The Good
Why do most people like to work from home? It’s the freedom. There are some traditional 9-5 work from home jobs, but most people who work from home set their own hours. You can start your day when you want, take breaks when you want, and end your day when you want. You can often even work in your pajamas although I don’t recommend it.
If you want to take a vacation, you don’t have to schedule it with your boss —- you ARE the boss.
The Bad
Not everyone is suited to work from home. If you love dressing up every day and enjoy office camaraderie, you may become lonely away from a traditional office. Networking and educational opportunities and can suffer due to the isolation of working from home. The biggest ‘bad’ of all is that most non traditional jobs and often that includes remote positions do not offer the pay or benefits most traditional jobs do. It’s a steep price to pay, but for many of us, it is worth it. Participating in professional associations and networking opportunities and keeping your skills updated with classes, etc. helps to negate some of these issues.
The Ugly
Working from home is hard and requires a solid business plan and the resources to cover you financially until you making a profit.. Don’t quit your day job until you are sure you are ready to take the plunge. If at all possible, keep your full time job and begin working your new online job on a part time basis outside of your regular job. It will give you a good idea of how your new job will fit into your life. The biggest ‘ugly’ of all are the thousands of scams littering the online world. It doesn’t take long to find many and you may become discouraged.
Recognize you are IT; meaning if something needs to get done, you have to do it. You most likely will have no office mates to make your copies, type or mail your reports, or troubleshoot your computer problems. You will need to be resilient and self reliant and create a network of people and businesses to support you. If you become unhappy and disillusioned with your job or working from home – you need to take responsibility to fix it.
