Welcome to the Gig Economy?

I'm new to this, driving Uber as a hustle to make a living. Can't tell if it's a permanent career change or a bridge to something else. A passenger who formerly drove Uber grumbled that "Uber doesn't pay shit." This might turn out to be the case, but it pays a lot more than wondering why my resumé isn't generating a bunch of job interviews.

I'm a graphic designer by trade the past 30 years or so. There's tons of jobs advertised for that, and while I don't have a degree, three decades of work experience should make up for that. I've had a few applications rejected flat out for my lack of formal education, and a couple of times in the past when I've been looking I've found I can't get interviews at Hallmark, for instance, simply for lack of a degree. But all 30 of those years were in one way or another in the print industry. It's great to have mad chops at something, but the contraction of print is pretty profound.

I can't find the exact stats at the moment, but I've heard numbers like 10,000 print shops have folded in the past decade or so. The aforementioned Hallmark just laid off hundreds of people. If 10,000 shops that had a clown like me closed their doors, that's a lot of clowns packed into the clown car; I might know a bit of CSS and HTML, but you wouldn't know it from my CV. I'm 50 years old and have mainly worked with print so I look like a relic. I made good money at my last job for almost 13 years, so I certainly don't look like a bargain.

And driving Uber certainly gives me the flexibility to take on classes to update that skillset. Or to make a total career change. We'll see. If I took some classes to become a full stack developer I could probably get a pretty plum job, but I don't think that's where my passions lie. The trouble with my passions being they tend to be as commercially viable as Confederate bonds. Still photography? Classic rock cover band guitarist? Author of the Great American Novel? Stop me when I get to something that pays more than manning a Burger King drive thru.

Which is also where this Uber thing comes in. I can't tell for sure if it pays, on net (after taxes, wear and tear on my mirthmobile, etc.) enough to be better than that BK drive thru gig, but I'm giving it a try.

I like people, and despite the apparent computer oriented nature of my career, I think I enjoyed the clients as much or more than the actual work. Driving the Uber thing, I think get a CDL and go over the road. My kids are grown, truckers make more than I've ever made in my life, and if you get into some audio books or whatever, the hours can slip away pretty quickly. I could do that, but I think the personal interaction part of Uber is far more appealing than the driving part.

This isn't my first rodeo as a blogger, I had a 15 year or so run with another blog that I've decided for a multitude of reasons to segregate from this one.

I have a couple of other sidelines, teaching guitar lessons, freelance graphic design, and ideas for others, making hand built tube amps and/or boutique guitar pedals; brokering/dealing in instruments and equipment (I occasionally see things on FaceBook's Marketplace that are way under market, theoretically I can buy that stuff and sell it at market on Reverb and make a profit). I think I may have reached a point where two to four sidelines may need to become the main line. Hence my foray into the Gig Economy for what it's worth.