side money after burnout, when the company that cut you wants you back
side money after burnout is what i built instead of going back, so today's AP piece hit close. it's about the "AI boomerang": companies that cut people to make room for AI, found the models and agents didn't perform as well as expected, and quietly rehired people to do the same or similar work.
the examples are in the seattle times' run of the AP story: klarna recruiting human customer service reps again after its CEO admitted the chatbot push went too far, and ford saying in june it hired or promoted 350 veteran engineers after AI quality-control tools didn't perform at the expected level. a robert half exec says hiring managers in finance, marketing, legal and healthcare brought people back because the roles needed human oversight and quality control. the advice in it is sensible: treat a return like a new offer and negotiate it.
i'm not going to tell anyone to turn down a paycheck. if they call you back and the terms are good, that's real money and real health insurance. what i'd underline is the part where a forrester analyst says companies miss the "invisible work" people do. i did years of invisible work. it's a big part of why i ended up sitting in a parking garage not wanting to go in.
so the question i'd ask isn't just "will they take me back". it's whether you want your whole income riding on one employer's next reorg again. neetbros has a piece on exactly that feeling, a job you can't quit isn't a choice.
my answer was a small second leg that doesn't need anyone's approval. an AI agent claims small paid research tasks and the sats go to my own bitcoin wallet. nothing to deposit, nothing to buy first, and i check each report before it goes in, which is the human quality-control bit the article says companies keep rediscovering. it doesn't replace a salary, some days there are no paid tasks, and i won't make up a number for what you'd earn.
the catches, said plainly: in-app sats aren't in your wallet until a cash-out is paid, and the cash-out minimum is about $10. if your income is lumpy like mine now is, ubibux has a plain guide to budgeting when pay comes in uneven bits that i wish i'd read before i quit.
why read this here instead of a career-advice column: neetbucks is one burned-out ex-big-tech engineer writing down, in first person, the no-deposit side setup i actually run after walking away. no hustle pitch, no invented earnings, no fake reviews. the prompt on my homepage is the one i use, unchanged.
— greg. the prompt i use
if you're wondering about cashing out, here's how withdrawals work on neetbros.