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 Work at home...
on the road!
People who are still hopelessly trapped by their heartless alarm clock, the grueling daily commute and seemingly never-ending office politics think that the sheer freedom of being able to work at home is already a dream vacation. And in many ways, it is.
But those of us who work at home know that what we do is still work and can sometimes feel just as trapping as that old office job if we allow ourselves to get stuck in a rut.
Maybe it's time for us to take our work at home jobs to the open highway.
Case history: Carolina Sweenee, an Ohio-based graphic designer and writer, fell in love with a computer programmer by the name of Andy. The two began planning a life together. Carolina was fed up with the office politics of her current job and was dreaming about being able to work at home. It wasn't long before one of them had the idea to convert her office job to a home-based virtual job and take it on the road. Having an aptitude for computers and networks, Andy told Carolina that if they really wanted to, he could rig a system that would allow both of them to work at home... regardless of where 'home' was. An RV. A hotel room. A condo on the beach. Home is where the heart is, right?
Andy didn't have to tell Carolina twice!
Carolina made a presentation to her boss showing him how she could work at home and be more productive than she was currently having to commute. She showed him how converting her job to a work at home job would give them more room in the office to hire another artist and increase the department's productivity without adding to its overhead. She offered to work as an independent contractor if the company preferred (even though they did agree to keep her on salary), and carefully and thoroughly explained to her manager how they would still be able to reach her anytime they needed to, how there would be virtually no interruption in her work and how she felt the quality of her work product could improve if she was able to work at home. She obtained a special cellular telephone to use just for her work at home job, an 800 number where anyone in the company and/or clients could reach her at no cost during office hours the same as if she were sitting in the old office, and she explained how she would email scanned images of her work product for approval and deliver finished art to the office herself, by service bureau or by courier or send the images by email for her office to finish.
After a respectable honeymoon period during which Carolina got the bugs worked out of her new work at home job, Carolina and Andy took a trip. Their first trip was only for two work days and they didn't go far. They bought special luggage for their work at home gear... battery charger, laser printer, fax machine, scanner, special suitcase for art supplies, reference materials and Andy's tools. The 800 number was set up to ring on the cell phone which offered free voicemail and paging and she turned it off at 5:00 pm every work day. Hotel rooms with high speed internet access were chosen and Andy rigged up all the equipment so they could both correspond with their home bases any way they needed to. Andy and Carolina brought new meaning to the term "work at home". They worked at home in Ohio and many other states, even Canada when they worked at home all the way to see Niagara Falls. They worked at home on the beach. They worked at home in the mountains of Colorado. Thanks to Andy's ingenuity, all they needed to work from home was electricity and a phone line.
Now they talk about saving up money to work from an RV.
Want to take your own home based job on the road? We've compiled a very handy packing list and technical tips that are sure to help you hit the highway running.
If you work at home you know that sometimes you've just got to get out. When getting out takes you on vacation, remember that there are ways you can take your work at home job with you. Once you learn how to work at home on the road, you can take longer vacations and in some cases, still be able to make money while you're on vacation.
How to Work at Home on the Road with Pets
- Remember that for safety, if your pets are not in a cage they should wear shoulder harnesses and be plugged in to the seat belts so they are not thrown from the car in case of an accident. Check with your pets' veterinarian for the safest and most comfortable way for your pet to travel.
- With cats, be absolutely sure your cat doesn't ever get away from you; the odds are very, very bad that you'll ever catch your cat again if she gets away on vacation.
- Train your pets to travel. Dogs can be trained not to bark at every noise in hotels by creating a new command just for barking on vacation. (Try 'no barking on vacation!'). Dogs also need extra help getting over feeling abandoned by you when you leave them in the car or in a hotel room. Their instincts will tell them that you took them to a new place to die or be abandoned. Your actions will signal to them that you're leaving the pack. This will be very painful for your dog. You can help them learn the traveling routine by taking short trips at a time and simply repeating the travel routine over and over. Over time they will learn that you always come back and then the pack picks up and goes somewhere else together. When you leave them in the hotel room for any reason, listen outside the door for a few minutes. If they start mourning your departure (howling or whining), rush back inside the room and tell them 'no'. Then leave for a short time. Come back and give them lots of attention and spend considerable time together. Even when they're well trained, they may still be sensitive the first day of traveling so it's best to plan lots of 'together time' when you travel with your dogs.
- Leave the TV on when you're not in your hotel room. Pets will feel less lonely and it will drown out some exterior noise.
- Always train your dogs by lavishing them with lots of love and using very, very consistent, firm commands.
- If traveling with your pets, try to get hotel rooms away from noisy areas of the hotel such as the pool, lobby or noisy side entrances. Even if your pets are trained to travel there's no point in subjecting them to provoking noises and making them stay on guard duty necessarily.
- When you travel with pets never, never never leave your pets in the car with windows cracked while you're away from the car unless the outside temperature is below 60 degrees AND you have NO SUN shining on your car. Cars heat up remarkably fast in the sun, with or without windows cracked, and your dog will die unnecessarily or suffer permanent kidney failure from heat stroke very rapidly. Dogs are far more susceptible to heat stroke than we are.
- Always carry food and water for your pets. Let them drink water and stretch their legs every few hours, more often if it's warm.
- Don't forget to take doggie comforts (blankets, toys and biscuits) on the road. They'll help doggie feel more at home and help you train your pets to travel well. Things that smell like home will help your pet feel more at ease in the car and in hotel rooms. If leaving your pet alone in the room, consider putting the TV on softly to make noise to make your pet feel less lonely and drown out outside noises of the hotel. The Weather Channel offers pleasant voice sounds and soothing music, more conducive to pet relaxation than police sirens, doorbell noises and gunshots!
- Don't forget to pack pet medicines.
- Always keep your dogs on a leash for their safety and your protection. Beware that not all other dogs are friendly.
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From now on, if your family has a vacation home you won't need to restrict your time there to only vacation time if you work at home.
Remember to be professional when you work on the road. Just because you're writing emails in your swimsuit on the beach doesn't mean your emails should be any less professional. And don't make business calls with your cell phone from a night club, just because you can. Even if you're unprofessional with just one colleague from your company or just one client with whom you feel you can be casual you could get the reputation for being irresponsible now that you work at home and you could lose your home based job. You should never-never-never be anything less than totally professional when you perform your job on the road.
Having said that, we hope you have a great time turning your job into an on-the-road-work-at-home-job-opportunity. Maybe you'll send us an email or a picture of you working from a convertible on Route 66 with your hair blowing in the wind.
Happy working at home, on the road.
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