No, I Am Not a "Plain Housewife"

I’m a homebased worker and not a "plain housewife" (a term used only in the Philippines, I guess).

I bet most, if not all, moms who work from home want to say the same thing to everybody.  I also bet that not only moms but all homebased workers want to tell everyone that we are not bummers.  I ALWAYS try to understand non-homebased workers’ notion that we, homebased workers, have all the time in the world to do everything anytime anywhere we want to.  Well, let me tell you one thing:  We are homebased workers, not superheroes.

There are, of course, a lot of perks involved in being a homebased worker.  First, and the most important of all, we don’t have to deal with bosses and co-workers.  We do deal with clients on a daily basis but the thing is, we don’t have to talk to them face to face.  Conversations are all done by phone or by e-mail, preventing us from having personal and professional conflict with them.  Everything is pure business, nothing personal whatsoever.

Second, as an online worker, I get to read articles of various topics like law, religion, and entertainment.  I get to read more than a hundred articles on a daily basis which I all have to finish whether or not they are interesting.  I don’t get to watch the news often but I get to read them...with pay.  Now, aren’t you jealous?  I get paid while reading the papers!

Third, working from home is way cheaper than working in an office.  We don’t need to worry about what to wear at work.  Ever since I became a homebased worker, I have stopped buying work clothes and started buying shorts, shorts, and shorts.  I stopped buying stillettos and have began to love flats.  I don’t need to worry about money for gas, the toll fee, and the parking fee (Now, you ARE jealous, aren’t you, Makati peeps???).

These are only three of the perks.  Yes, there are a lot more but being a homebased worker also has its downside.

First, homebased workers are not entitled to any benefit.  Unlike employees, we do not have vacation leaves, sick leaves, and emergency leaves with pay.  We do not have a human relations officer to handle our SSS, PAG-IBIG, or Philhealth.  We handle all of these on our own.

Second, employees do not pay their company’s electric bill while we, homebased workers, pay for our own energy consumption.  If our computers break down, we use our own money to have them repaired.  We are our own Management Information Systems officer or Information Technology officer.

Third, it’s not true that we are different from office-based employees.  If employees need to work from 8 to 5 and they need to work overtime, it’s basically the same for homebased workers.  We may not need to start working by 8 AM, but we need to work for at least 8 hours to finish the job.  We also work overtime if needed.  Homebased workers are more like commission-based salespeople.  We don’t get paid if we don’t have an output.  In other words, we don’t have all the time to watch TV, to go to the mall, or to do all household chores.  Just like employees, we have deadlines to meet.  We are also providers and we put food on the table.

Basically, we’re not far different from office-based employees.  If they have something to complain about, we have our own share of grievances.  If office-based employees are busy, we are busy too. If they are multi-taskers, SO ARE WE.

So, what am I doing in this kind of job?  Simply put, I love it.  I mentioned this in my previous blog and I’ll say it again, a wise man once said “Choose a job that you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

True enough, it’s like getting paid for doing a hobby. But then, again, I am not a "plain housewife."

An Office-Based-Turned-Home-Based Mom: "It's All About Perseverance"

by Vp:

Before the age of the Internet, being employed meant waking up early, travelling from home to the office, spending a minimum of eight hours a day working, and then travelling back home.  Such routine left little time for socializing, for sleeping at least eight hours a day, and for spending time with the family.  Indeed, it was difficult for all employees to live a balanced life.

In this day and age, however, people have the option to work from home which is very advantageous for working moms like me.  You see, I worked in an office for almost ten years.  My work was like two hours away from my place, so that meant wasting four hours of my life each and every single day doing nothing but travelling to and from the office.  Although witnessing heavy traffic was such an excruciating experience (think of getting hungry or wanting to pee while on the road), it was tolerable when I was still single.  But after getting married, I wanted to have more time for my husband.  Things got even harder when I gave birth to our first-born child.  That was when I realized how hard it really was to balance work and family life, until I knew I had to do something about it.

When I heard about home-based work, I knew it was something I wanted to try.  I started planning everything as to how I could eventually succeed in this field.  I decided to leave the corporate world, I bought my own laptop computer, my husband and I turned our home into a wifi zone, and then I started searching for online jobs at various web sites.  I was amazed to see countless sites offering various types of home-based jobs such as article writing, data management, and web site development.  More often than not, these sites would ask their visitors to bid for work.  In my case, I looked for article writing projects.  It was frustrating at first as I had my own share of rejection but my perseverance led from one project to another.  As a beginner, my earnings were only small but I knew it was the kind of work that I loved.  I have always been interested in writing since my younger years, and I always remember what a wise man once said, to “choose a job that you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.”  So, I continued to persevere.

Now, I can say that I have a stable job as a home-based worker.  Aside from doing what I have always loved doing, I also consider this job as the path to my dream of becoming an author of books.  I have worked my way to where I am now, and I know I can work my way to becoming more than what I am now.  I believe it’s all about prayers and perseverance.

Home-based work has not only helped me professionally, but it has also helped me improve my personal and family life.  Beyond all professional successes, still nothing beats success in family life.