If you have an 'easy' flexible job, what is it?

[Anonymous]

Customer success manager for a very easy product.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:It's a weird niche job, but I'm a standardized patient. I'm a lawyer who no longer practices and before I went to law school I was a model/actress and my undergrad is in theater. I did a play about 10 yrs ago and asked the other actors what they do for day jobs in dc and the answer was "We are all standardized patients." I said "What on earth is that?"

Short answer: We pretend to be a patient and med students practice their interview and physical exam skills on us. I can give the longer answer if anyone is interested.

How do you get into this, it sounds so fun. What are the hours like? How much do you make? What type of scenarios do you have to act out?

Yes, another NP here who would LOVE to know how many hours you work and how much you make. Also, what are the requirements to get the job?

Most of us have a background in acting, but not all of us. There are a number of medical schools in this area between DC and Baltimore (GWU, Georgetown, Howard, USUHS, Johns Hopkins, Maryland), and some are easier to get hired into and some are harder. I know that at least one school where I work does audition people who don't necessarily have acting experience. When I heard about it, just googled "standardized patient" and the name of each med school and figured out how to apply to each. It took me a while to get hired, but once I did it was relatively easy to get in at the other schools and I eventually had more work than I can take.

Hours vary a lot, but the folks who work at all of the schools can get close to full time, especially during the fall and spring. It's an academic schedule so I've pretty much had the last three weeks off completely. And I will have very little over the summer. But before the holidays, it was exam season, so I was working 12 to 15 hour days (often going from one school to the next in the same day). But we are recruited for each project so if you don't want to do that, you don't have to. We are recruited separately for each project. You get an email that says something like "We are booking for the Internal Medicine clerkship exam on 1/3, from 9 to 1, with training that morning. Please let me know if you are available." Projects may range from 1/2 a day like that one, to several weeks long. Training is always paid, and for most projects there is a 4 hour training.

SP work doesn't pay a lot, $20 to $30 per hour, depending on the school. But this other thing that a lot of us end up doing -- working as a PETA (physical exam teaching associate) or SPI (standardized patient instructor) which involves learning how to teach med students physical exam maneuvers, pays more. Anywhere from $35 to $50 per hour. There are not as many of those hours available though. But it is extremely rewarding, interesting, and challenging. I'm booked far in advance for teaching for multiple dates throughout the year.

The thing I appreciate most about this is that it is extremely flexible. With all of the prof actors around, people are always having to leave for a show in NY for a few months, and it's fine.

We work in simulation centers, that basically look like a bunch of exam rooms like you would be in at the doctor with an exam table in them, and we pretend to be patients with a variety of ailments. The flu, pancreatitis, appendicitis, depression, migraines, a patient who doesn't want to take their med because of side effects, a patient who gets angry about something, someone who has had a stroke, etc. You name it, we have done it. For extremely emotional cases, like SA or dying of cancer, we are often paid a bit extra. You have to memorize a script. It isnt all verbatim, although a few lines are. But we will have to memorize all of our symptoms, our medical history, family medical history, social history details like where we live, our job, etc. Getting all of the details correct is crucial, because we are often giving the students a clinical exam and we can't mess that up. So a good memory and attention to detail is essential. We also grad them -- which is the hard part. Pretending to be sick and spitting out the stuff you memorized from the script is pretty easy, but grading them can be challenging and tax your brain a bit. We fill out checklists after we see the student, which is basically "done" or "not done" for stuff like "listened to my heart in four locations" and "asked about family history" and "asked me to put pain on scale of 1-10" ... so it isn't really that complicated. But remembering what the student did and didn't do can be very challenging when you have already seen 9 other students do the exact same thing and you have been there 10 hours and the checklist has 20 items on it. That's the hard part, and you have to get it right. Med students are pretty serious about their grades being accurate (as they should be). Also, we sometimes provide face to face feedback to the students afterwards.

My coworkers are amazing. The students are a joy. It's a great job. You won't get rich doing it, or even pay huge DC area bills. But if you are looking for something easy and flexible and don't need full time or to make a huge amount of money, this is a really rewarding and fun job. I'd still do it if I won the lottery, let's put it that way.

Thank you so much for explaining so thoroughly! It sounds fun.

Yes, NP also thanking you - I’ve seen you mention this on other threads but I’m glad someone finally asked for details.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:There are three of us.

Make that four now

Five. People occasionally mistake me for a SAHM but I’m a maxed, non-supervisory Fed in a very niche field. And I’m very grateful.

But you sign a time sheet for 40 hours a week?

NP here. I think they hit or max a production quota and don’t worry about hours

That’s only relevant to PTO jobs. Other Fed jobs are not comped that way.

Pardon me, but you are ignorant. there are many fed decision writing jobs that are on production (maybe all of them?) - have you not read the many pages long thread about BVA? What about SSA? Any agency that provides written decisions/guidance/private letter rulings/benefits determinations, etc. Something similar is to use “metrics” and there are many jobs that use those to establish a quota of work to be done.

Seems like most fed attorney jobs are either deadline driven or production/metric driven. Though not sure regulatory attorneys, once there is a NPRM there are deadlines and comments but up until that point, dunno, maybe lots of meetings?

[Anonymous]

I’m an accountant with many years of experience at my company. I know exactly what needs to be done, who to suck up to, and who I can ignore. I don’t spin my wheels and I don’t do extra work that isn’t necessary. I’ve built up enough goodwill at this point that I can make my own hours as long as I am reasonably responsive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are three of us.

Make that four now

Five. People occasionally mistake me for a SAHM but I’m a maxed, non-supervisory Fed in a very niche field. And I’m very grateful.

But you sign a time sheet for 40 hours a week?

NP here. I think they hit or max a production quota and don’t worry about hours

That’s only relevant to PTO jobs. Other Fed jobs are not comped that way.

Pardon me, but you are ignorant. there are many fed decision writing jobs that are on production (maybe all of them?) - have you not read the many pages long thread about BVA? What about SSA? Any agency that provides written decisions/guidance/private letter rulings/benefits determinations, etc. Something similar is to use “metrics” and there are many jobs that use those to establish a quota of work to be done.

PTO has a defined quota system and you are fired if not meeting it with an established set of standards. You are describing an adhoc quota for you supervisors metrics. Different things.

[Anonymous]

The gold standard is Navy Federal - 1 hour a day on average with a max of 3 hours on one of the days of week.

IRS - Employee or contractor, about 2-3 hours a day of work on average.

[Anonymous]

University Administrator. Since Covid, I mostly WFH and work about 3 or 4 hours a week. Make $100K A year with lots of benefits including nearly free tuition for my family and me. Private U.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a federal contractor doing IT. I am a project manager for a Web development team of 8 people. I am 100% remote and it pays very well.

We are an agile team and work very well together. I also have a very awesome supportive government task manager.

I work about 4-6 hours/day. I am very organized and respect my team. I don’t micromanage and everyone works hard and gets their work done efficiently. We have process in place and it’s awesome. I can honestly say, I love my job and very fortunate. I have great work life balance and always have time for my kids and family.

Most federal contracts are cost-plus with billable hours. Are you lying about your hours or actually part time?

Different poster, but I work for a multibillion Fed IT contractor and we have very few cost + contracts. I work in internal finance and have visibility to hundreds of contracts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:University Administrator. Since Covid, I mostly WFH and work about 3 or 4 hours a week. Make $100K A year with lots of benefits including nearly free tuition for my family and me. Private U.

And people are paying how much in tuition for this university?

I’m wondering if tuition can go down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I won’t tell you, because it’s 100% telework, federal government, great pay, and fascinating work. I’m really good at it, my work product is superlative, I essentially make my own hours, and there are many days when I can sleep in or work just an hour or two.

I recognize this one. Federal financial regulator. Probably an attorney.

Nope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's a weird niche job, but I'm a standardized patient. I'm a lawyer who no longer practices and before I went to law school I was a model/actress and my undergrad is in theater. I did a play about 10 yrs ago and asked the other actors what they do for day jobs in dc and the answer was "We are all standardized patients." I said "What on earth is that?"

Short answer: We pretend to be a patient and med students practice their interview and physical exam skills on us. I can give the longer answer if anyone is interested.

Does this mean you have to let them touch you and examine your body?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a federal contractor doing IT. I am a project manager for a Web development team of 8 people. I am 100% remote and it pays very well.

We are an agile team and work very well together. I also have a very awesome supportive government task manager.

I work about 4-6 hours/day. I am very organized and respect my team. I don’t micromanage and everyone works hard and gets their work done efficiently. We have process in place and it’s awesome. I can honestly say, I love my job and very fortunate. I have great work life balance and always have time for my kids and family.

Most federal contracts are cost-plus with billable hours. Are you lying about your hours or actually part time?

Different poster, but I work for a multibillion Fed IT contractor and we have very few cost + contracts. I work in internal finance and have visibility to hundreds of contracts.

So these contracts have no billable hours, they are fixed price for hard deliverables like a website uptime?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I won’t tell you, because it’s 100% telework, federal government, great pay, and fascinating work. I’m really good at it, my work product is superlative, I essentially make my own hours, and there are many days when I can sleep in or work just an hour or two.

I recognize this one. Federal financial regulator. Probably an attorney.

All the Financial regulators are RTO

Not really. Look at their recent job descriptions. Max is 2x/week, but many are something like 6x/month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I won’t tell you, because it’s 100% telework, federal government, great pay, and fascinating work. I’m really good at it, my work product is superlative, I essentially make my own hours, and there are many days when I can sleep in or work just an hour or two.

I recognize this one. Federal financial regulator. Probably an attorney.

All the Financial regulators are RTO

Not really. Look at their recent job descriptions. Max is 2x/week, but many are something like 6x/month.

And none are 100% telework, and the 6x are for roles that travel a lot. Hence why PP was wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's a weird niche job, but I'm a standardized patient. I'm a lawyer who no longer practices and before I went to law school I was a model/actress and my undergrad is in theater. I did a play about 10 yrs ago and asked the other actors what they do for day jobs in dc and the answer was "We are all standardized patients." I said "What on earth is that?"

Short answer: We pretend to be a patient and med students practice their interview and physical exam skills on us. I can give the longer answer if anyone is interested.

Me, too. Fellow SP. Medical background. It’s not easy, though, requires a lot of prep and study. But I love it.