The Luck Economy

Photo credit: she’s_so_high, CC BY 2.0.
My computer’s webcam sat neglected until earlier this year when I rearranged lights in my dark room and hastily told it a story about a public pie fight I did at a clown college. The intended recipient of this tale was a strange tech guru looking for roommates that could provide a “New York experience” in exchange for free housing. It was a slapdash but devoted attempt borne of my ever-expanding email subscriptions that I hawkishly watch for keywords like “win.” Tech overlords who have replaced stable jobs with contract positions celebrate the new possibilities of “the gig economy”, but many people have quickly discovered that even gigging doesn’t fill the gaps—instead, we find ourselves in a luck economy.
For the last few years I have worked two, three, and sometimes more jobs simultaneously to get by on minimum wage. One overnight club job overlapped with an early-opening juice bar, with not enough time to go home in between. If I was lucky I’d sneak into the back and snuggle through a coat rack to snooze on the soft pile behind it. If I was unlucky I’d have a seat on some less-trafficked sidewalk or subway station and drift into the awkward half-sleep of vigilance.
The allure of some better life has certainly prompted me to invest in training, and I hold serious-sounding certificates that sit in waiting for their glorious debut. But the problem still remained of surviving in the meantime when even my multitude of jobs weren’t paying enough to cover all the costs of living. Working full-time hours precludes finding more work, so only tasks that could be found for the few untouched hours in the week held water.
I turned to the gig economy and the idea of side hustles, but quickly found most options weren’t viable. Delivery and driver options are out when a vehicle and driver education cost thousands of dollars (a potential contributor to the fact that the percentage of driving Americans is steadily decreasing). I tried an app that bet on my health and added five mile walks into my workday in exchange for a few dollars a week, but glitches quickly ransacked my connected bank account. Countless hours have been spent filling out online surveys that didn’t pay out correctly, and further researching those that might. Pennysaver blogs inevitably offer the same pieces of advice that I don’t have the means to follow, like buying higher-quality or bulk items.
In this environment, contests are just another form of hope.
These take the form of basic email prompts for entry in a sweepstakes, to creation of essays and art projects that take hours or days. Knowing the razor-thin margins of my budget, I have entered contests for what I can’t cover and beyond, both necessities and occasionally luxuries. My name is attached to entries for: money, gift cards, clothing, publication, vacation, mentorship, millionaire housing, subsidized housing, magazines, appliances, chances to interview with CEOs, and meetings with celebrities (maybe they can help me network). There is never money spent on these and it isn’t a compulsion or something I worry about missing—instead, it’s a renewed attention to the email I would get anyway.
Not only have I filled out a number of forms, I have written poems (bolstered by my winning a prize for poetry in the past), designed a scarf (bolstered by nothing at all), written essays I was passionate about, written essays I was clueless about, tried to figure out how to save the world, conceptualized posters and campaigns, and taped myself talking about a pie fight. When there’s a potential reward, writing for a prompt can easily be encouraged as an opportunity to build a portfolio and fill time with something that feels productive.
However, as much as I try to relish the idea that my brain can be juiced instead of waiting for inspiration, enthusiasm fades as it lingers in the back of my mind that this isn’t so optional. Writing contests that have ostensibly been entered as resume boosters instead ended up paying for a week of groceries; entering my name into a form has brought some of my only big nights out. While I shudder to think how much my contact information has been potentially sold, the promise of a big breakthrough or help getting a step up keeps me coming back.
Luck is an interesting concept. University of Hertfordshire psychology professor Richard Wiseman has made a career studying it, and has come to the conclusion that people can boost their luck using a few principles. A big habit he encourages is “maximizing opportunities,” and this is part of why I keep entering contests even as individual probability rates run low. I haven’t gone out of my way to analyze statistics about sweepstakes, but I figure the least I can do is create as much opportunity as I can to win them and hope that the luck meets me halfway. On the other end of the spectrum are results from the Pew Research Center demonstrating that wealthy people overwhelmingly disbelieve in luck and instead attribute their success predominantly to their own hard work. Without these green-colored glasses, it’s easier to scoff at effort being the sole determining factor of success.
The gig economy exploded in the beginning, but it’s quickly stalling out. While the concept of making your own hours was appealing, companies failed to provide the support necessary for contractors and a huge chunk of them faced labor law violations. Even those that didn’t outright break laws failed to live up to economic feasibility. This summer the internet was shocked at the intellectual disconnect when rideshare company Lyft made a boastful blog post (which it has since deleted) congratulating the work ethic of a driver who had finished one more ride even as she went into labor. Considering the average Lyft fare is around $12, many people were understandably uncomfortable that a working woman at the end of a pregnancy wanted to go for it. With these kinds of options saturating the gig economy marketplace, it’s tempting to look for any ideas that may have otherwise fallen through the cracks.
So, at the end of the day, I continue my job search—but also keep my ears perked for any non-conventional opportunities to pick up something extra. So far my success rate is small but tangible, and the little victories encourage me to continue. After all, Wiseman describes “expecting to be lucky” as a beneficial trait. By maximizing my opportunities through contests and trying to extend that philosophy to everything else about the search for a career, I’ve developed enough changes to start to turn my own luck around. Wiseman also encourages keeping a positive attitude, so I do what I can. I remind myself that I no longer sleep on sidewalks after work, and that’s a great start.
Alison is a part-time New Yorker, semi-retired sideshow performer, and developing techie and trainer. She tweets at @AlCheevers.
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