Working from Home

[BACKS]

Interested to see if anyone has any success stories or nightmare stories about working at home. I do not have a degree nor do I have any intentions of getting one and have a little one to look after. I would also appreciate at tips or referrals!

[Lenonis]

Interested to see if anyone has any success stories or nightmare stories about working at home. I do not have a degree nor do I have any intentions of getting one and have a little one to look after. I would also appreciate at tips or referrals!

You are talking about being one of these independent marketers...like a tupperware party person, or something like that right?

As opposed to getting a job with a company who lets you work from home.

If you are talking about the former -- all I can say, is you won't make nearly as much money as they say you can. It's not exactly a scam, but it's not easy to make a living wage off of that type of work.

[Tradewind]

Get a camera, learn to use GIMP, be a photographer.

[Kujako]

I work from home, this about sums it up.

[Raptor With a Saber]

I worked from home for a hospital for a few years. Just gotta find a place that will let you do it hospitals and other large companies usually do. I was a billings person.

[fullyfocused]

I've worked from home since '06. Some good & bad stories, but its just like a job. Do you stop looking for something you like, if the 1st job doesn't work out? So, find things that you may have interest in & are passionate about & make it happen. If you want more info on what has worked for me email me at fullyfocused2012 at gmail.com

[a21fa7c67f26f6d49a20c2c51]

I write software from home (you'd probably need to go to college and then get some experience as a programmer for that kind of work). I took the job as a short-term 9-5 office job thing and they didn't want me to leave so they offered to make me hourly and let me pick how/when/if much I worked.

Typically I'll go in once a week to an office/factory (there are half a dozen around the US/Canada) to have a meeting, run tests on physical hardware, or shuffle the papers on my desk. Roughly once a month I'll have a meeting with my boss and let him know what's going on, what resources I need, etc. and get some feed back on how things are going. The rest of the time I work from wherever the heck I want. There's no good reason for me to show up anywhere unless I'm deploying software to a device where you need a screwdriver to install it or I need to talk to someone (phone meetings rarely work so face-to-face is the norm). Roughly 75% of my work days are spent either in bed, at a coffee shop/pub, or sitting by the fireplace. The other 25% is split between deploying stuff, meetings, and traveling to meetings (which may be several hundred kilometers away).

During the summers I put in a regular 35-ish hour week and during the school year I cut bac kto something like 12-20 hours a week (I'm working on another degree so I can't do a regular office job). Once you get past the wanking stage it's a pretty good deal. For me it turned a ~2 hour round-trip commute to the university + gaps between classes into a good way to support an 'adult' lifestyle while still school.

[Rucati]

I work from home, it's not bad. You just have to have the responsibility to actually get work done, which when you work from home and make your own hours can be a bit harder than you'd originally think. "Oh, yeah I have to do this, but I can do it in a couple hours, no big deal" etc.

That being said, there are only a handful of jobs you can do from home and actually make a decent income. If you're going to try selling Avon or something from home you aren't going to make a living doing it, you'll have to work for a company. There are a lot of companies that allow you to work from home though, you just have to find them.

[Spectral]

I wrote my thesis mostly from my apartment. I probably took longer than I should have. Meh.

[Kujako]

(you'd probably need to go to college and then get some experience as a programmer for that kind of work)

I do the same, and aint got none o that book learnen.

[Mormolyce]

Good work if you can get it. And are more disciplined than I am :P

Once you get past the wanking stage it's a pretty good deal.

Haha, I was wondering how long it'd be until someone linked that.

[belfpala]

I can do most of my work home now... but I own/run my own business and mostly I'd rather look at spreadsheets and make phone calls in my underwear (see comic posted above).

As for entry level positions that might let you work from home... I know a few people who worked for an insurance company who were able to do that. Worth looking at anyway. Shitty boring work, imo, basically just coding claims.

[obdigore]

Medical Transcription Encoding or w/e its called... you pretty much translate prescriptions by doctors into actual reality for insurance companies. You can get a certificate in a couple weeks and then look for jobs doing it. One of my friends wives does it while she takes care of their kids at home while he is at work.

[Djuntas]

My dad's girlfiend, on her side, has family working as a webpage developer. I think hes a freelancer. Belive he mostly, if not always, works at home - Not really sure.

So basicly, if you can find a job that has anything to do with IT, maybe a slight chance?

[Ashnazg]

I work in a legal IT field and I have the option of working from home if I choose.

I prefer to be in the office because I like the company of my officemates though.

I'd say generally if you work in IT field, you can either work from home now, or will have that option in the near future.