Two Chatbots, Questionable Spicy Food Advice, and $60

August of 2025, using ChatGPT, in one chat I searched up two primary things – 1) "I am looking to make some small investments in stocks or funds and I am looking for high and frequent dividends. Do you have any suggestions?" and 2) "I am almost fifty years old. Is it too late to become a voice actor?".

(Now, to be honest, there was another interesting question in this same chat "Does spicy food burn more calories?" - The answer was yes but not by enough to make dent.)

What these two searches reveal in hindsight is the start of the journey I have been on since – finding something to do on the side to add to my retirement.

Intimidated by ChatGPT's 9-Step program and 90 day action plan aimed at becoming a paid voice actor, I decided I needed to look for something a little easier and more immediate.

And so I turned to Google Gemini. In November, after a few months of just direction-less playing with small investments hoping to make a big score that never came, I asked Gemini "I am looking for a work from home side hustle for evenings and weekends...Looking to make maybe a couple hundred dollars a week. Data entry kind of thing would be ok but open to other stuff as well. Do you have any thoughts on what I can get going on pretty quickly without looks [sic] of training or setup cost?" Poor word choice and prompt writing aside, Gemini came back with Clickworker (among a few others that seemed less appealing at the time). So I got the link from Gemini, opened a Clickworker account, and off I went:

I wasn't headed straight for retirement but it was real money for real work and it was the first proof that this whole idea wasn't just another chat search for a spicy food weight loss idea or thoughts on a mid-life crisis voice acting career change. Instead, almost $60 in my first couple weeks doing something I found through Gemini's fourth suggestion, turns out, was the actual answer — I just didn't recognize it as one at the time.