Working From Home-Factors

Working from home. In this post we will examine the variety of factors that draw people to work from home.

 OPPORTUNITY

If the idea of working at home is appealing, you might just be an opportunity junkie.  Many of us crave the chance to do great things and find that our traditional nine to five work environments are very limiting. Women may have a glass ceiling with which to contend, but all of us have another even harder ceiling to break through right above that one.  It’s the inevitable ceiling of being an employee instead of an owner. 

No matter how hard you work, no matter how smart you are, the structure of a traditional job and the limitations inherent in your role as one of the hive’s worker bees will limit you. You might become a boss some day, but you will never become The Boss. The opportunity just isn’t there. Even if there is enough opportunity to entice you to continue making the daily commute to the office for awhile, chances are those real chances for fulfillment are doled out arbitrarily and unfairly. The shots you do get to move up the ladder or closer to your goals are few, far between, and inevitably mishandled by someone who outranks you.

Operating your own business from home restores opportunity. Any limits on your success or growth are within your own control.If you want to do something, there is no head office to clear it.  You don’t have to fill out a requisition form if you want to invest in yourself.  You don’t need to smile during evaluation week so that your middle manager with the happy face obsession will give you a great performance review.
Opportunity is everywhere.  When you have your own home business, the only limits are the one’s you place upon yourself.

 MONEY

Many of those who make a break from the herd and work from home do so because of the prospect of greater earnings.  Along with the aforementioned opportunity in a general sense comes the chance to make more dough. Many work at home successes earn so much more than they ever would have if they continued on their prior path that it boggles the mind.

If you get a halfway decent job that you can stay at for decades and you are a good employee, you will probably find a way to make a decent living by popular standards.  Your income will allow you to buy a home, keep your lawnmower blades sharpened and to occasionally take a family vacation. Two vehicles and a roof over your head and food on the table is nothing to sneer at but they beat a worn pair of shoes and a “will work for food” sign be a significant margin.

In the end, though, those in the regular workplace have a cap on their earnings.  That cap may not be expressed in any contract or the result of any hard and fast law, but it is very real. The very factors that limit opportunity in general will also limit earning capacity. By stepping outside the employee circle and into the world of running your own business, you can destroy that cap.

If having a chance to make big money is important to you, running your own operation is definitely appealing.

 FLEXIBILITY

The fact that you work nine to five, Monday through Friday, might not be that distressing to you. Until your kid’s softball team makes it to the state tournament and plays their Thursday semi-final game at six in a city two hours away. The fact that you only have five vacation days per year until you have been with the firm for more than two full years may make perfect sense for a company, but that provides little comfort when you finally meet the woman of your dreams and she wants to take you on a romantic, two-week tropical cruise.  You get the idea.

Those who work from home have the ultimate in flexibility. They really can set their own hours the way very few employees can. Some work early, others work late, some work only a few hours a week, for some only a few days a week but with long hours on those days and others work as necessary. 

It depends on the home business. However, the home business is within the control of its boss, and if he wants to take mid-afternoon naps or if he wants to spend Wednesdays at the driving range, there is nobody one step higher on the corporate ladder to tell her or him “no.”

 FAMILY

Every morning someone drops off his or her child at daycare, gets back in the car and starts to do the math in his or her head. Their daycare provider has the kid from eight until five-thirty, five days a week. That’s forty seven and a half hours per week. The parent has the child from about six a.m. until eight and then again from five-thirty until that eight o’clock bedtime.  That’s twenty two and a half hours per week.  Even if one gives himself or herself full credit for two full weekend days of “awake time,” the total is still only at fifty two and a half hours per week. That’s right, the child only sees his or her parent for about five more hours per week than he does his daycare provider.For many parents, that just isn’t’t tolerable. In fact, it’s heart-wrenching and it’s one of the chief reasons why many are inspired to start their own work at home business. Yes, it may be tough to seal big deals with a two year old trying to stick a Crayola up your nose, but that challenge is far more palatable than the idea of a child growing up with only slightly more contact with his or her parents than his or her babysitter.

Even those who don’t have children may be interested in the familial advantages offered by stay at home work.  Spouses can see more of each other.  Those who are accustomed to being forced to do business on the road can finally enjoy a husband or wife again. Working at home puts one in the midst of family as powerfully as regular jobs can separate one from his or her home life.

 INTERESTS

 Many people feel trapped doing jobs they despise. You can see it in their faces.  From the angst-ridden barista at any one of ten local Starbucks who could be making shrewd stock deals all day to the slow-moving house painter who always wanted to be a chef, you encounter people who are working outside of their interests and skills just to collect a check. Some people learn to compromise. They take solace in Mr. Holland’s Opus and convince themselves that eventually all of that compromise will add up to something meaningful. They shove their interests and true desires to the back of their mind and try to retain focus on doing their job. 

Yes, a few people are lucky enough to find employment that really matches their skill levels and attitudes nicely, but many more spend their time doing things in which they have only a marginal interest outside of the bib-weekly paycheck their efforts produce. Though some will swallow the disappointment and frustration, those who decide to work at home will not.  They opt to pursue their dreams and to find ways to make their skills and their “calling” into action.  It can be far more fulfilling than simply working for the sake of earning a salary.  It imbues one’s vocational life with great meaning and appeal.
In my next post we will examine the challenges of working from home.