Telecommuting. working from home.

i just received a phone call from a friend/journalist who was interested in doing a story about working from home and she interviewed k and i for her piece. 

may i just say that i suck at telephone interviews, i find it a lot easier to write out my thoughts. so i sent her an email to add a few things that i did not think about whilst we were talking on the phone. 

benefits of working from home

cost saving: 
-the money we will save my not having to purchase winter tires for the car, wear and tear on the car, maintenance on the car.
-the money we will save by not having to buy new outfits to go to an office. that's right folks, we can sit in our jammies and do the same thing that you are doing all dressed up in your Sunday best.
-come tax time we will be able to claim household and other expenses and save money on our income tax forms. for k, she will have more to claim, as she is an independent contractor, and essentially has her own business now. yay for business expenses.  for me, as an employee, i will ask for a letter from the company to state that i am a remote agent, so as to reap some benefits in this dept. as well. 
-meals are made here. no added costs of eating out, or buying extra food to make lunches. big savings there.  

health saving:
- for me this is a big one. suffering from the invisible disability of asthma and allergies, i do not risk exposure to scents and germs by sitting here in my little office and doing my job.  for me this is huge, because every job i have ever held, i have wound up losing time and being very  sick from co workers ignorance of this very real issue. 

free time- working from home is awesome. for me, having my hours scheduled in the evenings, i have all day to work on other things if i choose to. we can get things done around the house because we are here. not like leaving the home at 7am and coming home at 5pm and then rushing around to get things like laundry and tidying done. 
for k, she can schedule her work hours whenever she wishes, because she is an IC. currently, having been 'off' for a while now, and having been upgrading her education, she has thrown herself right into this new position, working about 8 hrs a day since she started. and yes, she is tired come evening, but think of how much tireder she would be if she had to add a long drive on top of working. ;) 
productivity- both a benefit for the us and the company. being happy as a telecommuter means we get more done. less sick time because we are not exposed to colds and flu germs here. happy employees and ICs = greater satisfaction in a job well done, and that equals big savings for the company. win win!


drawbacks of working from home
social aspects of working with others. as my journalist friend said, there is not much socializing around the water cooler for a remote agent or a telecommuter. our only communication with our 'bosses' is through email, phone or chat. for me, loving to chat, my job is a little more secluded, because i have no interaction with the members on my team. having always been a team player, that is one thing i miss. too bad there was not a chat application set up for us so we could touch base with our co-remote agents. 
same goes for k. she is only in contact with L and others in the company through telephone and email. 


well as you can see, there are not many drawbacks from my perspective. it is all win win for me. good things come to those who wait (and who do months of research to find a fit).  not all WFH gigs are legitimate, one has to do a lot of weeding out to find the ones that are on the up and up. we just happened to luck out that we found matches for us. 
after all, in this age of technology, there is no real reason, in many jobs, that we all can't work from the comfort of our homes, in our warm, cozy jammies.


make today GREAT~ poet. 
ps- after my journalist friend gets her article written, i am going to ask her if i can copy it over here to my blog. i am sure she won't mind. but i will ask just the same. :)