What do you do when the rug gets pulled?

[Jon]

I think another important thing is to let yourself get emotional about it.

I've been fired once before in a normal job. Was literally halled into a room with my then boss and a woman from HR I hadn't seen before and was sacked on the spot.

I bounced back as I got a job as a contractor a few days later but in terms of my confidence it really took a hit. I would second guess my own decisions which is very unlike me.

That soon passed as I saw sense and let things go but if the rug does get pulled out it is OK to feel upset and get upset about it.

Just because it is a work from home job and you never meet any of these people doesn't make it any less harsh when things change

 

[alundra]

I'm really sorry to hear about your job getting ... er, yeah. :-\

 

[Blackpepper1]

I think another important thing is to let yourself get emotional about it.

I've been fired once before in a normal job. Was literally halled into a room with my then boss and a woman from HR I hadn't seen before and was sacked on the spot.

I bounced back as I got a job as a contractor a few days later but in terms of my confidence it really took a hit. I would second guess my own decisions which is very unlike me.

That soon passed as I saw sense and let things go but if the rug does get pulled out it is OK to feel upset and get upset about it.

Just because it is a work from home job and you never meet any of these people doesn't make it any less harsh when things change

True. It is devastating to lose any income whether it is online or offline. Things usually change for the worse rather than for the better unfortunately.

 

[extraJ]

Wow, missed out on the 63336 thing going down Hope you guys find something even better soon

When I lost my first contract gig with Lionbridge, I did feel pretty shell-shocked for a day or two because I'd just started to build up some savings with that job. I lost out on money because it took me a while to get over it and secure another similar job with ABH.

This year I was terminated from Appen butler-hill but didn't feel so down. Difference being that from my previous experience, I figured the important thing is to have an easy backup plan. For me that's mainly writing stuff on Textbroker, or scouting out the freelancer sites if that runs dry. And there's always matched betting too. Both of these things are independent and skill/knowledge based, meaning I don't need to depend on a single company to provide me work. And I can put them aside indefinitely when there's solid contract work, and pick them up again immediately when the good times end! So not feeling like there's a gaping hole in my finances with all my savings pouring out really helped keep spirits up to find more good work.

 

[caledonia1972]

I missed what has been happening with AQA/63336 but gather the whole thing has gone t*ts up. Can't really say I'm surprised - when I worked with them it was before the iPhone and any other smartphone, and the only way to find your last train home or who was at No 1 on a particular date in the 1980s was to text in. Things have changed massively, their business model has not. They tried a massive (very peculiar) illuminati-style advertising campaign a few years ago which bombed massively and funnily enough the marketing manager left shortly afterwards.

Then they had the cheek to terminate me.

it is a massive shock to the system when something you have been doing for years or have been relying on disappears overnight. You have zero comeback, no redundancy pay, and precious little sympathy from a lot of your mates because "it wasn't a proper job anyway".

But you know, looking back, being terminated from AQA was the best thing that ever happened to me in terms of working from home. When I was working with them I was spending evenings and weekends working, then sat twiddling my thumbs during the day as it was so quiet. After being sacked I spent a few days networking and commiserating with several other researchers who were "let go" at the same time. They gave me lots of ideas of other avenues to pursue and I started with writing content for websites, which can be done when I want and leaves evenings free.

The one very valuable lesson which being sacked from AQA is to NEVER keep all your eggs in one basket. Even now (about 4 years after I last worked at AQA) I spread the load, work for several different clients and work through sites like PPH where you can demand a deposit and lessen the risk.

Good luck to everyone in this situation, it's not nice but onwards and upwards.

 

[caledonia1972]

Having read that post back, it's fair to say they probably terminated me for overuse of the word "massive".

Sorry.

 

[Dorual]

Hello,

Just registered here and I was also gutted about what happened I have barely worked because the wind has gone from my sails and it's like I can't be bothered anymore.

I have worked for Lionbridge for the 11 month contract, lined up 63336 for the end of it, and now am having to think of other ideas.

 

[Jon]

We are now a few weeks down the line from the rug getting pulled for most of us so how are we all doing now?

I have settled back into Mystery Shopping (online only except bookies with market force) - Whatusersdo have come through once for me, focus groups seems to be quite a good earner if you can get selected. It pays to be a man sometimes in what is mainly a female environment I would say. I am still doing £20 a day on 63336 so still pulling in £600 from that hopefully a month

I think now enough time has cleared that I can much less in shock and in the 'oh shit what am I going to do now!' mode and in more of the 'well this is the situation, how can I maximise my time'

sometimes you can have you head so deeply rooted into one income stream that when it does get removed it can be a real shock to discover that there are quite a lot of other avenues out there

 

[queen81]

I'm just wandering about in a daze really - got to find an extra 450 quid a month for a bill (over the foreseeable future) and now I'm in panic mode

 

[JennyJack77]

I think now enough time has cleared that I can much less in shock and in the 'oh shit what am I going to do now!' mode and in more of the 'well this is the situation, how can I maximise my time'

sometimes you can have you head so deeply rooted into one income stream that when it does get removed it can be a real shock to discover that there are quite a lot of other avenues out there

Yeah, I definitely feel much less in shock, but part of that is probably because there is actually work coming in at the moment (though my hourly rate remains well below the minimum wage). I was managing to make £20 a day for the first half of the month and I'm now up to £25-£40 so I should make enough to get by this month. A big relief. I also have a few other things in the pipeline, which may or may not come to anything - I'm working on my OU application (closing date 28 Aug), I'm sending off my Appen application tonight (finally - the application form/company research has taken a lot of time to complete, but I need to give it my best shot), and I'm hoping for some Whatusersdo work so I can talk to myself like a loon.

Overall, things in my house/life/mind are much much less panicked than they were on 31 July. But things are far from settled, and if anything positive has come out of this, it's that I need more stability regarding work and more fingers in more pies.

 

[caledonia1972]

Fingers in many pies is definitely the key. This is the one big downside of self-employment - the lack of security. Good luck to everyone searching out new opportunities.

 

[Genie]

I need to get stuck back into it today after my holiday. Bit apprehensive over the policy change. Sadly because of the changes I didn't make the payment threshold for August so will be feeling the pinch a little Also need to get going properly on Roamlr etc once the kids are back at school tomorrow.

 

[Peter0_o36]

Really caught off guard by 63336, and annoyed with myself for not maximising the time I had before the changes.

With my mojo for online earning gone, I accepted a casual temping job alongside my full time job, and my earning have actually improved. In addition I started mystery shopping with a well known fast food restaurant. Commission varies between £4 - £9 in addition to the meal cost, and each assigment takes 15-30 minutes.

I'm still hoping to find a small passive income through blogging but I'm happy for this to be a long term project alongside everything else.... all with the help of TMS community of course!

 

[Jon]

Really caught off guard by 63336, and annoyed with myself for not maximising the time I had before the changes.

With my mojo for online earning gone, I accepted a casual temping job alongside my full time job, and my earning have actually improved. In addition I started mystery shopping with a well known fast food restaurant. Commission varies between £4 - £9 in addition to the meal cost, and each assigment takes 15-30 minutes.

I'm still hoping to find a small passive income through blogging but I'm happy for this to be a long term project alongside everything else.... all with the help of TMS community of course!

You are working a part time job on top of a full time job?

Can I ask how many hours you are working a week generally?

 

[Janine8023]

Really caught off guard by 63336, and annoyed with myself for not maximising the time I had before the changes.

With my mojo for online earning gone, I accepted a casual temping job alongside my full time job, and my earning have actually improved. In addition I started mystery shopping with a well known fast food restaurant. Commission varies between £4 - £9 in addition to the meal cost, and each assigment takes 15-30 minutes.

I'm still hoping to find a small passive income through blogging but I'm happy for this to be a long term project alongside everything else.... all with the help of TMS community of course!

Could I ask, is your mystery shopping with Gapbusters, or is it with another agent, or directly with the fastfood restaurant? Just curious, I've registered with a few and hope to start in a few weeks.

 

[Jon]

Really caught off guard by 63336, and annoyed with myself for not maximising the time I had before the changes.

With my mojo for online earning gone, I accepted a casual temping job alongside my full time job, and my earning have actually improved. In addition I started mystery shopping with a well known fast food restaurant. Commission varies between £4 - £9 in addition to the meal cost, and each assigment takes 15-30 minutes.

I'm still hoping to find a small passive income through blogging but I'm happy for this to be a long term project alongside everything else.... all with the help of TMS community of course!

Could I ask, is your mystery shopping with Gapbusters, or is it with another agent, or directly with the fastfood restaurant? Just curious, I've registered with a few and hope to start in a few weeks.

At a guess it will be gapbusters


Good luck with the mystery shopping, there's tons of opportunity to earn within that whole sector as long as your are willing to be flexible

 

[Janine8023]

Is it worth staring a thread on mystery shopping and how to optimise earnings? If I could do it as a career that's would be amazing, but I'm not sure if that's unrealistic. I'm happy to go from one job to the next through the day, then write up in the evening. But a lot of companies choose who to give tasks to, so there doesn't seem any certainty that you'll win them.

 

[Jon]

Mystery shopping mega thread


http://www.themoneyshed.co.uk/index.php?topic=643.0


People post about their experiences when they start out and everything

 

[Peter0_o36]

It is indeed Gapbusters! I spotted a recommendation on TMS thread on the same subject. The test isn't easy but with some concentration and luck I got through, and I'm now on my fourth assignment. I'll post more on the thread shortly, but in summary there have been four or five opportunities locally each week and I just pick the ones that work well with my temp job (the free fast food isn't too much of a burden either!)

In relation to the temping. My day time role is mon-fri 9-5 and it's straight-forward desk based work. I initially took an evening temp job 8pm-10pm four nights a week but swapped it a fortnight ago for saturdays and sundays 8.30am to 4.30pm. It's customer service/call centre work and I just give a weeks notice when I want to finish. It pays a little over minimum wage but after the rate dropped on the Q&A service I worked out that I'd have to answer at least 20 questions back to back every hour (3 minutes per question?) to earn the same, and there simply weren't that many questions available. No-brainer as Kevin Bacon would say.

I guess a seven day week might sound daunting? To me, right now, I'm just more interested in improving my finances, and I imagine a lot of people reading this forum are trading their spare time for an extra income? Added to which I'm mostly sitting around in two air conditioned offices in the centre of Brum reading a newspaper!

 

[Jon]

More power to ya!!

Great to hear such a hard working attitude

Just don't forget that work life balance