I snort softly and tap it before I can overthink it.
The website loads fast. Clean. No corporate waffle. No smiling stock photos of people pretending to enjoy teamwork. Just text, centred and unapologetic.
Anything you need doing.
Big or small. One-off or ongoing.
Post a task. Set your budget.
Moving house.
Flat-pack furniture.
Dog walking.
Waiting in for a delivery.
Admin.
Inboxes.
Calendars.
Sorting the things you keep not sorting.
Goblins choose the tasks they have the skills for.
You choose who does the work.
No judgement. No obligation. Just jobs.
I flick my thumb again.
Photos this time. Not polished. Not curated. A bloke carrying a sofa up a narrow stairwell. Someone crouched on a floor surrounded by cardboard and Allen keys. A woman walking three dogs that look like they all regret their life choices. Screenshots of inboxes reduced from chaos to zero.
It’s not selling a dream. It’s selling relief.
I press the call button before I can talk myself out of it.
Ivy answers on the third ring. “If this is about ice cream again, I can’t help you.”
“Do you think,” I say, staring at the screen on my phone, “I could be a task-goblin.”
There’s a beat.
Then she laughs, a surprised snort slipping out. “A what?”
“A task-goblin,” I repeat, because apparently I’m committing to this. “It’s an app. People post jobs. Any jobs. Admin. Errands. Flat-pack furniture. Dog walking.Moving house. Literally anything. And you just… accept the ones you know you can do.”
She hums. I can picture her frowning slightly, processing. “And you want to be one of the goblins.”
“Yes.”
“Christa,” she says carefully, “you already do that. They just don’t pay you nearly enough for it.”
“I know,” I say. “That’s the point.”
Another pause. “Are you planning to give up your job?”
