Venting and working from home, SOS

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Permalink Reply by Buddy on June 25, 2009 at 12:57pm

Hi Mike,

I know your pain, I used to work a job such as your with 60 to 70 hours per work week, I also didn't have many friends, but I'm not going to call you a loser, I don't have any information on work from home, just wanted to post to let you know, there are others whom feel your pain.

--Buddy

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Permalink Reply by J. P. M. on June 28, 2009 at 3:40pm

Have you thought about the possibility of a job that allows for flex-time? Maybe you don't need to throw in the towel on the office job completely - but rather find a job that allows you to work part time from home, or accumulate hours in one season to reduce the amount of time you work during another. It depends a lot on what industry you're in - but I'm currently in the process of transitioning to working at home, and those were a couple of things I considered...

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Permalink Reply by Dana on July 3, 2009 at 6:08am

I work from home. My experience with it is that if you have a regular job that allows telecommuting or flex time, great. If you have a job where you have to chase work and it comes in projects, then half the time you have nothing to do and are stressed about paying the bills, while the rest of the time you are working under the gun to the point where you see even less of your family than you would if you were going to the office (I'm talking about 80 to 100 hour weeks here for up to 6 weeks at a time, then a few weeks of nothing, rinse and repeat). The reason I do it is that a) I'm a consultant, and that's how consulting works even if you are in an office and b) I'm writing a book and need those empty weeks, which an office job wouldn't give me. However, a better solution for you might be a temping agency. My mother earned fairly decent money that way and was able to manage her hours better than when she had a full-time job. Later, when the kids were older, she was able to turn the skills she got temping into a reasonable job and climb the ladder in her new career to lower-level management. It's not the same as if she'd stayed in one field all her life, but it gave her the flexibility she needed when she needed it and an ok income, if not spectacular.

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Permalink Reply by Hugo Haruo Chikamori on July 4, 2009 at 9:53pm

I'm running my own photography business from home. But I'm ball & chained to my kids' schedules. It's gonna be tough to find a way to create a hospitality "work-from-home" business.

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Permalink Reply by Rob on July 20, 2009 at 3:14pm

Ugh man do I know that feeling, I was working in the restaurant biz when my kiddo was born. I was the primary caregiver and general housekeeper as well while my wife finished her degree. It was tough and I did feel like I missed out on a lot, but the thing is just try to keep your chin up which is hard when you have to deal with this stuff alone( read: no friend circle) I lost my circle of friends as they were all partiers and once my kiddo was born I didn't really have time nor did I want to be a part of that scene anymore, so I was on my own as well.

As for working from home, what are your skills? Maybe you can just find another position elsewhere doing what you are now with less stress, or perhaps more pay so you can work less hours. What I did for a while was actually turn my main job into a part time gig since it was stressing me out and found another part time gig in something I enjoyed. That worked pretty well, we had less income because of it but I was overall happier. It's always tough when you are used to a certain level income or perhaps just comfortable in your position, in that you can do it in your sleep, that was my problem initially when I realized I was so unhappy.

As for working at home I used to have a link for some legit work at home solutions and I'll root around for it. If you really want to look at working from home or starting a business so you can enjoy that perk of being around more, hopefully, I would suggest looking at local small business advocacy groups. You can even be a reviewer for Google if you have any kind of degree, it's a temp job, but it doesn't seem like bad pay, I don't have a degree so I was turned down. Overall, just find what makes you happy and see if you can sqeak a few bucks out of it, even if it requires a complete career change.

Hope that helps man, and I feel your pain

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