Before I began courses at El Camino College, I rode a bike for instant cash.

I had no expectations aside from awesome descents.

As time passed, education became so ridiculously available to the average gig worker that I managed to turn an at-home course into years of delivering for Uber by bicycle.

Now, cycling is not a passion of mine.

I have to work to afford education, but freelance participation in the workforce rose is creating a globalized workforce from delivery tasks through apps including Fiverr, Gigster and TaskRabbit.

The freelance market has grown to $8.9 billion this year, according to market research publisher Mordor Intelligence.

This line of work allows cyclists to monetize their schedules, increase their earning potential, specialize into their chosen fields and be socially attractive pedestrians.

Alongside “instant cash” is an education subsidy. On the rideshare platform Uber, Arizona State University provides certificates in downtown Los Angeles and online.

In 2023, ASU merged with the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising above Grand Hope Park.

I like watching passersby below the ASU FIDM. Uber drivers wait on 9th Street while delivery people rest on the park lawn.

Contractors in the 100-point gold status are offered free tuition for certification in specialized skills across categories of technology and labor.

In 2024, ASU used Instagram to present the first 1,100 drivers who received degrees since their 2018 program launch, cementing great examples for flexible schedules and constant internet connections.

Mobile applications weren’t the only businesses interested in reeducating the workforce.

During the end of the COVID pandemic in 2023, I visited the career center in Compton to apply for skill grants to get American workers back into the workforce.

Shockingly, few people were able to access worker benefits like unemployment or healthcare. They needed reeducation — without a union, they had none of the hard fought protections of previous generations.

The career center grant allowed me an information technology certificate from Loyola Marymount University’s extension program for a forgivable amount of $4,500.

Besides enrollment in CalFresh, I had to find a job to complete the grant.

My IT certificate, verified by LMU’s credential verification services, returned me to a fixed work schedule.

This time I was a cyclist with a startup that served groceries, convenience goods with Uber and rented out three-wheeled electric cars in Culver City. The startup provided a 1,000-watt electric bicycle with a 200-pound grocery trailer designed in the USA and built in China.

After my years of circling L.A., Orange and Santa Barbara counties by myself, my office-bound cycling partner was a young woman from a temp agency.

We practiced cycling, loaded the trailer, and repeated routes for six weeks. One day she stopped clocking in.

I loaded her trailer to find that it made a metallic screech when stopping.

After a layman’s inspection, I assumed it was struck by a car, crumpled at one end and bent at the hitch.

No employee was willing to say what happened to her or her e-bike. I had no way of confirming her status.

The thought of this scenario among a team of daily drivers was unacceptable and I left the job to again be an Uber delivery person.

In contrast to the misfortune of my temp agency partner was the delivery van department’s most handsome man, a young Greek thinker who really did have an athletic silhouette and striking face.

His being gorgeous was not my opinion, but the daily commentary of a talkative coworker that kept said Greek man handsome in purview.

One fateful day, after he took on cycling duties for my sick day, a Greek mother called the offices and demanded to find out his arrival and have him return to her home to marry her daughter, or so we thought.

After weeks of persuasion, the males were hoping for conspiring mothers to sweep us all away.

The team had never received a complaint, let alone threats of marriage.

The office number wasn’t listed on the grocery app. When asked what all the commotion was about, the office team exclaimed in jest to management that a 60-year-old woman tracked the team’s most handsome member and married him off on-demand.

Gig platforms have become an earnings medium in a modern twist to something very old.

Yet, contractors incapable of keeping accounts will quickly find out no amount of work — flexible or scheduled by algorithm — is enough.

When I received my middle class, brown bear print, pandemic stimulus debit card, I gave up the $300 to a childhood friend’s wife, so I could live with her elderly father.

He shared his memories of cycling throughout his youth and wanting to have won a living by bike.

He dusted off his photo albums from the 70’s showing off his collection of triathlete bikes meant for daily use and photos of himself — youthful, with friends and a young wife.

He and I lived together with his eldest daughter in a tributary row house next to a concrete bottom creek bed.

The area was rife with crime, but who could care with rent under $1,000? He had achieved generations of family and was cared for by his children.

Over 50 years later from the dreamlike photo albums of sport and livelihood in mind, gig workers have built their families with small engines and foot pedals.

In 2021, the United Nations Capital Development Fund published a financial Health survey of Southeast Asian app Grab with around 14,762 of their drivers.

Findings state that gig workers around the globe are lacking in financial literacy, the union benefits of their employed counterparts and the social support of their communities.

The growing economy of gig work is appropriate for low-income anything, intense corporate ventures, conflicts with government and trillions of dollars of international exchange.

All of the digital barriers — every agreement, every task, every risk — happened by cell phone. A “fast-paced” slalom of processed foods and workers batching orders for millions of people across multiple countries.

Algorithms should be used to schedule society at exchange. Gigs show what kind of jobs should really be looked into, where money must be earned and how daily earnings can become better — not just for workers, but for students across the globe.