WAHM

Working at Home 101 – Job Search

Posted by Michelle on Aug 4, 2010 in Work at Home 101 | 0 comments

On my local parenting mailing list, someone recently asked about work from home opportunities and it got me thinking about when I first started researching working at home on my own. Working at home is something a lot of stay at home parents aspire to do. Unfortunately it is also something that a lot of jerkoffs like to screw people over on so I wanted to write up some of the things I’d learned over the past two years to help other folks NOT waste their time/money/hope on work at home venture.

This is the first of a weekly series on working at home. I’m hoping that my work at home misadventures and experience will eventually be of use/value to someone.

Work at Home 101 – The Job Search

Here’s the ugly truth about the work at home job market: most of the so-called work at home “jobs” you’ll find online are scams. Plain and simple. There are plenty of unscrupulous people and companies out there that are out to screw you out of your hard earned money. They know how badly most stay at home parents want to contribute to their household expenses and will do/say/promise “jobs” that are just scams to get money out of honest people.

How to avoid scams and more advice on finding a legitimate work at home job after the jump….

Here’s my card…

Posted by Michelle on Mar 9, 2009 in Life, Parenting, shopping, WAHM | 3 comments

Despite approaching 6 months of freelance work, would you believe I don’t have a business card? Uh, yeah. Smart. Actually, I did print up some business cards to hand out quickly when I did local interviews but they are pretty damned sad looking so I thought it was high time to look into getting some more professional cards printed up.

Not-so-fun tidbit: Despite working for the majority of my IT career in Fortune 500 companies or subsidiaries, I never was given a business card. I mean, I could understand the fact that I wasn’t client facing but a little card to show off every now and then would have been kind of cool. However, I will note that what was worse was the fact that I worked for two years without a name plate on my cube because my direct manager was too cheap to get me one. Oddly, our intern got a name plate just not me. (Talk about feeling underappreciated. Yeesh.)

Anyway, as I was looking at business card designs, I came across Mommy Cards. Yup, they’re just what you’d think they are: they’re cards that Mommies (or Daddies or Grandparents) can give out to help exchange information while at the playground. I would have scoffed at these before having children but now, I think they’re actually kind of spiffy. I know that when I’m out and about with The Little Empress, sometimes I run into friendly parents. It would be nice to exchange information but constantly scurrying after the kidlet does make it a bit more difficult.

I’m curious to see what other mamas think. Good idea? Bad idea? What’s your take? Leave a comment and/or vote in the poll (I like polls!)

[poll id="2"]

Do I miss it?

Posted by Michelle on Dec 12, 2008 in Life, WAHM, writing | 0 comments

While surfing LiveJournal’s attachedparents community, I backtracked a little to read a post by a mother who was currently on the fence about becoming a stay at home parent. She asked a couple questions of others who have given up their careers for the sake of raising their children including this one:

What about doing so [giving up your career] do you regret?

The question struck a chord with me and has been in the back of my mind for the last day or so. What, if anything, do I regret? And I realized… I don’t miss my former job. Furthermore, I realized that I don’t miss my former career. It was something I had worked at, toiled at and frankly, was good at. Very good. I recieved nothing but universal praise for the work I did.

But when it came right down to it, I didn’t love what I did. Even before I became pregnant, I began looking for ways to do what I loved — writing. In between doing work, I’d jot things down in a notebook, write snippets of stories, write reviews and articles for the sake of doing something I loved to break the monotony working.

Now, I’m doing two things I love: taking care of The Little Empress and slowly but surely, making a new career as a freelance writer. Nope, I don’t miss what I used to do but I absolutely love what I am doing now.

Juggling Act

Posted by Michelle on Sep 18, 2008 in WAHM | 0 comments

Whenever I read anything about working at home as a writer, one of the most often repeated pieces of advice was don’t try to take care of your children while you’re working and, of all things, to hire someone to watch them while you work. At first, reading that advice got me a little mad. HELLO. I just quit my job to start this new career because it would give me the flexibility to work from home so I could take care of my daughter. I was determined that I’d prove that advice wrong.

HA. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned as a parent, it is never to say “I’d never do that.

But I’ll admit right now: it isn’t easy to write when you have your deadline looming at your 6 month old is doing everything to get some more attention. On Monday, I had my very first article due to a local newspaper. I’d interviewed my subject the day before and we’d had a great interview. With a 5:00PM deadline looming, I worked feverishly on my copy in between my daughter having crying fits. Unlike most babies, who are fine to sit and play with toys for awhile, my daughter insists on being carried almost constantly, which usually isn’t a problem if I’m researching or writing sample work.

The stress of her crying, compounded with the stress of a deadline was pretty intense. At one point, I was about a one-for-one with whatever I was doing. I would hold and sing to my daughter for 5 minutes, put her back in her bouncer and type/edit for another 5 minutes, rinse and repeat until finally I was able to send off my final draft.

Happily, I got my work done and my editor was quite pleased with what I had written. I’m going in today to talk more with my editor about what I’ll be doing for the newspaper. The pay per article isn’t all that substantial but it is a real newspaper with a byline and I’m doing some pretty interesting work. Plus, the editor understands that a lot of his contractors are stay-at-home parents that do this for extra money so I’m not alone in this.

This is just the first step. I’m so happy that things are working out. Writing is turning out to be a lot harder than I thought. Freelancing seems to be 60% marketing of yourself and 20% research and 20% actual writing. It’s tough and it is a juggling act but with new careers come new challenges. And this is a challenge I am totally up for.

Installation stupidity

Posted by Michelle on Sep 16, 2008 in Life, WAHM | 0 comments

In my previous life, I was an IT support person, specializing in W!ndows desktop support. Am I comfortable and knowlegeable around computers? Certainly. And I do count myself as being an intelligent person. Yet I found myself completely mystified by my shiny new legal copy of Off!ce 2007, ready and waiting to be installed on my computer.

Installation of software difficult? Bah, it’s childs play. Of course, if you’re IT support in a large enough (or at least ORGANIZED enough) organization, installation of software is usually easy peasy. In good organizations (the word being an oxymoron in and of itself too many times when coupled with “IT”), install files are set off on a network share somewhere, product keys tucked into an auto-install script and all your friendly, local neighborhood IT ninja needs to do is double click link to aforementioned install script. On the oft chance that you do deal with actual media, if IT management is aware, that media is on a sign in/sign out/need to have basis and DEAR GOD bring that bad else our inventory is audited.

Which isn’t to say that I don’t know how to install applications from *gasp* actual media. In my experience, most W!ndows applications can be installed with one’s eyes closed and their hands tied behind their back. Of course this would involve opening the DVD tray with your tongue and dropping the DVD in with your teeth (never recommended) but once the DVD’s in, an installation will almost always begin itself.

So why oh why was I having problems installing Off!ce 2007? Because I couldn’t get the damned CASE open. That’s right. A freaking DVD case stood in the way of me installing my Off!ce software.

I’m a late adopter when it comes to Off!ce 2007. I just didn’t have the need for it. But seeing that I’m writing for profit now, I need to have actual legal copies of M!cr0s0f+ programs rather than working off of free alternatives. Bad for my bottom line at the moment but a good investment for future business… or at least, so I keep telling myself.

I consider myself a relatively intelligent human being. And yet, as I stared at the shiny box, I couldn’t even begin to fathom how to open it. A quick Google search revealed that I wasn’t alone! It seems that the marketing geniuses (/sarcasm) at M!cr0s0f+ thought that snazzy new packaging would help the software appeal to more people. And while I can certainly follow that line of thought, it would have been nice if there had been instructions somewhere ON the bloody thing to help otherwise intelligent souls rendered insanely stupid by their packaging.

It finally took a Flickr set to illustrate how to open it. Which, of course, is so simple yet completely unobvious that I am still sitting here, wondering if my decision to freelance or my decision to buy a M!cr0s0ft application that has rendered me completely stupid. I can only hope the effects are temporary.

The search continues…

Posted by Michelle on Sep 4, 2008 in WAHM | 0 comments

My resignation was accepted. I admit to holding out a slight hope that my former workplace would pull some strings and try to retain me but no such luck. Though to be honest, I didn’t really expect them to. The company has lost so many new mothers for the fact that they outright refused to let anyone work from home for any extended amount of time, despite the fact that most jobs could have been done remotely. In a double disappointment, a seemingly perfect job opportunity that I had interviewed for earlier this month chose another candidate.

And so today, I resume the accelerated hunt that I had put on hold for the past few weeks. Specifically, renewing my determination to become a freelance writer. I’ve always loved to write and it seemed that writing would be the perfect WAHM job for me. When I first went on leave, I devoted most of my job hunting time to this before getting sidetracked by possible other opportunities. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have slowed down as much as I did. On the upside, it has given me the clarity of mind to take another look at my situation and plan accordingly. I have a better idea of what I need to do in order to market myself and more ideas for samples and pitches to make.

In the meantime, I have been lucky enough to score one online gig. It pays peanuts but even peanuts add up. I’ve also gotten some interest in a series I pitched to a local newspaper. So there’s plenty to do and it’s time to get to it!