It’s the stigma! This post inspired by the implication that our family could do something another family could not do because "they have a job."
I get an overwhelmingly large number people that either directly or subtly imply that I "don’t have a job" which is really very wrong. I have a job. I don’t have benefits. I have cash flow issues because I do not get paid until the job is complete and I tend to underbid my work. My job is very demanding. For instance, I have 3 projects going right now. One is a 3-5 week project (that means working a minimum of 40 hours per week for the next 3 to 5 weeks). That’s a job! One of the other projects probably has 40 hours in it. That’s a job! The 3rd project is at its tail end but back and forth with the client will consume another week and then we enter the next phase of that project. That’s a job!
I will work days, nights and weekends to see these jobs done well. I do not take vacations but because I work odd hours I do sometimes take time in the day for the family. However, that does not mean that time is always available. My other jobs include sales and marketing, customer relations and tech support, accounts receivable and payable as well as other accounting duties, and information technologies (to support myself). Additionally, I have started entertaining switching to corporate work and interviewing, social networking, and job searching itself can be a 40+ hour job unless you are willing to take the first thing that comes along.
My wife has a job! She is raising 5 children. She has meetings at schools, reports, grievances, paperwork, cleaning, cooking, emails, phone calls and more. Her job has no hours because if she is awake, she’s working! That’s a job!
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A full-time stay-at-home mother would earn $134,121 a year if paid for all her work, an amount similar to a top U.S. ad executive, a marketing director or a judge, according to a study released Wednesday. [Source]
I can’t do my wife’s job. I tried. When she is sick I try to do her job but the house looks terrible, the laundry does not get done, the children do not get cleaned well, and I can’t match a child’s outfit to save my life among many other things. When she is not around, I watch the children and try to work but mostly I watch the children. I really respect AT and other single parents. They work much harder than the rest of us.
Working remotely with so many different people has really shown me that there is a future in getting people away from corporate offices. I think in the next 10-15 years we will see a great trend in encouraging people to create home offices and work from their houses (at least part of the week). [Source] [see also]
Just because someone works from home does not mean they are playing, goofing off, not working, under no obligation, or don’t hold office hours.
