With an insecure and competitive job market, and inflation on the rise, it is not surprising to hear that many young workers choose side hustles as a way to both supplement their incomes and carve out small moments of respite from the chaos.
However, some people choose to have them for reasons entirely different from the usual — as one Bengaluru woman has come to discover.
According to The Times of India, Chaarmika Nagalla, a resident of Bengaluru, posted on LinkedIn about an unusual encounter during her commute. When she booked a bike taxi, the rider greeted her with the familiar corporate phrase, “Am I audible?” — a phrase more commonplace in a Zoom meeting than on the street.
Eventually, she found out that the rider was actually an Infosys employee from the contract management team. Rather than remaining idle on the weekends, he had taken up gig work as a bike taxi driver — not just to earn additional income, but also to motivate himself to get out of bed.
She said that she was in a similar situation at an earlier instance.
Once, when she took an Uber bike, she found her rider dressed in premium gear.
He turned out to be an employee at an event management firm for businesses, who seemed more interested in having conversations with people than earning money.
A similar instance went viral when a Microsoft employee said that he drove an auto-rickshaw on weekends to escape loneliness.
Chaarmika described all of these cases as examples of a developing trend in which gig work is more than just a financial source of income, but also an emotional escape from loneliness.
