Okay - ages since I blogged but here goes.
I left off the Day of Small Things when I lost the job keying insurance forms for a doctor's clinic. From there I again went and found employment out of the house and had to have my son's stay in after school. I was traveling about an hour to work and my husband often made it to school to pick up the kids before me. I started out in a temporary position (Kelly Girls) as a specification typist for a design/engineer company. When a position opened up for an Administrative Assistant for one of the principles, I got it. I moved from there into IT support when a new network was installed (all the new high tech stuff). I enjoyed the job until the company started having financial trouble and a lack of jobs. They began laying off and soon closed up the office and moved the operation to Boston. Again I found myself looking for work. Only this time I had a little severance money. My husband and I thought it out: what could I do to make our lives easier, to be there for our sons? We decided that I would get some schooling in computer networking and get certified as a Novell Network Engineer. I took the classes, passed the seven tests and got my certification. Now maybe I can get something with more flexibility and closer to home. Sorry Charlie, I hunted for a job for a long time and it seems that I was more marketable as a secretary. However, I got a call from someone who knew someone I knew that needed a network installed in their office. It was a very large printing company - American Signature. They had just procured a job managing and processing a Kids Club for a major fast food company. I managed to present them with a network plan and a design for their data entry keying screens and data processes.
This was my real start. They decided not to do the data entry and processing in-house themselves and let me bid on it. I got the job! We had to get to work. To be continued....
Showing posts with label work from home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work from home. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Don't Despise the Day of Small Things
It's been a while but I am back to continue the story of my work from home saga. I left off with the purchase of an IBM Mag card machine and I was starting to solicit work. As I mentioned, we left notes on bulletin boards at the local colleges, told everyone we met, and ran an ad in the paper.
I started to get calls from students that needed their thesis and other papers typed. The going rate was $.35 per page but I was glad to be doing something to make some money while at home with the kids. Many times the work came in the afternoon and they needed it done by the morning. I would work late into the night to get it done. That was actually okay for a while because the kids were in bed. Needless to say, that can get old and sometimes did.
Shortly after my start up venture I received a call from a doctor that needed his insurance forms keyed and filed. This doctor specialized in geriatric Medicare and Medicaid patients. I went into his office for a meeting and he explained the job. We arrived at a deal and I happily went home to figure out how I would accomplish it. It was about this time that I upgraded my equipment to a PC. This PC was far from the desktop PC's we are using today. It was a SANYO computer, had 64 KB (not MB) of memory, did not have a hard drive, had a 5 1/4" floppy drive that the operating system (a predecessor of DOS called CPM) and all programs would run off. It came a "suite" of software applications that included WordStar, DataStar and a spreadsheet that I have forgotten the name of. I knew I could key them with WordStart but it was a great deal of work, besides I was only making 35 cents per filing. At that rate I might make $5.00 per week. I starting playing with DataStar to see if I could automate it and save time and eventually came up with a good system. I worked for this doctor for a good while and only lost the job when he stopped practicing.
What I learned from this was that if you are diligent, don't turn down work, don't think too much of yourself to take a lower paying job, and use your brain; you can usually figure out a way to be more productive, give a good product and compete with others if there is a fair playing field. I add the fair playing field because there are some occasions when it is not possible to be competitive. As an example: I gave a bid on some work last year and the customer came back to tell me that I was a few cents per record more than their bid from China. I do not consider that a fair playing field. As I'm sure most readers understand, China has different labor laws (I am happy to have fair labor laws) and lower overhead than we do. What may level out that playing field is that English is our first language, there is the ability to more closely manage the job, we are in closer proximity and when the customer calls we personally answer the phone and understand their job. There is also some expense, loss of control and risk involved in sending the work to an out-of-country service provider, either in hard copy or electronically.
That's all the data entry story for today. To be continued with the next post . . .
I started to get calls from students that needed their thesis and other papers typed. The going rate was $.35 per page but I was glad to be doing something to make some money while at home with the kids. Many times the work came in the afternoon and they needed it done by the morning. I would work late into the night to get it done. That was actually okay for a while because the kids were in bed. Needless to say, that can get old and sometimes did.
Shortly after my start up venture I received a call from a doctor that needed his insurance forms keyed and filed. This doctor specialized in geriatric Medicare and Medicaid patients. I went into his office for a meeting and he explained the job. We arrived at a deal and I happily went home to figure out how I would accomplish it. It was about this time that I upgraded my equipment to a PC. This PC was far from the desktop PC's we are using today. It was a SANYO computer, had 64 KB (not MB) of memory, did not have a hard drive, had a 5 1/4" floppy drive that the operating system (a predecessor of DOS called CPM) and all programs would run off. It came a "suite" of software applications that included WordStar, DataStar and a spreadsheet that I have forgotten the name of. I knew I could key them with WordStart but it was a great deal of work, besides I was only making 35 cents per filing. At that rate I might make $5.00 per week. I starting playing with DataStar to see if I could automate it and save time and eventually came up with a good system. I worked for this doctor for a good while and only lost the job when he stopped practicing.
What I learned from this was that if you are diligent, don't turn down work, don't think too much of yourself to take a lower paying job, and use your brain; you can usually figure out a way to be more productive, give a good product and compete with others if there is a fair playing field. I add the fair playing field because there are some occasions when it is not possible to be competitive. As an example: I gave a bid on some work last year and the customer came back to tell me that I was a few cents per record more than their bid from China. I do not consider that a fair playing field. As I'm sure most readers understand, China has different labor laws (I am happy to have fair labor laws) and lower overhead than we do. What may level out that playing field is that English is our first language, there is the ability to more closely manage the job, we are in closer proximity and when the customer calls we personally answer the phone and understand their job. There is also some expense, loss of control and risk involved in sending the work to an out-of-country service provider, either in hard copy or electronically.
That's all the data entry story for today. To be continued with the next post . . .
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