Disclaimer: I’ve experienced this with Upwork but this is applicable to all gig job sites.
I tried to get a job in UpWork to make extra money. The software job, took me a around a week to complete, 4 hours a day after office hours.
I thought, it will be a stable source of income, but after the initial job, nothing followed.
So, I thought, ok that was just a quick buck and so I just moved on.
After a month, the client started to complain about a problem, it turned out that he had asked someone to take over my work but couldn’t figure out. So I fixed it in an hour and got paid.
Then next week he asked me to look into another thing, but this time some other person did something and he wants me to integrate my work.
Long story short, it became an on-call support arrangement and I got paid on the actual hours of work, which is 1-2 hours per week. If it’s my only job, I wouldn’t mind getting paid even if it’s for 1-2 hours, but the client knows I have a day job.
And, so I tried to quit and close my account all together, but the client kept on asking me to solve some problem, when I already told him, it was because of something else.
Now, to get out of the deal, I just gave up and planning on giving his money back.
Lessons:
If you are looking for a side gig to earn extra money using these online gig websites, it will cause more time and stress than your day job.
I think because employers here don’t have enough cash, they will squeeze you for every penny that they pay you.