fond memories of my super easy senior year job.

[jeninco]

When I reflect on my various side gigs I've had, the most fun ones were paid studies at universities. Especially the ones run by the psychology department, where they would have really terrible undergraduates acting like the study was about one thing when clearly it was about something else. Once I earned $15 as a check in the mail for having a 10-minute phone conversation about my feelings on placenta consumption.

Now that I don't live in town anymore and i have a 1-year-old to take care of, I don't have much time to participate in the local uni studies, but it was pretty easy to make a few bucks each week back when I was in school.

Our local university has a department that does child development research periodically, so we've taken our kids over several times over the last decade or so. you might still be able to do it!

[dignam]

I take aerial drone photos/videos for a side gig.  I was a licensed private pilot before drones became popular so the UAS licensing was easy.  I haven't marketed myself at all for it, just going word of mouth for now and it's been fun.

[julia]

For two years in uni, a professor that really liked me hired me as a research assistant (25 hours a week, paid hourly) and my role was to gather clips from movies that stimulated an emotion (from a list of 14 emotions). Obviously in order to obtain those clips, I'd have to watch entire movies. So, I got to choose whatever movies I wanted to watch and given that movies are 2-3 hours long, I was paid 21$ an hour to watch 10ish movies a week.

[honeybbq]

Wondering about the coolest side gigs people have had?

I just got offered a 10-20 hour a week consulting gig with an MLB team as a data scientist for the next year. The thing that makes it cooler is it’s the team I’ve been a fan of since I was born, lol. So it’s basically a dream come true and I get to continue my current, role which I love, and I can continue to work remotely.

It just got me thinking that others have probably ended up with amazing/dream side gigs and I’m interested to hear about other amazing side gigs/opportunities people have had.

Cool! Like Moneyball! I love that whole premise: that math and data can pick the best team.

[EscapedApe]

I just got offered a 10-20 hour a week consulting gig with an MLB team as a data scientist for the next year. The thing that makes it cooler is it’s the team I’ve been a fan of since I was born, lol. So it’s basically a dream come true and I get to continue my current, role which I love, and I can continue to work remotely.

Just like with a full-time job, the best side gig is the one you love.

[mikemagz11]

Similar, but not as cool, I work apart time remotely for Disney Streaming, monitoring live streams for the MLB At Bat App and NHL App.

[ice_beard]

I have been paid for my metal detecting services a few times.  It's more of a hobby, but some people are willing to pay for some things to be found.  And of course I do find good targets from time to time that have monetary value. 

[Mike in NH]

Since I FIRE'd and left megacorp last year, I was able to pursue my dream job of becoming a mountain guide. Best kind of job, the one I'd do for free :)

[BlueHouse]

When I reflect on my various side gigs I've had, the most fun ones were paid studies at universities. Especially the ones run by the psychology department, where they would have really terrible undergraduates acting like the study was about one thing when clearly it was about something else. Once I earned $15 as a check in the mail for having a 10-minute phone conversation about my feelings on placenta consumption.

Now that I don't live in town anymore and i have a 1-year-old to take care of, I don't have much time to participate in the local uni studies, but it was pretty easy to make a few bucks each week back when I was in school.

I was the control subject in one of these studies!  It was pretty weird. 

[Mrbeardedbigbucks]

Since I FIRE'd about 2 years ago, I now have a part time job traveling around New England rescuing birds that get trapped in buildings. We live trap and release all of the birds back into the wild (unless they're injured).

I'm also a wedding officiant but I specialize in extreme and unique adventure ceremonies in New Hampshire.