Imagine this.

One tutoring platform has customers paying through the nose, and gives a fixed 1/6 of the proceeds to the tutor. In some cases, a customer can tack on a bonus to a job ad, but those bonuses are rare and don't really correlate with the task they ask of the tutors. (I've seen two ads for Electrical Engineering tutoring... without bonus. Don't fucking tell me that this is the same as tutoring English or French.)

There's a second tutoring platform which gives 3/4 of the proceeds to the tutor. That's if they find a student for you. If *you* bring your student, you get 100% of the money. On this platform, you can negotiate an amount of money with the client.

(If you need help understanding the difference, imagine a job at $90. The first platform would give $15 to the tutor. The second would give $67.50. Notice the difference?)

I'm on both platforms. I have one student on the 2nd platform that nets me the same amount of money as on the first platform. *All* my other students on the 2nd platform net me more money than if I tutored them on the first platform.

The end result is that tutors are inherently motivated on the 2nd platform to get good rates for themselves, and as they get good rates for themselves, the platform also profits. It is a win-win situation.

On the 1st platform, the platform wins, but the tutor loses.

I'm about to leave that first platform, hopefully forever. It stinks. I still have one student there. I plan to break the news to him tomorrow or Friday that he should find himself another tutor.

#tutoring #MakingALiving #MakingALivingWhileAutistic

Another thing I've stopped doing when applying for tutoring jobs is that I no longer try to psychoanalyze the person making the offer.

I used to give a "rebate." If the person asked for $X/h I'd ask for $(X-10)/h. A $10 rebate per hour.

This strategy may have backfired on me. Instead of:

"Yay! I'm getting the same thing for less money."

I might have gotten:

"Why is he charging less? There must be a problem with this person. 😬"

I cannot *prove* this, but people being what they are, I bet this happened.

I now just ask for what they offer. Or I pass if I see a problem.

#tutoring #MakingALiving #MakingALivingWhileAutistic

Musings about tutoring...

I'm finally at the point where I can leave the first tutoring platform I was on. The pay is atrocious on that platform. I'm no longer seeking new clients there. I have one steady client that I intend to see through the end of the semester.

I'm on another platform that pays better. There, the clients can name their price. What I'm discovering is that the clients that name cheap prices don't have a horse in the game. $10/h for tutoring does not cut it. It's not just that this is not enough money. I doubt I'd have a client who cares. Students who don't care are not students I wish to tutor.

#tutoring #MakingALivingWhileAutistic #MakingALiving

My principal sources of income have expiry dates. So I need to find alternative sources of income: writing and tutoring. I prefer writing, but this activity gives me less income than tutoring. So, I write when I can, and mainly tutor in order to provide for my financial security.

I managed to land on a tutoring platform a while back. This platform makes it fairly easy to establish yourself. They looked at my diplomas, and decided that I could teach a whole slew of subjects that are above my pay grade. Yes, I've done algebra and calculus back in my day, but that was **over** 30 years ago. I essentially had to *relearn* all of it in order to tutor it properly.

So I've been making some money from this first platform. The problem though is that the pay is mediocre. I'd need easily to work 66h/week every week to make up for the sources of incomes that I have and have an expiry date.

Not possible. I don't think this is a sane way to live, especially for an #autistic person.

However, I found another platform. This one pays better. I basically set my rate, and they take a cut. I've recently started getting students there, and I make more money from **all** of them than on the first platform.

The only issue with this second platform is that it is harder to get established there. For one thing, they test you in all the subjects you want to tutor in. They don't care about your diplomas. It is not overly hard, but it is a thing nonetheless. I managed to not get 100% on my French test because of an idiotic mistake on my part. I just did not read the question right. Mind you, it is pass/fail and the student never sees your grade, but my mistake still stinks.

It took me a while to realize it, but in order for new tutors to establish themselves they can answer questions, in a Q/A forum. I posted some of my answers there, and that my have helped.

Another factor that I think helped is that I installed this extension:

https://distill.io/apps/web-monitor/

I use it to monitor job offers. I think my offers used to be buried under the others, but with this extension I can make an offer really fast, and stand out from the crowd.

#writing #tutoring #MakingALivingWhileAutistic

"A Michigan computer science major says he sent out 456 internship applications and only got 3 offers"

The kid finally got an offer, but that's after 456 applications.

This kid is the best placed to get a job. He's young. He's naive. However, he has to send 456 applications.

What are my chances? Offices are awful for #autistic people. (Interesting tidbit: I need a couple of naps during the day. I don't know of an office environment that would allow this, and that's only one of my issues.)

Add to this the fact that my experience at this point is both underqualified and overqualified, due to my complex background.

#USNews #NoSatire #JobMarket #MakingALivingWhileAutistic

https://www.businessinsider.com/computer-science-major-applied-to-456-internships-got-three-offers-2024-1

It looks to me like #micropayments are dead. I've seen multiple companies folding (eg. Flattr, which folded in Nov 2023).

I was thinking about it for my blogs, but now...

#blog #Flattr #MakingALiving #MakingALivingWhileAutistic

The Gutter: How To Keep Me Out Of It

Here are the ways you can support me so that I stay out of the gutter.

Please publicize and boost this page. Please also read it to the end. There are various methods for supporting me.

I’ve talked about this earlier, but the way I talked about it was a bit messy. In this page, I aim to explain exactly how you can support me, and what my preferred methods are. I’ve explained the problem in another article, you should read the section titled “The Problem” there.

Let me start with two revelations:

• Some of the methods you can use to support me do not require you to pay anything. You can follow me, and that’s already something. (Please read the article, however, just following me in the fediverse is nice but is the least helpful way you can support me.)
• Do not get trapped in all or nothing thinking. Every little bit you can do to support me counts. If you cannot pay for a subscription on Substack, maybe subscribing on Ko-Fi can do it. Or giving a one time donation. Or publicizing me. Or just following me.

A note about nomenclature: I’m not super happy with this, but on Substack, all of what I’m talking about here has the same basic name: a subscription. However, Substack has free subscriptions, and paid subscriptions. Don’t think that every time I talk about subscriptions on Substack, it involves paying for something.

Now, going in order of my most preferred form of support, to my least preferred. Yes, I do prefer to be paid.

Get A Paid Subscription To My Substack

As we speak, I need roughly 500 more paying subscribers on Substack in order to be able to make ends meet when my disability runs out. A subscription there paid by the month is $5, paid by the year is $50. (Note that this is a bit lower than what Substack suggests as a default.)

Here the link to my English publication there:

https://yourautisticlife.substack.com/

Here is the link to my French publication:

https://votreviedautiste.substack.com/

Unfortunately, the two publications are separate and require separate subscriptions.

The articles I write in French are only available on Substack. Those that I write in English and which are free to everyone are currently reposted to my blog after a week or so. I’m also slowly reposting them on Medium.

Subscribe To My Ko-Fi

If you have an issue with paying Substack, you can still subscribe to me by subscribing to my Ko-Fi. I’ve turned on the monthly subscription there. Subscribing to my Ko-Fi can be cheaper than subscribing to my Substack. You can select the amount of monthly money you are willing to spend. I suggest $3 per month.

While there is no way to transfer a membership on Ko-Fi to a membership on Substack, I plan to copy my paying articles from Substack to Ko-Fi. I have already two such articles here:

https://ko-fi.com/post/My-Sleep-Ritual-J3J8QKV60

https://ko-fi.com/post/Loop-Quiets-Not-Worth-It-For-Me-Also-Loop-Flat-O-C0C4QKWMO

The only thing that a subscription to my Ko-Fi won’t give you relative to Substack is the capability to comment on my Substack articles in Substack. You can comment on my articles in Ko-Fi, however.

Buy My Stuff

If you need it, you can buy a Mastodon login on my own instance.

You can buy a commission on Ko-Fi.

You can also buy some shirts from my Bonfire store. Note that I don’t make a ton of money on those shirts.

Hire Me

I’m available for writing comedy, coaching or tutoring. This is described here. My comedy is available on YouTube.

Publicize Me

Tell other people about my accounts. The more people know about me, the bigger my pool of potential supporters.

Follow Me

If you cannot pay for Substack or Ko-Fi you can still always follow me on Substack (EN/FR) or Ko-Fi. (On Substack, you’d be subscribing, but not paying.)

On YouTube I cannot monetize my channel before getting 500 followers. I also need to get more views of my videos. I hate to ask for this, but if you listed to something there, and you liked it, please give it a like.

You can follow me on Medium too.

Do note that you can always mute me after following, if you think that I generate too many notifications.

I’m going to update this page with new statistics and new methods as they become available.

#MakingALiving #MakingALivingWhileAutistic #YourAutisticLife

https://www.yourautisticlife.com/the-gutter-how-to-keep-me-out-of-it/

(Boosts appreciated.)

Subscribe, Donate, Hire Me Before I End Up In The Ditch

I'm trying to avoid ending up in the ditch, and I need your help for this.

#YourAutisticLife #ActuallyAutistic #AutisticWriters #substack #medium #YouTube #kofi #Bonfire #MakingALivingWhileAutistic #MakingALiving

https://open.substack.com/pub/yourautisticlife/p/subscribe-donate-hire-me-before-i?r=2hhuwi&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

I had a nice chat with my brother. At some point, he was discussing office politics. They've pretty much put him in the same situation he was when he decided to leave his old job.

I told him I don't want to return into an office ever. His talk about office politics only reinforced my resolve.

I expect my brother to be neurodivergent too, probably autistic, like I am, but he's not done the self-examination work yet.

#ActuallyAutistic #work #MakingALivingWhileAutistic