Work From Home? You Must Be F**kin’ Mad

29 Nov

Posted by YC as Success, Make Money Online

Everyone dreams of working from home, being their own bosses and having full control in what they do, when they do it. There are millions of us out there wanting to quit our office day jobs, and make a living online.

Why? Does working at home really offer much better conditions or better rewards? You are blindin’ bonkers to think so, when a day job (or my previous) allows you to:

1. Delegate (avoid and pass on) your work to other team members or junior staff.

2. Receive a pay check each month regardless of how much work you do. Tip: Do as little as you can.

3. Receive bonuses for work other people do for you.

4. Free office space with all the perks of have-all-you-want drinks and snacks in the pantry.

5. Free telephone calls.

6. Forget about work once you step out of the office. Go home, watch TV. What happens at work, stays at work.

7. Socialize with colleagues, clients and friends - in person or online. Your computer (or maybe your dog) is your best friend at home.

8. Still make money online - you can still blog, deal the stock market, sell on eBay - whatever. The trusty Alt-Tab.

9. Free lunches whenever a special occasion crops up - colleagues leaving, newbies joining, someone’s birthday. Just make sure your boss joins the group.

10. Happy hours after 6 - go get drunk - just make sure you show up at 9am the next day.

11. Sit in meetings, pretend that you are a key contributor - when you are just feeding off others’ ideas, and get the credit.

12. Sit in meetings and pretend that you are listening, except that you are checking your emails or on IM.

13. Do not have to think of ways to make money - leave that to the company management. Just wait for your pay check.

14. Hobnob or sucking up to your superiors - you get rewarded just the same for doing real work - sometimes even more.

15. Your wife or husband calls for an errand favor - “Sorry hon, I’m busy with work right now,” while twiddling your thumbs.

16. The real honeymoon period starts after the first 6 months. Slog before that, be good at what you do, and it becomes easy - especially if you have other team mates.

17. Be the consumer during holiday periods - not the merchant. It’s a holiday, mind you - nobody’s supposed to work during holidays!

18. You get tea breaks, smoking time, cooler chats - and you’re still paid for it!

19. Enjoy free team excursions or bonding sessions to the zoo and bowling alleys. Unless you prove that you are making millions online, else you will never get free sponsored trips to conventions. And what kind of team do you have working from home? You and your gerbils?

20. Deal with nice spiffy titles and promotions like “Vice President”, “Manager”, “Director” - not something geeky like PageRank, or the next big thing they are calling (surprise! surprise!) RealRank!

There are lots more where that came from. That working from home is the ultimate dream job is the greatest lie of all. Freedom. Endless earning potential. Sleep in late and work whatever time you wish. Pretty soon you will be working every single minute to achieve that “endless earning potential”. And most people will never reach even 10% of their potential - because it is much harder work than a comfortable day job.

If you can still get past all the fantastic benefits of a day job, then welcome to the work from home fantasy.

21 Responses

Ken Xu

November 29th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
1

LOL. You are mad, Pal!
PayChecks are limited.
You can’t buy what you want,
you need to save money to buy expensive product,
you ought to do a long procedure to ask for a 1 day holidays to see a concert,
you cannot buy your sport car if you are a general officer,
you need to work 45 years to buy your own villa (if you are extreme clever and with God Bless),
Your creativity is lock down,
You need to be as evil as your boss to be able to sit on his position,
You will need to meet up with annoying customer,
You will need to Stay up late to accompany customer drink wine and play with naughty girls,
you will found lots of people become a online millionaire while you are a broke paychecks receiver that spend almost all money to pay your credit card,
No extra holidays,
The fixed working schedule will me you mad,
You can watch your favorite channel and movie on monday morning,
etc, etc.

Oh, well! :D
THat’s a funny post, YC. I believe Singapore People very smart at releasing themselves from the tie of 9-5 schedule. Never met with someone who actually love it. You are the first! LOLz (or may be I’m wrong! ;) )

(And seems like if people who practice your points is a world Class real Slacker!! hehehe)
ZHereford

November 29th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
2

I can’t believe it! Is this a case of second thoughts and what was I thinking?

Say it isn’t so, YC.
knupNET

November 29th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
3

Nice post. Very true in many ways.
45n5

November 29th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
4

most people don’t have the job you describe above

plus you probably can’t do it in your boxers ;)
Courtney

November 29th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
5

I’d say that very few people have the type of job you’ve described. But if that’s your job…I don’t blame you for not leaving!

Just as an alternative view though..here’s a great blog post by Steve Pavlina

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/07/10-reasons-you-should-never-get-a-job/
shaun

November 29th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
6

How can i work @ home? im sick of school :) :) :) :)
Susan Tice

November 29th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
7

Wow, you must have tried a work from home job and just didn’t have the training that you needed to succeed. I have worked from home for 5 years and there is nothing better. I can make my own schedule. And that steady paycheck, is not residual. Try it again.
Susan Tice

November 29th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
8

Us that have had the training and want to succeed so that we can make our own schedules, do our homework before we begin this venture. You have to choose the right company in the right timing with the right products. I chose to go after a company that supplied products that baby boomers are looking for. I think you just had a bad experience. Try it again, what can it hurt? Do your research.
YC

November 30th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
9

Hm. I think I should try harder - at changing this writing style. Seems like most of you didn’t get what I was trying to say. :)

Most people don’t have the kind of job I described (and that I had) for similar reasons why many people find it hard to make money online. But a day job is invariably easier in many ways because a lot of effort is taken out of the equation by the fact that you are working for someone else. Working at home often means you’re trying to establish your own business - and that is something that you have to sacrifice a lot for.

Btw, I fired my boss over 3 mths ago, so I am working from home. ;)
Jordan Pearce

November 30th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
10

The last job I had 8 years ago was working at an enourmous dot com that sells books online. It was much more appealing to me to sit at home in my bathrobe all day and surf the web then to get a pay-check to do it at 6am.

The majority of the staff at the time were a group of elitist schmucks who followed the criteria you just listed.

I hope they are still cursed with their 9-5 hell to this day. I’m the best boss that I could have and don’t shmooze off others for recognition cause’ I don’t need any.

When you have a job the government gets to decide how much of cut they get. When you work at home you decide how much they get, if any!

Haven’t you heard the saying “Only suckers work overtime.”

Take some lessons from Abbey Hoffman and Tyler Durden, you shouldn’t work so hard as you posted. You show up to use the resources and collect the money in the end. No recognition needed.

Although I would never do it I still think working at a gas staition or as security in a safe neighborhood is the best job because you can get a degree or mastermind another business and get paid to do it.

Ken Xu has a good point and I think it is because Americans are so ‘things’ oriented. If my husband wanted an errand I wouldn’t use work as an excuse. The answer is either yes I will or no I don’t feel like it. People first people.
Emma

November 30th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
11

I get it YC. It’s true the work at home dream actually contains work. And the stress, to perform and earn is actually tougher when your demanding it of yourself. Nice article, I for one, appreciate satire. Also maybe you should tell Mark from 45n5 to put some pants on. :smile:
Chris Jacobson

December 1st, 2007 at 5:01 am
12

So YC, why don’t you go back to your day job? lol
Or is it only online work for you from now on? :p
Chee Kui

December 1st, 2007 at 1:25 pm
13

Funny and wickedly true. ;)
juan

December 2nd, 2007 at 1:45 am
14

I almost forgot about all these perks…. but there are certainly some benefits to working at home too :D And not all these perks apply to every job either (ex. slacking, free beverages, etc.)
Heather Masson

December 3rd, 2007 at 2:55 pm
15

LMAO - very funny YC, but I do get what you’re saying…

Were ya having a bad day?

I had one of those kind of jobs years ago. And it’s all good except like most others that work at home… my name is Heather, and I’m a workaholic :) And so even though I could do all those things, I generally ended up working the 80 hour week and not having a social life anyway. Atleast at home, I don’t have to wear business attire to do it.
Goal Setting College

December 4th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
16

YC, just to pop by and say hello! My, this post is really wacky and I attest to everything said in your list.

But you know? I DON’T MISS THOSE AT ALL…

haha, keep up the great work!

Cheers,
Ellesse
YC

December 4th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
17

Thanks people, fun to know most of you got it - Jordan’s got very good points too.

End of the day - you have a choice and you have to follow what you desire or do not have strong desire for. Nothing is really as easy as what people make it out to be - or simply, nothing’s free!
Around the Net - 12/8/2007 | knupNET

December 8th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
18

[…] Work from home? [Internet Marketing Mind] […]
rob

December 13th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
19

Haha funny YC - Make sure you hide this from any future employers ;)

Working from home is good, but for me it has its downsides too. It can be hard to get motivated or at least maintain it over the years at the same kind of levels that any initial enthusiasm buoyed you with. Complacency and ennui can set in, which is why its always good to have a little bit of an authority saying hey dude, try and get to there please or else kinda thing..keeps us on our toes

I have to be honest and say that given the choice I’d much prefer a team. As for the office politics and stuff, heck, if its one of those environments then its no big deal to up sticks and move on. I’m currently applying for and getting invited to various interviews for some cool online roles. I can’t say how psyched I am at the prospect of working with real people with similar passions for this online stuff again. For me ( and lots of others I don’t doubt) it’s not always about the money :D
Make Money Online Blogging - The Real Deals by Internet Marketing Mind

December 26th, 2007 at 3:33 am
20

[…] but sometimes it may not come as fast as you hope. So during those down periods when you feel like returning to your day job like I have a few times, you can come visit me and share a laugh at each other’s struggles […]
15 must read articles on being great in sales.

February 10th, 2008 at 2:44 am
21

[…] Work From Home? You Must Be F**kin’ Mad - Internet Marketing Mind […]