Well, not dead, but several states away.
Remember the bitch at work? My boss just told me her last day was Friday. She moved away…yay! She’s the only person I’ve ever had an issue with in this office, and she was definitely a sour puss to deal with. I am quite pleased to see she has moved on.
I’m in the office today…I had a horrible drive in this morning, but I did get to have lunch with a friend, so the drive was worth it 
I was absolutely starving by the time we got to lunch, but I only ate half of my food. I guess my eyes were bigger than my stomach? Funny how when I’m at home, I go HOURS without eating. It’s almost like I’m on some kind of medicine for appetite suppressant, like Tenuate. I swear, I’m not! I’m just easily distracted at home, and I forget to eat.
That’s me – a WAHM – also known as a Work At Home Mom. I’ve been working at home on and off since 1997. I used to run a website for moms out of my house, then I sold that and got a “real” job for a few years, left that job to go to my current job, and here I am. My current job isn’t a typical work at home job – I have an office and I go there once a week or so, and telecommute the rest of the time. I feel that I know enough about working at home to be able to critique http://www.workfromhomefacts.com and offer them some tips on how to improve their content and attact more visitors.
1. Lose the cheesy looking Yahoo avatar on your main page. It doesn’t look professional, and I can’t take you seriously when I’m staring at a cartoon avatar Samuri guy.
2. Lose the ad at the top of your page – it’s confusing as to if it is part of your logo or an ad, and it’s a turn off. I realize that’s prime real estate for ads, but your header should reflect YOUR site, not lead me to someone elses.
3. Move the ad links and google search box to the bottom of the page. Let me read your content without being distracted by other links and a search box.
4. Lose the ads within articles – again, it’s really disctracting. It’s hard to focus on your content when you have 2 or 3 or 4 links in each article to other places. Or make the ads stand out less.
5. Speaking of your content – it’s good! It’s honest and laid out well. You’re not charging for the info – always a plus.
To sum things up – great content – work on the layout and “busy-ness” of the pages that content is on. Too many ads and such are a real turn off. Your content is MUCH better than sites like TheRichJerk.com (he sounds like an arrogant man) but his design is cleaner. You win hands down over 3500weekly.com – that site looks and reads like a scam, and the plain white design is downright boring.
My trip into the office yesterday was productive. I got dragged into a conference call at 9am that I didn’t need to be in, but my boss and I had a meeting after that and he downloaded some of his brain into mine. Now I can set up new hires and terminations in our system, so he’s able to send a bit of that work my way to free up his workload.
See? I’m worth every penny of that raise I just got!
When I worked as a team lead for a company doing background checks, I was able to work at home quite a bit. All I had to do was log into our network using Citrix. I found that Citrix didn’t play very well on my home desktop, and the desktop I accessed remotely at work, wasn’t anything remotely like it should have been. (Pun intended!) At my current job, I use a VPN quite offer, because it allows me to remote into a user’s computer and see what they’re seeing – when you’re trying to trouble shoot a PeopleSoft or help desk issue, it’s a great too to have. However, VPN is costly, and not a good choice for a small company or a singler user.
The solution? Remote Access from RemotePC. Designed for the small business or single user with plans starting at only $4.95 per month (not to mention, a 30 day free trial to give the program a try before you buy), you can access your home or office computer from anywhere. If your business doesn’t provide you with a laptop to take work home, a program like Remote Access is an easy way to retrieve that file you were working on late last night and forgot to bring to work. Advanced features of Remote Access allow for up to 10 ysers to share desktops, as well as file & folder transfers, and remote printing. One feature I could definitely sell our IT group on is the Remote Access Helpdesk account. I work on our Peoplesoft help desk at work and we definitely need a system like this to coordinate better when we’re assisting users.
It definitely doesn’t seem as buggy as Citrix was for us, and it’s much cheaper than VPN, but has the same great features, as well as a few I don’t currently have.
It’s no secret that I rarely go into the office. But I still have my very own cube there, with my personal things. I’ve got a shelf with pictures of my kids, my own mousepad, and desk chair with my sweater thrown over the back…
There are empty desks right across the cube wall from me. Yet someone had to sit where while I was working from home. And not only did they sit here, they moved all of my stuff and didn’t put it back. The worst offense? Instead of taking a chair from an empty desk or the conference room, they adjusted my chair.
I’ve been in the office for 2 hours so far now, and I still can’t get my chair adjusted just right. The way it’s been for 2 1/2 years. I’m installing the barbed wire this afternoon.
I’m too tired to even think of a title for this entry, but I wanted to share (uhh…brag) that my boss emailed me today to tell me I got a raise. I just got a 7% raise in October, so this one is icing on the cake. I guess that performance evaluation I was stressing over paid off for me!
My office put out word today that an arrest was made in the car-jacking in our garage this week.
Strangely, this does not make me WANT to go to the office.
Even though I stayed home today, I did have to work. Booo! It’s amazing to me how many dumb mistakes the people I support make. Seriously. People making 2x what I make, and they’re idiots who can’t follow simple instructions. Funny that they work in staffing! And speaking of such, we haven’t had any audio resumes submitted but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. Someone can create an audio resume by calling a provided number and answeing a few questions – and then they get a unique URL to pass on to potential employers. You can see how it works here. With job seekers getting creative (sending pizzas, singing telegrams, etc), an audio resume isn’t so “out there” when you think about it. And it would make an impact to someone receiving a ton of paper resumes! I also imagine you could decide from the audio resume if someone is well spoken enough for the position you’ve got open as well.
And not just because of driving all that way and sitting at a desk for 8 hours. We got this email today:
Today an incident occurred in the parking garage. Two individuals (one reportedly armed) approached a tenant in her vehicle and demanded the vehicle and her personal belongings. The individual was not harmed and the police are currently investigating the incident.
Do you think I can call in because I fear for my safety?