Work From Home?

[SanFranciscan]

A supervisor has suggested that I file for disability due to health problems, even though I have continued to be a reliable worker despite them. I really hate the idea of living on the dole and am now wondering whether I can do something working at home. I am, of course, fearful given the high number of scams.

Have you had any success with work-at-home jobs with honest companies? I would like to know your experiences.

The one thing that I do remember reading something about in a mainstream news magazine about a year ago was the high number of Mormon housewives in Utah answering calls for the airlines while at home taking care of their children. I am thinking that perhaps I could do something like that as my current job requires standing all day, which my health care providers have said is something which I should not be doing.

 

[NurseAllen]

The only reliable thing I can suggest is chacha!

 

[OKW Lover]

I've met another DIS'er that now does seasonal work for 1-800-flowers by taking phone calls at home.

 

[SanFranciscan]

I think that I did see a post here a long time ago from someone who said that she was taking orders for 1-800 Flowers. I wil check into that. Do we supply our own multiple-lined telephones and stuff? I currently have only a cell phone. I am leery of "jobs" that tell the workers to pay for anything since the whole point of a job is to sell one's labor.

What is ChaCha?

My supervisor was on me again yesterday to file for disabililty. He said that my body is telling me that I could not continue to work like I have been ever since I started the job. First I had to get shoes much bigger than my normal size due to problems with my feet. Then I blew a blood vessel in my eye. Now I have an ulcer on my leg which does not want to heal, even though I have been in treatment for a couple of months now. Diabetics have such problems a lot, of course, especially Type 1's, which I am, because it's an auto-immune disease. The job is very demanding because we stand all day on hard cement in the hot sun without shade and in puddles during thunder storms so I really would like to get something else like maybe the call center work I used to do. Even though a couple of my co-workers have filed for disability, becoming a permanent welfare case is about the most humiliating existence that I can imagine. I know that he is trying to be nice and ease me out of there before the company finds an excuse to fire me without an income though.

I would like to work from home if I can get a legitimate job that way as I shall be having a few more medical appointments I would rather my co-workers' schedules weren't forced to accommodate. Thanks for the information.

 

[goofy's_gurl]

I love ChaCha! I am currently doing it right now as I look on this board. Yes people bash about how you make one cent per question, but I make $25 a day. Then again I am a college student so I have plenty of time on my hands. Also I would check out www.workplacelikehome.com they are a reputable work at home board. I found them on the DIS too. They have all a ton of different companies that hire from home.

 

[NurseAllen]

Well, there you go! ChaCha is basically where you find the answer to questions, and then post the answer, so other people can find out the answer.

 

[pigletof4]

I currently work for a company called Arise.com. They are on the workplacelikehome.com website. I take phone calls for Carnival Cruise lines, but one of their other clients is Disney. You can take reservations for either hotel or dining. There is a start up cost involved, but it is a totally legimate company to work for. I did reduce some of my costs, by signing up under another company so I didn't have to incorporate. You can work as little or as much as you want and work the hours that you want.

 

[Kathi Mora]

Honest, genuine work at home jobs are not a myth provided you know where to look. For example, avoid online jobs that look scammy. Instead, focus on work that requires skill. If you are okay answering calls, customer support is a pretty good option. Another very popular work at home job is medical transcription. You can do this work from home on your computer. You will receive dictations from doctors that you’ll need to transcribe into written reports. Ability to type fast and editing skills are required for this job in addition to knowledge of medical terminology. You might need some training before you can get started. If you want to explore this option further, check out Career Step’s at home medical transcription training. Delivered fully online, their MT program can be completed in just four months!

 

[trickiwoo]

A friend of mine teaches online classes for universities from his home. He never had any teaching experience before this job. He just worked in marketing for years, then was laid off from his job. So he started teaching marketing classes online.

Also, I currently work as a pet sitter and dog walker for a pet sitting agency. The agency I work for is currently hiring dispatchers. The dispatchers work from home. When clients are looking for a pet sitter, they contact the dispatcher by e-mail or phone. The dispatcher goes over their sitting needs (do they need walks, boarding, in-home sitter, etc.) and then matches them up with a pet sitter near them. The dispatcher contacts the sitter and asks if they are available and interested in the job. If the sitter says yes, then the dispatcher gives them the client's contact info and the sitter contacts the client to set up a consult.

Whenever we are hiring dispatchers, we post an ad on Craigslist. So that'd be a good place to start if you're interested in a dispatching job. And I'm sure other agencies besides pet sitting agencies need dispatchers too... like nanny agencies, tutoring agencies, etc.

 

[SanFranciscan]

Thank y'all for the suggestions. I did go down to the downtown location of the local commmunity college, on the advice of someone whom I vaguely know, to check into the medical transcription work because I did well in the medical terminology and anatomy classes in my court reporting school in San Francisco, which closed while I was enrolled.

Right now my main goal is simply to get something inside. I am not allergic to physical labor, but I am hoping to never return to the front gate of Universal Studios because taking pictures out there for as long as I did is already enough to put me at high risk for melonoma. It also really bothers me to get on people's nerves as much as I know that we did. My former co-worker is probably right that half of the customers coming in hated us before they were even in the park. I did what I had to do in order to make my quota, but I thought that it was really rude.

 

[Sadie22]

Honest, genuine work at home jobs are not a myth provided you know where to look. For example, avoid online jobs that look scammy. Instead, focus on work that requires skill. If you are okay answering calls, customer support is a pretty good option. Another very popular work at home job is medical transcription. You can do this work from home on your computer. You will receive dictations from doctors that you’ll need to transcribe into written reports. Ability to type fast and editing skills are required for this job in addition to knowledge of medical terminology. You might need some training before you can get started. If you want to explore this option further, check out Career Step’s at home medical transcription training. Delivered fully online, their MT program can be completed in just four months!

I do transcription at home. I worked in-office doing legal transcription before transitioning to working at home. I enrolled in the Career Step medical transcription course because I was doing medically-related cases. Medical transcription is extremely difficult. Part of the course involves learning how to edit transcripts produced by speech recognition technology, which is what most of the work nowadays is. Most people take the full year offered by Career Step to complete the course, and many take longer. Only if you were doing nothing else could you complete the course in four months.

You might be able to do general transcription at home since no additional training is required. You can learn more about general transcription (and other work-at-home jobs and pitfalls) on the forums at workplacelikehome.com and wahm.com.

Good luck!

 

[iluveeyore]

I have been doing medical transcription at home for three months now, and love every minute of it. I took a year to complete the course online, as I was working and really only spent part time on the course. It's hard to find places to hire new grads though as it is very particular work that requires perfect accuracy, but they are out there. I am still learning, and just starting to make money finally since it's a slow process in the beginning stages, but the joy of working at home is priceless!

 

[zulemara]

I am the systems support assistant(IT) for VIPdesk.com

We're certainly not a scam, almost entirely home based in the U.S with the exception of a few who work at HQ in VA. Our agents take phone calls for various clients on both the Concierge and Customer Care side of the company.

We are the U.S. subsidiary of an international Concierge and medical emergency corporation. I personally traveled to Sydney and Moscow to setup Concierge operations with our software and we have several other sites live around the world as well. Ok I think I hammered on the "we're not a scam" part of the company.

We hire at various times, but I would think we'll be ramping things up come August/September in prep for the holidays. Check out the website, create a profile, and you'll be notified when positions become available.

if you have other questions feel free to PM me.

 

[seashoreCM]

Almost anything where you have to shell out money to get started or to get going is a scam. Like 999 out of 1000.

Things like registration fees, advertising, (raw) materials, kits, postage, packing materials, tools, software, phone calls, merchandise (inventory), etc.

Also do not enter into an arrangement to harness out your computer to do work for other people when you are not using it for example leaving it on overnight. That is a sure way to get a virus or an illegal activity such as music piracy into your computer.

In addition, do not get involved with selling or retailing or drop shipping where you collect money from clients and customers and make out new checks or electronic payments to pay to suppliers and wholesalers. You would get stuck with bounced checks and customer complaints and even fenced stolen goods.

 

[Miller007]

You can start a freelance writing career. I would like to suggest you freelancercareers.com. site. You will get a valuable experience with this company.

 

[SanFranciscan]

I am going over old threads since I have not spent much time on Disboards lately. Thank you all so much for your responses.

I am currently working in a Halloween store, where I really enjoy dressing the customers and where I am licking my wounds for failing to pass the assessment test to work in a call center for Disney World. I so enjoyed the guests at the Walt Disney Museum during my volunteer days there in San Francisco that I was sure that I could sell them on Disney World. Well, it's been a couple of years since I last worked in a call center so all that time behind a camera instead of at a keyboard made my typing a little clumsy. I was so disappointed after Disney turned me down that I went up the street to a buffet on International Drive and pigged out like an idiot, even though I really am normally responsible about my eating habits.

Working from home still appeals to me, but I am investigating the possibilities of doing public relations as my own business from home. Then it would be my own deal period and not the uncertainty of "independent contractor," which is so often applied to work-at-home jobs. My responsibilities to my own clients I understand, and my responsibilities as an employee I understand. I am not really comfortable with the in-betweens.