Working as a Work at Home Parent, with Work at Home Parents

Most of the time, I assume my clients are working from a traditional business setting. No matter who they are, I envision a nice, air-conditioned office, a telephone answering service, regular working hours, and a professional wardrobe that puts me to shame. Working from home is still new enough to me (and seemingly incredible from time to time) that I assume I am the exception rather than the rule.

However, while individuals working from virtual offices may still be in the minority, there are substantially more work-from-home professionals and parents than you think there are. This is because people working in offices still seem to carry a bit more authority than individuals clocking their hours around soccer schedules and day care issues, so those of us in the latter category tend to “hide” the fact that that is exactly what we are doing.

Although the rational part of me knows that working from home or a virtual office is no source of shame, I can’t help but perk up when I hear the screams of someone else’s children on the other end of the phone. I adore getting apologies from seemingly collected businesspeople as they are forced to attend to what only can be teenagers demanding the keys to the car or money for the mall.

That’s why it is a continual delight to come across clients who are in the exact same situation as the rest of us. In the past two weeks, I have discovered that not one, not two, but three of my client contacts are WAHMs. They work from virtual offices and around the needs of their small children. And these aren’t small potatoes clients either – some of them are incredibly successful professionals amongst whom it is an honor to work.

In reality, working with individuals in virtual offices is beneficial for a number of reasons:

• They have more flexible schedules, so questions are often answered in the middle of the night and phone calls can be set up during untraditional hours.

• They understand the costs of working as a freelancer or an independent contractor. When you ask for a reasonable hourly rate, they automatically know that you are calculating taxes, administrative hours, and PayPal fees into the overall charge, so they don’t balk at the total number.

• They are an incredible networking opportunity. Our website designer and our nonprofit blog designer (yet to be unveiled, thank you very much) both work from virtual offices. We send work their way, and they send work ours. We all belong to the same club, with the never-discussed-but-readily-apparent rules of loyalty and reciprocation.

• They employ the latest in communications technology. Instant messages, Twitters, and emails abound among the virtual office set. Telephone and face-to-face communication methods are oftentimes a heavier time investment than sending off a quick email every now and then, so it’s nice to work with a group of people who operate along the same lines.

• They work on different pay schedules than traditional offices. When I submit an invoice to a large organization, I typically have to wait until the right department approves and submits the payment. The work-at-home set typically pays much, much faster (oftentimes on the same day as the project completion).

The work-from-home set is an incredible bunch of people (as many of us will attest). Although I would never turn down a job from a traditional office setting, I am happy to include so many WAHMs and virtual office professionals in my client list.