On the Merits of a Part-Time Job
With tax season coming up, I received my W-2 from a part-time job and discovered that I made a total of $2400 as a part-time teacher. I won’t say what I taught or where, as I don’t want to reveal or malign my former employer, but I do want to question the value of a part-time job. Is it worth getting one?
Pros:
- Money: In most people’s lives, more money is better. Any job obviously earns you more money.
- Something to put on the résumé: If you’re self-employed like me, then you really worry about gaps in your résumé. There’s a strong possibility that I’ll want (or more likely, need) a more regular job one day. Plus, any sort of work bolsters your experience and gets your foot in the door.
- Alleviates boredom: This was a huge one for me. Sitting at home all day is a very lonely experience. It’s nice to have an excuse to go outside and deal with other people. Teaching was especially great, since I then had twenty new people to talk to every other day. It certainly beats wasting away in front of a TV.
- Benefits: Depending on where you work, you may be afforded benefits for a part-time job. Starbucks, for example, gives part-time employees health benefits. Elsewhere, you may be able to take advantage of employee discounts, which may be especially useful around the holidays.
Cons:
- Not much money: Most part-time jobs pay rather bad hourly wages. Also, if you already have a full-time job, you’re better off working overtime instead.
- Few advancement opportunities: It seems to me that nearly all part-time jobs are also dead-end jobs. Sure, you may be promoted a little, but you probably won’t be a big shot one day. It seems that full-time jobs are much better for careers.
- Time-inefficient: This is the big deal-breaker for me, which outweighs many of the pros. Part-time jobs are incredibly inefficient unless you schedule them much like full-time jobs. For every shift, you have to expend energy commuting, getting dressed, preparing (definitely the case with teaching), etc. If you’re only working for four hours, is it really worth it to spend one hour unpaid to do all these things? On the other hand, that one hour amortizes much better across a full workday.
- Lack of benefits: Hey, didn’t I just say “benefits” as a pro? Well, most part-time jobs don’t have benefits. You can forget contributing to a 401(k), getting health insurance, etc. at most places.
Of course, these pros and cons vary from job to job, but these pros and cons seem to be fairly consistent for all the part-time jobs I’ve worked over the years. It’s up to the individual to determine the applicability of these criteria for a given job, but I wanted to provide a framework for thinking about the merits of a part-time job.
In general, I try to find work that I can do from the comfort of my own home to avoid costs like commuting, which alleviates the time inefficiency. However, that’s not always feasible, and plenty of time is then wasted searching for work. That’s really fodder for a future blog entry, though.
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