For five and a half years, I had the opportunity to work from home, and it went really well. I could sleep in, work the hours I wanted to to work and I made pretty good money.
It sounds like a dream job. Go to work in your pajamas. Work only a few hours a day. Make a killing. However, as anyone who has looked for home based employment will tell you, many offers are scams. For this reason, the work at home market has gained a bad reputation, and may people have assumed that there are no legitimate professional opportunities in that realm. This could not be further from the truth. While there may not be a wide variety of six figure work at home jobs out there, there are plenty that can help you make ends meet. Another good thing for me about working out of the house is that I have become more active and lost some weight. I feel a lot healthier and more energetic because of this.
Experts agree that this recession and global economic downturn will more than likely continue for many months to come, if not years. Every month more and more people are filing for unemployment as small, medium and large businesses around the country become more streamlined in order to increase cash flow and stay running. This means fewer and fewer jobs for those millions of people that are searching for employment. It also signifies lower paying jobs for those that do have the luck to find them. Gone for good it seems are much of the higher paying jobs that white collar workers depended upon to maintain them in the middle class. Many of the jobs that are available now are lower paying retail or service industry jobs and even for these lower end jobs there are thousands of applicants. Competition is high and many people are over-qualified for the jobs that are available. This is why getting jobs working from home seems like the most attractive option for an entire segment of the population.
Imagine waking up each morning and not having to get dressed and go out into the freezing cold and scraping the ice off your car. Imagine not having to take the car out at all and saving all of that gas money and wear and tear on your vehicle. Imagine not having to fight traffic congestion for hours each day as you and your car crawl downtown. Jobs working from home allow you to avoid these things and lots more, like nagging bosses or backstabbing co-workers.
Put the coffee on and kick back on your sofa if you want, laptop in your lap (of course), wearing your pajamas, and start your day off right. All you need to do is keep scouring Craigslist each day for jobs that suit your skill sets. If you are a really good writer or technical writer (even better) you will find many jobs on Craigslist in your area. Look under jobs but also under gigs because that is where a lot of the writing jobs are. If you are a good photographer or artist, this is also the place to look.
There are benefits and downsides when you work from home, and I certainly have run the gambit in both regards. While I really did enjoy being able to not have to go in every day, I am probably better off that I don’t have to.
