Independent/"Work at home employment"

Yes it's real, and yes you can do it too!!

Hi and welcome to my little thread! I want to start out by saying that I have been successfully working from home (in my PJs and fuzzy slippers, yes!) and I want to bring awareness and offer support and a place to talk about such independently contracted employers, and/or work at home (you can be IC, or you can also be employed by a company.) I wish to encourage us to share stories, encouragement and help each other get the chance to ask questions and get a feel for what it is like for someone who does this type of based work!!

Disclaimer: I am contractually obligated not to divulge whom I am currently outsourced to work for, so I cannot drop names. I can tell you the type of work I have done from home, and if you would like I would be more than happy to PM you the company who I am working for at the moment. I do not want to drop names of any particular companies and/or brands, which may cause a liability when it comes to my employment or an individual posting her. Please don't ask! (And trust me I feel bad as I want to tell you and be outright honest!

Also, at this time I am only able to really discuss doing this type of work in the US, but if others outside the US have experience they are more than welcome to share/discuss with others. :)

My Story

I have been doing this work at home stuff for 5+ years. I have personally dealt with two different telecommunications companies who basically take outsourced work. I have dealt with technical support/billing for prepaid phones, customer support/billing for a major home shopping network program, and currently work with technical support for a big video games company. (Pretty sweet, huh?) All the work I have done is through these outsourcing companies, and therefore I cannot give you name brand names -- however if I could I can guarantee that you've heard of them before.

I have created this thread as I want to share what I do in case others are in a similar situation as myself and are needing an extra form of income in their household and are finding themselves hitting brick walls when it comes to finding local employment. They may have mobility problems, or like me have a horrendous phobia of driving and struggle with doing so on their own...perhaps you are trying to cut down the costs of having multiple cars, or you're needing a work at home job so you can better fit your job around your family and personal needs.

I'm also looking into going into the exact opposite for my husband - Independent Merchandising contracts. For this type of work you must have a car. You're more than likely having to travel to several different branches and are employed by a company who sells product in that store. Maybe once or twice a week you have to visit each branch in your area and make sure that product placing is correct, visible to the consumer, and clean. You may be one of those ladies in the isles handing out free samples (they can be independently contracted too!), or you could even be paid by a company to be a 'mystery shopper'. Imagine walking into a local fastfood joint on a mission - to order a double cheeseburger without any pickles. You're paid to drive out there, place an order, fill out paperwork evaluating procedures and then you get to eat the cheeseburger!! Score!

OK I will be honest - each type of employment has it's ups and downs. I'm happy to discuss my previous experiences. I can also say my family has gotten me into this freelancing type of work. My whole family has done some sort of work at home customer support work. My brother/mother use to write articles for search engines and get paid per word. My dad use to do the merchandising independently contracted for a few years and said that is what ultimately got him his job he has now. (He left as when you're independently contracted one of the downsides is that benefits are usually either poor to none, but says he would happily pick it back up if he had to.)

What I want to do is touch bases with others who have delved into this and share stories/tips. I want to encourage others who may be financially struggling, may not have a college diploma (like the rest of my family, sans my mom who has nearly two...), but still have the desire and drive to pursue this as a form of employment.

Helpful Links

• Current Work at Home Oppertunities-A handy spreadsheet showing some of the various outsourcers/companies who offer a work at home option, rough pay rate, and other handy tidbits at a glance
• Work Place Like Home - A forum that is dedicated to working at home. It is an awesome place to swap stories/help people find legitimate work opportunities (there are scams, trust me)

Also, if someone would like me to start a list of individuals who currently are/or have experience in this type of work so that you may ping, PM, get in contact with that individual I can do so here.

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OK Officially open. I haven't set up my posts in an organized fashion, but perhaps once we get the ball rolling and we share information I can start fleshing out the information as we go along. :D

The most I've done in regards to independent work is a lawn contractor. I was about eighteen or nineteen at the time and wasn't in the mood to apply for work with an employer. I had tried a couple of times with tourism companies (name one and I applied), a few restaurants, and even with the municipal government. Each application earned an interview, which landed me a job offer every single time. I turned down a great offer from the city, and since I was between semesters my parents urged me to start earning money. It led me to put up a few quirky little posters in the neighborhood advertising lawn mowing.

Even when I was competing with these organized armadas of buffed out guys, I earned an average of $75 an hour for the work I did that summer. Enough to cover tuition, books, and other expenses. All on my own and I was pretty proud of it.

Right now I work for a medical clinic, but I'm hoping it won't last too much longer. I'm so dreadfully bored there and it's a wonder that people working in cubicles don't strangle others more often. I've been looking into renting a space downtown or purchasing a food truck most recently.

That's awesome, Jupiter!! Definitely setting up your own business definitely qualifies for being your own independent contractor and is a 'take it in your hands' type of attitude. I can understand getting your feet wet and getting the business rolling must of been a bit scary. I also bet that you were still living at home so you weren't having to worry too much about living expenses at the time? I would love to try to find a niche market to try my hand at my own company, but at the same time I don't have the fall back plan in case it fails. :<

What's nice about what I do right now is it is between 35-40 hours, and it is a set shift. I always have the same two days off a week and I always work between a certain set shift. It's some stability, but even then there are little quirks about working from home. I think the biggest thing is if my ISP or power goes out I do not get paid. I can understand why as the company cannot bill the company we're representing for my butt making a warm seat, but when you're trying to pay bills you also have a steady income needing to come in to make enough to pay bills. This is a tremendous motivational factor to try to push my husband in the opposite direction and do merchandising work. Not to mention my dad says they give a lot of freebies out to you. I can share some of the stories he's told me as well. Basically he was able to support my mother and brother off of his income, as my mom was trying to set up her own bookshop at the time. The bookshop ended up not being a steady form of income and they lost money. It was then my mom started turning to freelance type work.

That's true, I was living at home at the time. It let me get a nice cushion going, which is something I'm fortunate enough to have above my friends and coworkers; it's actually quite startling. I never realized that other people don't have the same sort of financial fall-back or organization that I developed at an early age (thank-you mom and dad!). I have a pretty decent job right now--or rather, the pay is very generous for what I do. It's allowed me to save each month and budget wisely. Which isn't to say that I wouldn't be very careful with my ventures.

We have transcriptionists like that; the method of their pay is unique, but they're on call from about 7am to 5pm to transcribe things from doctors. It's not really what I'd imagine when you're offered a job to work from home; I'd want to work on my own time, whether or not it's in the middle of the night from my bed or in the middle of the afternoon on the beach. I wonder, do you ever get upset about that...?

Ah, so you don't recommend it for your husband to get the same type of work?

In all honesty, no I don't. The reason being is if there is some sort of issue with ISP, your home computer (if you're having to provide your own computer for work -- some projects will send you a specifically set up computer for work), and/or electricity. It's kind of bad to put all your ducks in one basket. You can do it, and I have met couples who both work for the same company, same project even...I just personally don't recommend it. Also, you have tech issues that occur on their end and if they cannot 100% without a doubt prove it was on their end, no pay. Then you also have the lull in demand. Say for the videogames company it gets super busy around Thanksgiving up until Christmas, then a couple weeks into January it slowly starts dying back down and they start doing their 'spring cleaning'. (Basically what tends to happen is seasonal employment and also people who are under performing are 'weeded' out...I mean they won't say it up front, but I know they start sending out emails trying to get people to shift their schedules to meet the needs and also they start really focusing on stats.)

The same thing with him doing this merchandising work - he's totally dependent on having his truck function, as he is responsible for providing his transport (from what I've seen so far job wise - remember he's pretty much an independently contracted person...I haven't yet seen a company who does all that. Or perhaps they are better known as temp agencies...and then you'll end up giving a cut of your pay to them... :P )

With what my husband is doing I'm currently learning as I go along. I've got a list of websites for him to check out when he gets home at 7am, and then he's going to do a little research before going to bed - then wake up around 6-7pm and call my dad for some more input. He's thinking one form or another he will be picking up a couple of part time assignments. I think that's partially why I'm setting up this thread -- to see if anyone else can share their experiences and give tips/tricks.

---------- Post added 05-01-2013 at 02:59 AM ----------

Edit: As he takes a look at the sites and gives me his opinions and experiences, I will share those and section them off in their own section for merchandising type work. I'll try to separate my links for work at home, phone call based customer support.

In the meantime I need to get to bed. I need to write up something over on a friend's thread first though...I think.

I always wanted to work from home but it seems almost like a hoax when I look at the companies and what not... like how would one know if it was legit or not? Right now I am in a situation where this type of job would be best for me. I also wondered if you had to have certain degrees from college or if it was for anyone. Actually I have a lot of questions now that I think about it...

Well you've come to the right place, Ashtyn!!

You do not need to have a degree. I've only got a highschool diploma and a couple years of college (no finished degree though) under my belt. You do need to be 18 or older, and depending on the company you work for you may be required to have a computer that is compliant with the program you work with. (Some companies will ship you out a specialized computer that will only be good for your work. Mine right now is like that, and it is VERY HEAVY on security. I can't even use the extra USB ports on it or it will lock me out. Seriously.) Typically you will be required to have a highspeed internet connection, and depending if they use a voip service for routing calls you may need a traditional home phone set up.

I must also confess I have only been doing customer support taking inbound calls, but literally the sky is the limit when working from home. You could be a virtual assistant where basically you're doing secretarial work from your home. If you have a degree and/or experience in a certain field like law or computer programming you can obviously do work from home in that field and skip the whole customer service bit. The thing is you have to have experience and it is a very competitive market freelancing. I would love to have someone pop on here that does that kind of work to fill me in.

As far as legitimate companies, the link I popped on the second post has a table of companies and what I would suggest doing is going to a forum like workplace like home and check out other people's experiences. Usually word of mouth is the most powerful form of reference and a way to make sure that you aren't scammed. Also, other than a $40-50 fee for a background check and drug screening there really shouldn't be much else required money wise to get started. Heck, when I first started companies were footing the bill on that. I think now that it's starting to pick up in popularity they're losing a lot of money out that way and are now requiring you to pay that.

---------- Post added 05-02-2013 at 02:46 PM ----------

I will warn you though...I was looking through the forums, for my company in particular, and there is a LOT of negativity floating about. You have to take it with a grain of salt. There are definitely downsides to working from home that you honestly will not escape no matter who you work for. I've worked for two really big companies who do outsourcing. One was West At Home, they're legitimate but I have had a bad experience with them. What seems to happen when you sign up for a telecommuting job in customer support for a big company like this is you are a number to them. It's very easy to get lost in that sea of numbers.

Also, I wouldn't recommend doing this as a primary source of income. It is doable, but right now with the transitioning between companies I'm finding that my hours have been severely cut this week while we're waiting to be moved to training. I typically do 35-40 hours a week and this week it is like 20-25. I have grabbed shifts for my weekend, fully expecting to only get a half day in but hoping it rounds me out a bit better.

Well I'm about to live with my boyfriend soon and he doesn't want me to work (he is very old school) and I thought " well technically if I don't leave the house its not a "job" per say, just a way to get a little nore cash." But I would love to admin a site and actually get paid for it but I wouldn't even know the first thing to go about it...

A good place to start (and how my mom got her foot in the door for where she is basically an admin/virtual assistant for) is by interning/volunteering. She had to volunteer her time, but main thing is they're not expecting you to put any money into it -- you're just basically offering your time and services. From the interning/volunteer work I've seen there are positions which clearly state there is a prospect of getting hired in after a certain time frame. The thing is, even if they don't you can still use that to beef up your resume to start and look for a paying gig.

I know how you feel though as I've been exclusively doing customer support roles for the past 15 years and would love to branch out to more secretarial/admin type things. I love interacting with people, but I would love to maybe do a part time job of that and part time as a virtual assistant. That would be awesome.