Who Here Works Remote At-Home Jobs? Looking for Advice.

[pershing]

Hello,

I am trying to find a good remote job. My life is changing from a traditional job due to my elderly mother and an autistic son who is aging out of the school system next year. My mother is in pretty good shape, but I see a time when someone will have to move in.

Who here works remotely? What do you do? How do you like it? What was your experience/journey in applying for online jobs?

Right now, I'm working for low level transcription companies. As you can imagine, this is not making me happy or any money to pay the mortgage.

I'm applying to various companies blindly from a famous online employment website, but I feel as if there might be a better way. I'm looking for advice on what path to take.

I don't have a landline and I know that is holding me back. I'm not ready to add a bill until I have to, and traditional landlines are more expensive than I remember. VOIP is cheaper in my area. I'm sure that's common.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

[TJsMomSarahJane]

My wife and I both work from home. She works remotely for the company she used to work for in-house. This was the easier of the two of us as it was mostly just a location change.

I am a self employed independent contractor - I left my old office job for good when it was time for me to go back to work after having our son. My process was first joining freelancing sites like Upwork, mostly to build a portfolio for myself as I was doing content writing and articles. Once I had a solid foundation of work and found niches that were in demand, I was able to up my prices beyond the pennies-per-word to a more reasonable rate. After that, I was hired independently from the freelancing sites and taken on for longer term contracts for the companies that found me on Upworks. My area of work has a lot of conferences and social type meetups, and going to those helped me network and move higher up the ladders.

Going on eight years now, and paying the household bills off my income alone. It took around six months to get to a comfortable part time wage, with me transitioning to more full time hours when the kiddo started Kindergarten last year. I don't have a landline - I use Skype and my cell phone for communication with clients.

 

[osopecoso]

I work from home. I am a software developer and scrum master for an EHR.

Working from home has its advantages and disadvantages. You can save a lot by wirking from home by saving on gas, tolls, etc but has its disadvantages with more distractions at home, isolation, seperating home from work life. I also travel about 2 weeks out of the month. About 2 days a month I go I not office for meetings, updates, etc. also working from home means you need to learn self discipline. Sometimes I catch myself spacing out, fixing something in home, chatting with neighbor.

What is wrong with not having a landline. Many people have ditched the landline for cell phones only. We have not had a landline in many years. We only have iPhones and my work provides me with a voip. You do need a good ISP with unlimited bandwidth.

 

[Luv Bunnies]

Unfortunately, I don't think it's very easy to find a legitimate work at home job. It's not impossible, but if you need to make enough to pay a mortgage and support a family it will be challenging. Be very careful with any of the "employment" sites that require a payment upfront. A legitimate company will not make you pay a fee to apply.

I worked at home many years ago, but I worked for the same company in the office for eight years before that. I have two kids and my oldest is also autistic. Even though I only worked part time, going into the office several times a week was becoming difficult. I worked in HR at the time. I wrote a proposal to my boss to work 20 hours a week from home and come in once a week for a department meeting. I outlined which tasks and projects I thought I could do efficiently from home, and listed which times I would be available to work and respond to emails and phone calls. I did this for about two years until I decided to take a job with our local school district.

For me, working from home was a bit of a challenge. I tried to schedule my work time around my oldest son's preschool schedule and my youngest son's nap time. My dad was happy to come by during the week and hang out with the boys while I worked in the den. Sometimes he would take one or both back to his house and he and my mom would take care of them until I picked them up. Some days, it would be very easy to find something else to do and put off working. Sometimes I would log on and keep up with email but not get much project work done. If I was at the office I would have had more concentrated time to keep up with the longer-term work.

If you are working currently, would it be a possibility to work from home for the same company? Most people I know who work from home were already established with their company before going the at-home route. Good luck!

 

[AquamarineSteph]

What is wrong with not having a landline. Many people have ditched the landline for cell phones only. We have not had a landline in many years. We only have iPhones and my work provides me with a voip. You do need a good ISP with unlimited bandwidth.

A good friend of mine was looking at doing work from home with a very reputable local company. Unfortunately, they would not even consent to an interview without confirmation of a land line.

 

[HopperFan]

Look this site, they may have some good ideas for you.

The Penny Hoarder
https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/make-money/jobs/disney-hiring-work-from-home-reps/

The Penny Hoarder Jobs Page
https://www.facebook.com/ThePennyHoarderJobs/?fref=ts

 

[supersnoop]

Do you have any specific skills or training? Find a job that wants you, and make your situation a condition of employment. Lots of jobs can be done from a desk in your own home these days.

 

[Princess Minnie321]

I also work from home, but it is with the company I have been with for 15 years. I transitioned to work from home when I had my first child. My company provides me with a voip phone. I have a high bandwidth for my internet that I pay for.

If you are looking for a cheap landline, try google voice. We cancelled our landline and got this over 2 years ago and it works perfectly. We paid about $50 for the box that our phone connects into and all calls are free in the US. The only fee we pay is $15 per year so we can make 911 calls with it.

 

[kathy884]

If you are working currently, would it be a possibility to work from home for the same company? Most people I know who work from home were already established with their company before going the at-home route. Good luck!

This is the situation at our company. I'm an IT Analyst. I don't work from home except on an exception basis (e.g. Monday, I have a crew coming out to replace a chain link fence on one side of our yard -- neighbor's tree dented it and the crew needs a walk thru at 7 a.m. and someone else to walk thru, signoff, and pay when the work is complete. In my family that's me as I have the option to work from home when I want.) We have many who work two days a week from home. That is what is typically offered to employees in my department who are experienced and have proven themselves. When we were short on office space, we had a few start full time at home (They were asked if they would be willing to do this). And when we had some experienced / good people move two hours away or across the country, they were offered the option to work from home full time and stay on. // At our company, it's not just IT people who can work from home either. Claims processors, user community testers (QA), benefits configuration people, and anyone really who mostly works from a computer screen and attends conference call meetings are often offered that option. Usually they started with a working from work situation, go to part time working from home, and then go to full time working from home.

In our IT area, we are organized into SCRUM teams, and interestingly enough they put me as a lead analyst on a team of six who are the rare people in my department of 40 who really like coming to the office and brainstorming on problems, etc. with each other in person. We are some of the few who were offered the option to WFH two days a week, but continue to come in every day. We tend to be a bit older too and maybe are just most comfortable with face to face communications as the best way to communicate vs younger people who grew up with texting and doing everything on line. I'm an introvert in general, but really like the social aspect and meeting with my team face to face for solving problems / being on the same page. I also at lunch, in the break room find opportunities to touch base with others from other departments and that helps me feel more connected and happy with my position and feel like I am an important part of the company. // I am not saying that these things can't be replicated to some degree online and with online meetings, and I understand that for many the WFH option works better. These days too, we use tools like ZOOM (screen sharing at meetings), so sometimes even when all are in the office, end up doing teleconference meetings with screen sharing from our desks.

For me even on weekend if I need to do a bit of work, I sometimes go in. Once I had about three hours of work to do over a weekend and kept feeling guilty about not spending time with my family or doing things I needed to do around the house. It took be about 10 hours of on and offline with interruptions before I got what I needed to do done. The next time, I went into the office at 7 a.m. on a Saturday with no interruptions, did what I had to do, and then had the rest of my Saturday for personal activities.

******************************
So many in our department though really love and have adapted well to the work from home pattern.

 

[Bellabully]

I work from home as a Nurse Case Manager. The job is a telephonic position, and when I was hired it was presented to me as a remote position. I do have a land line, but do not use it for work. I did have to have wireless internet to connect with my compute and my job provides me with a cell phone that I use to connect with my members. You have to be incredibly focused on your job and not get sidetracked by home tasks, and it can be isolating at times. I go into the office once a week for meetings and pick up any paperwork or supplies I need. My team of nurse case managers will call each other to update on something or just touch base, so we are connected as a team and are there for each other. It works out great for me, I use my lunch break to pick my daughter up at school. I wish you the best of luck finding a remote job!

 

[goodeats]

I'm a trained CPA/accountant. After my kids were born I stayed at home but occasionally took on consulting projects. I've made enough contacts that now I can freelance and am paid by 1099. I do not need a landline.

So I guess I would say think of your skills and what contacts you have made over your career.

 

[Txmom23]

I work remotely as a project manager for a small startup. We are 100% remote with about 70 employees from all over the US. I've been doing this for four years and I'm not sure I could work in an office setting again. I find it much easier to focus and not be distracted by conversations with other employees, obnoxious cube mates or office gossip. I love being able to set my desk and my room temp exactly the way I want it, I have an office with a view and while I work a solid 40 hour week, I do have a lot of flexibility to take a morning off to volunteer at the school or go to the doctor. I also NEVER need to use PTO for sick days because I don't run the risk of infecting my coworkers.

My company works hard to keep us connected despite being 100% remote. We meet face to face once or twice a year and meet virtually several times a week. I got this job through a friend (sheer luck to be honest) but I've heard that Remote.Co is a great place to find jobs for a variety of skill sets.

 

[starry_solo]

Wouldn't it really depend on your skill set as to whether a remote job would work? What skill sets do you have?

 

[kydisneyfans]

My wife and I are both medical coders/auditors/educators.
Our jobs are both specific to work from home, we did not start in an office and make a transition.

Phone and fax lines are essential, along with Skype, and turbo fast internet speeds.

 

[pershing]

Thank you all for your great advice.

I'm hearing that I should look in the areas where I have experience. That would be mortgage processing, military, and chocolate. I've led a varied life! Ha ha.

I also had a side gig as a remote customer service agent before the financial crash. It dried up with the crash, but I gained a lot of experience.

Thank you for the 2 new websites to check out.

The other bit of advice I've garnered is that it's going to take time and persistence. I've got to keep my head above water somehow until I figure it all out.

Thanks again.

 

[elgerber]

Thank you all for your great advice.

I'm hearing that I should look in the areas where I have experience. That would be mortgage processing, military, and chocolate. I've led a varied life! Ha ha.

I also had a side gig as a remote customer service agent before the financial crash. It dried up with the crash, but I gained a lot of experience.

Thank you for the 2 new websites to check out.

The other bit of advice I've garnered is that it's going to take time and persistence. I've got to keep my head above water somehow until I figure it all out.

Thanks again.

Now that you posted your experience, I am a mortgage processor and I work exclusively from home. Our company has quite a few processors and underwriters that work from home. We are completely paperless so it really doesn't matter where we are. I did start in the office then moved to home. I have no idea if they would hire someone initially to work at home though.

 

[Forevermarypoppins]

My wife and I are both medical coders/auditors/educators.
Our jobs are both specific to work from home, we did not start in an office and make a transition.

Phone and fax lines are essential, along with Skype, and turbo fast internet speeds.

Medical coding requires at least a 2 year degree RHIT to make any decent money. A 4 year degree RHIA gets you a wider array of job opportunities. A degree should be obtained from an ACCREDITED school. There is a one year degree CCA out there but I wouldn't advise it as it's much harder to find a job.

 

[BigAlsGal]

What about in home daycare? Just a thought.

 

[Sadie22]

Check out wahm, transcription folder.

 

[SimplyMeantToBe]

FlexJobs is a helpful site