So, after being a stay at home mom for my daughter’s entire 5 years of life, I’m returning to the workforce. And I’m stressing the hell out about it. My new job is going to have crappy hours. Weekends and possibly late nights. It’s very possible that I might only be seeing her for an hour or two in the mornings and that’s it. I don’t like this at all. I’m worried about how it’s going to affect her and I definitely don’t want this being something long term. What I really want is to be able to work at home in such a way that it will be able to support us financially. But I have no experience or education in anything that would allow me to do so.
So I’m thinking, maybe while I’m doing this crappy job I can focus on getting a degree in something I can do from home. Or maybe there’s other opportunities? A friend suggested medical billing but I’m worried with the way things are changing in this country, that might not be the best field to get into. Right now, all I have under my belt is some experience in customer service, some random computer skills and the willingness to learn something new. Has anyone accomplished this before? Or do you guys have any ideas how I might do this?
This is mostly to give the topic a bump and to wish you the best of luck, AngelSoft. I once had a great aunt who had a series of at-home jobs, but I don’t know if they paid anything like a living wage. The only two I remember were gapping spark plugs and tying flies (for fishing).
One of my sons works from home, but he’s a tier 2 IT supervisor who spent years working up to it. I don’t know how likely CS or IT from home is in normal circumstances.
This link offers some tips and reputable companies (mostly call centers); I haven’t personally done most of these, but it’s supposed to be a good resource. Good luck! I’ve worked at home for years, and been a WAHM for almost a year - very challenging but very worth it. Unfortunately both my current work-at-home job and the one I am interviewing for next week are regular jobs that just happen to let me work from home, so I don’t have a lots of tips for you on the job-hunting aspect.
There are two issues here: working from home and regular hours. If your priority is time with your daughter, then I would think regular hours would be more important–maybe regular hours and a short commute. I am assuming that another goal is to make Good Money someday, and I also tend to think that work-at-home jobs offer fewer opportunities for career advancement, as you aren’t really interacting with anyone and don’t have any chance to pick up new skills and extend your responsibilities.
I know some customer service reps for phone companies and cable companies work from home.
You could try calling some of them.
I know a lot of the Geek Squad people work from home as well.
However doing customer service on the phone with a 5 year old might be hard. You won’t be able to put a caller on hold to attend to your daughter, and you can’t have noise in the background.
I have a friend who works from home doing medical insurance reimbursement claims. If you think you’ll be able to attend your kids while you’re working, I think you’re mistaken. She was also required to have a room set aside strictly for a workspace - no bedroom furniture, etc. She’s paid an hourly wage and is required to work set hours and has production goals that have to be met or she’ll be required to work from the office. However there may be other situations that are more flexible.
Thanks for all the info so far guys. I’ll look into it. I’m pretty annoyed cause I missed an opportunity to do at home call center for Amazon because of our internet connection. But as far as doing calls with my daughter around, I was planning on doing it while she’s at school and then at night after she’s gone to bed. I have been trying my best to get a local job with decent hours and a livable wage but no success for over six months. This job I accepted was the first thing I’ve been offered and the hours are going to be awful after training and it’s an hour commute each way
A friend of mine did medical transcription for a while. She had to do a course, but the whole thing worked out pretty well, and she worked based on production goals rather than on set hours.
You’re single, right? Could you find another single mom to share an apartment, costs and babysitting with?
Have you asked for help through your church, your pastor? Maybe someone in your church has a job for you, even if it is just cleaning houses. You can make 15 USD an hour cleaning houses, and you can do it during school hours and in your neighbourhood.
I assumed that the kid is at school when the OP is home from work, and the OP has to go to work in the evening. So if she wants to spend time with her daughter she could keep the daughter home during the day for homeschooling and go to work at night, as it is now.
I think the house cleaning is a great idea, as well as doing dog walking/house sitting for vacationers.
I did medical transcription- paid for the course (not cheap, about $1500 when all was said and done) and got work but OY. Wow. It’s hard work, IMHO. I was already very familiar with medical terms and still it was difficult. The worst part was that after just a few months my hands/wrists really hurt all the time (and I was going at a good pace so as to meet my quotas- my jobs had particular quotas and hours, it wasn’t like you got a job and just turned it in when you were finished, you had particular deadlines to meet and quantities to complete). I had to eat the cost of the training and stop doing it because I feared I was going to end up with a permanent repetitive motion injury. I also think this career is going by the wayside as dictation programs become more advanced; my own doctor does her dictation into a computer right as I’m sitting there and it produces her records for her, no other human required.
I would start looking at local companies who might need a behind the scenes office person to do things like social media, bookkeeping, and marketing. I am doing something like that now; I do 2 days on site and the rest of my work is done from home through the computer/iphone/ipad. I am only part time, though, so I don’t know if you could find a similar deal that’s full time.
Oh, OK. I have never homeschooled a kid, but the couple of people I knew who did considered it a full time job. One adult worked a job, the other taught at home, made lesson plans, did paperwork for the state, etc. I got the impression homeschooling was a 40 hour week minimum.
If you are good at surfing the internet you might look into bidding on things. I know a girl who started doing this with no experience. She finds a project that is looking for say 250 paper towel holders installed. She looks up the specs and then finds that product on line, she gets them to lock in a price and then she bids on the job or materials they are looking for. You can also use thse bid requests as a source of lead generation for contractors. They will pay commissions on jobs.
**ZipperJJ, **I can see how home schooling might seem like a good solution to me working crappy hours. And as much as I’d love to home school her, I agree with kayaker that it would be just too much work for me on top of everything else.
Maastricht, I’d rather not find a roommate. Only because I hate living with another person. I’m a bit of a slob and it annoys me to have to keep everything clean just because of another person’s discomfort. Selfish and lazy I know XD But it’s how it is. I don’t go to church, but thank you for the books! Unfortunately, given the low income levels of people in my area and my own dislike of cleaning, I don’t think a cleaning service would be a good match.
I’m beginning to think this might not be possible as a sole source of income, but I’ve gotten some good ideas (thanks **BoBettie **and HoneyBadgerDC for your ideas) to maybe supplement my income if necessary. I guess I need to just focus on finding a job that’s closer to home and has better hours. Hopefully I’ll find something eventually.
Are you sure that your anxieties about the crappiness of your hours are realistic fears?
I’m not saying that it’s going to be easy and that they won’t be crappy. But it could be that they won’t nearly as crappy as you’re anticipating.
It will be hard adjusting to work life after being a stay-at-home mother for so long, but you and your daughter will eventually. Seems to me that instead of adding more stress to your life by going to school in hopes that it leads to something better (lots of people are ruing the moment they decided to chase this particular dream), you can just as easily work to save up for a down payment on a place closer to your work location (and possibly other job opportunities). Having an unfulfilling career is not small potatoes…please don’t misunderstand. But you’ve had five years to get another skill set. It is really difficult to find another skill set, raise a small child, and work unless you are really willing to sacrifice. Sorry, AngelSoft, but it doesn’t sound like you’re willing to do this. People who want to change their lives don’t let excuses block them. So it seems to me that your goal should be less lofty and more concrete. Your parents, as much as they love having you, would probably also appreciate you keeping your feet on the ground with your future plans.
Cutting your commute time down to something less stressful may make your crappy job much more tolerable.
