Telecommuting jobs and where do you get them

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jetpacman

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I would love a telecommuting ( work from home ) job. Does anyone know of any agencies that specialize in this here in South Africa.

Now I don't want to sell bum creams and do all that work from home/scam junk. I am talking about proper jobs in the technical/IT industry.

Personally it would be great to be given targets and have to meet them. Where the what, when and how you do the job is your baby.

Business is about productivity and profit after all. All the office politics and power stuggles tend to get in the way of true productivity. I can't see why there shouldn't be more work from home jobs.

The companies can't argue that its bad for productivity. All the companies need to do is set a target and enforce strict punishment if you fail to achieve the target without a valid reason. The extra strictness would be in lieu of the benefit of being able to work from home.

Personally it feels like managers in SA want to be in control and have direct control and power over staff under them. Ego and all that jazz. Telecommuting means that many bosses will have to let go of that power and take on more of a leadership role than a managerial role. Many managers today don't have leadership skills.

As a point how many people sit at their offices with nothing to do once the work is done for the day and sit using up the companies resources to pass time, just to satisfy the need to be on the premises.
 
I would be interested in this as well .... as I am currently waiting for my manager to get more work .... which is not bad .... but there is only so much surfing u can do b4 u want to go home :D
 
I have done the telecommute for over 5 years now.
It gets old, real quick.

There is an old saying: "be careful what you wish for".
 
mmmmm,when i moved to pretoria 7months ago, i applied for 5 jobs, and I got job offers from all 5 of them. 2 were in the Telecommunications.

I decided to go into the ETF steam. I can try and get the company details if you want, they might have positions open, you never know :)
 
How can it get old though? Please explain. ( I do IT/electronics stuff at the mo btw)

It would be nice to be able to get up later, not sit in traffic, watch TV in background, listen to your own music, eat fresh food and save on take outs, go to the shop when you feel like it, take a break when you want to, wear what you want to etc etc.

How could that get old. Its all the perks of being your own boss, without having to start your own company. In fact if you had your own company you would still have to go to the office....

Just think of the money that can be saved as well and the benefit in terms of less traffic jams on the roads as people wouldn't have to haul their cars to work everyday, less pollution from cars as well. The current slave like working system is getting a bit old if you ask me.
 
Not telecommunications per se FaNIX... but a job where one can "telecommute"...

Sometimes I'd like a job like that, other times I'm not so sure tbh...
 
No worries...

Actually come to think of it..
someone give me a telecommuting job so I can move back to durban :D
 
jetpacman said:
How can it get old though? Please explain. ( I do IT/electronics stuff at the mo btw)

It would be nice to be able to get up later, not sit in traffic, watch TV in background, listen to your own music, eat fresh food and save on take outs, go to the shop when you feel like it, take a break when you want to, wear what you want to etc etc.

How could that get old. Its all the perks of being your own boss, without having to start your own company. In fact if you had your own company you would still have to go to the office....

Just think of the money that can be saved as well and the benefit in terms of less traffic jams on the roads as people wouldn't have to haul their cars to work everyday, less pollution from cars as well. The current slave like working system is getting a bit old if you ask me.
Click to expand...


OK - let us look at things one at a time.

First, if you are a "slacker", then it wont work for you - you will be turfed very quick.

So, since I have been doing this for 5 years+, and am the only person in my department, and run all the servers, infrastructure, DBS etc, then it is safe to assume that I work well and do my work well.

Therefore, getting up later? Ha! I am normally working by 6:30. And I am normally here after 5pm too.
Weekends - too.
Holidays? Unless I go away, then I am here at least 2 hours a day.
Yeah, I can wear what I like, and the fresh food is a real bonus (as is seeing my kids more).
But it is way more like being your own boss than being at an office - the pressure is more. If something goes wrong when you are on lunch and at an office, you do not feel so bad. When it goes wrong, and you work from home, and people phone you, you feel like "they think I am slacking off".

I have done both work types for equal time - and they both suck.

The biggest (BIGGEST) plus - NO TRAFFIC !!!
 
Moederloos said:
OK - let us look at things one at a time.

First, if you are a "slacker", then it wont work for you - you will be turfed very quick.

So, since I have been doing this for 5 years+, and am the only person in my department, and run all the servers, infrastructure, DBS etc, then it is safe to assume that I work well and do my work well.

Therefore, getting up later? Ha! I am normally working by 6:30. And I am normally here after 5pm too.
Weekends - too.
Holidays? Unless I go away, then I am here at least 2 hours a day.
Yeah, I can wear what I like, and the fresh food is a real bonus (as is seeing my kids more).
But it is way more like being your own boss than being at an office - the pressure is more. If something goes wrong when you are on lunch and at an office, you do not feel so bad. When it goes wrong, and you work from home, and people phone you, you feel like "they think I am slacking off".

I have done both work types for equal time - and they both suck.

The biggest (BIGGEST) plus - NO TRAFFIC !!!
Click to expand...

Man you sound like you are being overworked. The kind of telecommuting that I am referring to would be wear you get a decent amount of work ( and you are part of a team), not a whole department's worth of work lumped on you. Nobody should have to work all the time whether they are telecommuniting or at an office.
A healthy work/life balance is something that needs exist.

Obviously slackers will suffer in telecommuting ( thats why we will still need office workers lol) but on the other hand one should not be given too much work. Your targets and responsibilities should be reasonable so that you can have normal hours with the occasional overtime ( when deadlines are looming). If you are doing too much work then your employer needs to add more people to the team.

Ultimately work should be pleasurable so that you can enjoy being away from an office and make use of some free time you get. Hence telecommuting should be the way forward with certain limitations on much you can work and as long as you can meet your targets.
 
jetpacman said:
I would love a telecommuting ( work from home ) job. Does anyone know of any agencies that specialize in this here in South Africa.

Now I don't want to sell bum creams and do all that work from home/scam junk. I am talking about proper jobs in the technical/IT industry.

Personally it would be great to be given targets and have to meet them. Where the what, when and how you do the job is your baby.

Business is about productivity and profit after all. All the office politics and power stuggles tend to get in the way of true productivity. I can't see why there shouldn't be more work from home jobs.

The companies can't argue that its bad for productivity. All the companies need to do is set a target and enforce strict punishment if you fail to achieve the target without a valid reason. The extra strictness would be in lieu of the benefit of being able to work from home.

Personally it feels like managers in SA want to be in control and have direct control and power over staff under them. Ego and all that jazz. Telecommuting means that many bosses will have to let go of that power and take on more of a leadership role than a managerial role. Many managers today don't have leadership skills.

As a point how many people sit at their offices with nothing to do once the work is done for the day and sit using up the companies resources to pass time, just to satisfy the need to be on the premises.
Click to expand...

Hi there,

I'd like to know if you've found telecommuting jobs yet? Or a place to find such jobs?

Regards...
 
Personally it feels like managers in SA want to be in control and have direct control and power over staff under them. Ego and all that jazz. Telecommuting means that many bosses will have to let go of that power and take on more of a leadership role than a managerial role. Many managers today don't have leadership skills.
Click to expand...

That pretty much sums up working life in SA
 
I used to do the telecommuting thing for about 2 years before movnign to centurion, and I found you worked a lot more hours then you do in a normal office environment.

The other thing you should remember is, even though you work from home, you cannot just rush off to the shops for this and that, if they phone and you are not working, you will be back at the office faster that you can say "please remove your boot from my @ss".

Another thing to remember is the distractions, there is a lot fo distractions working from home, which you will need to take into account, that is why you spend more hours working when working from home.

And like Moeder said, if you do not go away for a holiday, you are not on holiday, they will find a way to disturb you on your day off. I worked from 5:30 in the mornings till roughly 7, 8 at night.

Another thing is face value, you kind of get bored with just sitting at home in your study or home office, and you miss the water cooler chit chat.

But taking all this into account, I would still jump at the chance to do it again
 
You could try Getafreelancer, I told another forumite about this site and he got a job the same day.
 
mercurial said:
I'd love a job like this. Preferable one where I do buggerall and get paid :cool:
Click to expand...
It gets old pretty fast . . . . not.

I've been telecommuting for 15 years now . . . had to, otherwise the commute to the office in London would be a killer. I've just opened a studio/shop and have to admit working office hours again after so long is a real schlep. :o
 
bwana said:
It gets old pretty fast . . . . not.

I've been telecommuting for 15 years now . . . had to, otherwise the commute to the office in London would be a killer. I've just opened a studio/shop and have to admit working office hours again after so long is a real schlep. :o
Click to expand...

You're fortunate. I'd love to give it a try and see how it goes. I need to find out what sort of careers one can do from home though.
 
I'm currently doing the telecommute thing for a software/custom electronics company, and I reckon one of the most important things to do, is set out specific hours where you're not allowed to be disturbed and set up an office. People tend to think, just because you're at home, you're available to run some errands for them and whatnot, which is absolutely NOT true. In fact, I work a LOT of overtime here, working until the early morning hours on a regular basis, whether it be reading some datasheets or working on a piece of code that just won't do what you want it to. My "office" at home is a fairly nice setup, actually. Just need to get me an extra screen at some point, since a 15" screen at almost a meter away, isn't ideal. Thank heavens for good eyesight. :D
 
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