Working from the beach (or even from home) may be the ultimate dream for so many people, but when they get there with their laptops, it’s not exactly what they expected. Remote work can be an amazing opportunity, but only if you really understand what you’re jumping into.
The Reality of Remote Work
There’s no doubt that it’s convenient to work from home. You just roll out of bed, and boom!, you’re at work. But along with that freedom from the daily commute come other, potentially less awesome, changes to your daily life.
These are just a few factors to consider before jumping into the world of remote work:
- No one will trust that you didn’t lose your job. As hard as it may be for you to believe, there are still a lot of people who don’t understand how remote jobs work. They think that if you’re home, you’re not working. Expect friends and family to demand things of you that they’d never ask you to do if you were at the office. For example, they might expect they can drop in whenever, because “you’re not really working.” Time to learn how to set boundaries and say “no.”
- Your fantasy of doing laundry while you work will just be that. Working remote often means having production quotas or hard deadlines instead of punching a time clock. It can be much more demanding than working in an office, especially if your employer doesn’t have a good grasp on what it is that you do. Plan your day wisely.
- You’ll find excuses to get out of the house. From the time you get up in the morning until you go to bed, you’re trapped within the same four walls. You will need to accept that planning outings outside of work will improve your overall happiness and keep you from feeling closed in or trapped during work hours.
- The sound of silence. Your house and your work area will get really quiet. While this is good if you’re a remote customer service representative, it’s also tough when you are used to a bustling, maybe even noisy work environment. Music, white noise and maybe even a pet could help mitigate this silence.
There’s nothing wrong with remote work, lots of people do it every day. But many of them didn’t realize that their expectations would fall so short of their reality that it took some major adjustments to make it work. Just remember, boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. And go outside now and again, Vitamin D is your friend.
If you are looking for more information on becoming a customer service representative or part of our great team, be sure to visit our Answering Service Job Opportunities page.
