Archive for working from home
How I Went from Cubicle to Cabana
Posted by: | CommentsWell I’ve really outdone myself this time! Not only did I get a record hourly rate on this current contract in this horrible recession, but within 3 weeks I managed to get a remote key fob so I can work remotely. I now just booked a flight to Florida to visit my family who’s vacationing there! Great stuff because it’s very cold up here in Calgary, Alberta!
After a couple weeks of stressing out because I didn’t have network access, had insane deadlines and so on, one of the projects I was working on moved out of my scope. So I then only had about 50% workload and upcoming work nowhere in sight at the moment. So I mentioned this to some of the managers. ‘We’ came up with the idea that I work from home part-time and wait out the upcoming work, which they couldn’t say when would happen exactly. The key takeaways are that I mentioned I didn’t have enough work (which many people don’t want to admit at their job) and secondly that you present it in a way where they can come up with the idea themselves.
So on friday I just picked up the key fob (for remote vpn access) and today I just booked a flight to Florida! After I got the key fob it suddenly hit me: Once you are able to work remotely you can basically work anywhere in the world! My family (mom, 2 sisters and brother-in-law) is renting a house in Palm Beach for the month of February.
It’s hard to believe but I’ve actually talked to people who would rather go to an office to work so they don’t have to do work at home. They forget about getting dressed for work, commuting, buying lunch, dealing with annoying co-workers, cubicle hell, meetings, parking and so on!
So plan to start working remotely. Ask the boss to work one day a week from home or find another job that let’s you work from home one or more days a week. I recently applied for a job that is completely virtual. And read the book ‘The Four Hour Work Week’ by Tim Ferris. Time to live the dream baby!
How I Got a Part-Time, Work at Home, Well Paid Job
Posted by: | CommentsWith only a few days left in my part-time, work from home, well paying, IT contract I thought I would explain how I got such a sweet arrangement. I’m a huge fan of working from home as it has so many benefits – more productive, less commuting time and pollution, less costly (no parking, business clothes, lunches, etc), less tired (from all the commuting), better environment (less chance of getting sick, avoiding bad HVAC systems). I’m generally a much happier person when I’m working from home.
So other than buying my IT consulting e-book, what else can one do to get these types of remote work jobs?
For me, remote work came after developing a relationship with one of my clients. I established myself as a competent developer in a niche market. Focusing on a niche is key because this means that clients won’t usually have this type of expertise on staff because they don’t get enough work in the area to justify a full time employee.
Scale to remote work over time. Try to introduce the concept slowly over time, like one day a week for example. Get a bunch of work done on a sick day and show the boss how well you did.
Consider working out of town for a while. When working out of town, I went from flying home every week, to every two weeks. Then I eventually went to one overnight visit per month and then fully remote. Usually working remotely means getting access to a Virtual Private Network (VPN), if you need access to the company servers. So if you get it for one day a week, there won’t be any more work involved to scale it up.
Wait until the current contract is over and you get offered a contract extension. If you’ve established yourself as a good resource in a niche market, this is a good time to make the transition to remote work.
Be willing to walk away. If you truly want to work remotely then you may lose opportunities if you stick to your guns. When I stand firm and lose an opportunity, I think of it as retraining the client. If they always get what they want, they will never have to change their mindset to other possibilities. Maybe it’ll help the next guy.
Believe that working remotely is better for everybody and that you can get approved for it. Don’t underestimate the power of visualization and belief. If you go in to negotiations thinking they will never go for it, you will be right!
To learn exactly how I went from commuting employee to highly-paid remote worker (with actual stories from each job) check out my IT consulting e-book.
