How I got started working from home

To give you a brief background story, I am a project manager who was recently retrenched from a company. I'm not your typical freelancer and in fact was actively looking for a regular job. However over the Christmas season a former officemate asked me if I wanted to try some part-time work. I would usually not be open such inquiries but I did need the money so I said yes. A lot of people had already approached me for freelance work and I thought this might not pan out as well.

I was introduced to his friend who is based in the US and she functions like a client officer. She coordinates with her clients in the US and needs people to do the work here in the Philippines. She was looking for a project manager and due to my friend's recommendation wanted to "interview" me via Skype.

The interview went well enough and though our initial project was quite annoying due to the many unanticipated bugs that plagued it; she liked my working style enough to offer me more work.

I had reached a crossroads then, another company was lining me up for interviews while my client wanted me to do more projects with her. I weighed the pros and cons of each.

I thought of myself as a corporate animal since I worked well with both business and technical people. However the thought the commute and being away from my son most of his waking hours were not that appealing. Yet a corporate job would give me support in the sense that I would have medical benefits and probably bonuses as well.

Starting off in this freelance journey of mine meant working primarily at home. However my work is entirely dependent on how many projects I get. I work with people that I have not even met! Everything is done online like sharing documentation, getting feedback and monitoring progress. It is twice as challenging. Yet, I see my son and am able to also do many household errands that would normally would be allocated for the weekends if I had a corporate job.

I consulted my family. Some people didn't really understand it but my Dad and husband thought that freelancing was great. They also liked the fact that I can keep a close eye on my son all the time.

Thus, I made the decision to follow through on this freelance journey of mine. At times it can be very challenging since I need to adapt to the timezone of my client and coordinate with people I never see. However I find that doing this allows me to balance my need to be challenged as a productive member of society yet still be there for my son. I may just have started on this but I hope to continue it for as long as I can.