successful home working
How did you come to be working from home?
Graham Cornfield (what a wonderful late summer name!) made a remark in his comment on yesterday’s post (What makes home workers happy) that got me thinking. He said about his home working lunchtime – ‘Wow! I wouldn’t have dreamt of this six months ago.’ It made me realise we all have our own home working story.
In my case it was sheer chance. In the 80′s I helped to set up a cleaning business in Bath and running it from home was the obvious way to keep costs down. We bought a little black desk from MFI (remember that black 80′s furniture?), turned our back bedroom into an office and storeroom for cleaning equipment, and we were off. Sometimes I interviewed prospective staff at the dining room table and I recall one particularly pushy sales rep we had to ask not to call, because he’d always turn up when we were trying to relax!
I developed the business over the next 12 years and never considered getting other premises. Having sold the business I did various other things, mostly from home, but didn’t actually realise this common home working theme until I came up with the idea for my book about working from home.
Did you just fall into working from home or did you plan it all beforehand? What were your reasons – did you want more time with your family, get sick of commuting or want to work uninterrupted by colleagues? About 200 words would be ideal to make it the basis of a post, or I can edit accordingly and add a link to your website. Looking forward to hearing your stories!
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For me it was a positive choice. Apple had just announced the iTunes App Store, so as a mobile application developer, it was the perfect opportunity to setup on my own.
Two years on there are now two of us working from home (both remotely) doing a mixture of iPhone app development for clients and work on our own products.
I don’t miss the daily 1 hour commute into London, however the extra admin generated by running my own company more than eats up that time reclaimed.
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I planned it. In fact, I deliberately chose to become a translator because it would enable me to work from home. That was back in 2001. I wrote about it in a guest blog post/interview here: http://www.dillonslattery.com/2009/02/betti-moser-german-translator.html/
It’s worked out really well – and I’ve now also succeeded in moving away from London! -
#7 written by Rosie Smart 1 year ago
About a year after the birth of my second daughter I saw an advert for a Clerk to our local parish council. As I was working part time at a building society it struck me as a way to earn some extra cash but without the strain of arranging additional childcare. Although I was the only applicant without previous experience, I got the job as I was the only applicant from the village so the previous clerk stayed on to train me. A couple of years later, my elder daughter was diagnosed with asthma and was quite poorly so I gave up my job with the building society so that I could be at home for her. Since then I have increased my hours with the Parish Council and haven’t looked back. Best thing I could’ve done.
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So not exactly accidental like me, but not meticulously planned like Betti either. A kind of sideways manoeuvre into home working!
Thanks for liking my Facebook page, Rosie. I see you also like Aleksandr Orlov, the famous meerkat. Have you read this interview in the Telegraph? It made me laugh out loud when I first read it. Just thought I’d mention it since we’re talking humour today!
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I had always wanted to set up my own HR business, ever since working for a London consultancy and deciding I could do it better!!
However, I had planned to start it when my children were both older and settled at Secondary School, but when I could find no interesting part time jobs to fit in around my family, I bit the bullet and decided to give it a go while they were still at Primary School – it’s the best thing I could have done. Five years on, I have some lovely clients and a great little HR business that I run from home!
It’s been fun hearing how others entered the home working world!
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Well done, Kay, it’s good to hear another home working success story. The great thing about starting a home business is that you can keep costs down and so make it less risky, developing as and when you feel ready. And both you and Rosie were able to do it while your children were still young. What’s not to like?
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I’m guessing my story is not unusual – the IT company I worked for was taken over and the local office was closed. My 15 min commute was upgraded to an hour commute through some grim traffic to the new office – or I was given the option of working from home. It was only going to be temporary, until closer offices were identified, but that was 9 months ago!
In the end it turns out I rather like working from home