We did it! We’ve reached the next stage in our journey! We now have a portable income and can work from anywhere with internet! This opens up a world of possibilities for us.
After all the attempts to force something to happen, trying new ventures, applying for remote job after remote job, in the end it was almost like the solution came to us. Two things converged around the same time to ultimately land us in a really good spot.
My journey back into steady employment
After deciding that perhaps I needed to be the one to find something after all (even though that wasn’t what any of us really wanted), I put a call out to my network. I met with a former boss, asked for recommendations on LinkedIn, and started applying for work from home jobs that seemed interesting. I had a few conversations with potential employers and recruiters. I made it clear that I wanted to pick up more work, or even a full time position, but that I was no longer interested in working a standard 8-5 in an office. While that ruled out a lot of interesting opportunities, I knew that wasn’t something I wanted to return to as long as I had a choice.
A former coworker reached out to me after seeing a message I had broadcast on LinkedIn. She had started her own web marketing company after being laid off a few years back and was wondering if I might want to help her with her business! She explained that she needed someone to assist when she had work that was too technical for her to handle, and to generally help her keep projects ticking along while she was busy developing the business. She also told me about another person who had been in touch with her that might have even more work for us through his business. Exciting stuff!
We met up and near immediately I started doing work for her as a sub-contractor. It is the kind of thing that can be done at my own pace, without tight deadlines. We met with the other guy too, and picked up some more work from him (though not as much as initially promised). I also picked up a few additional clients of my own, more than enough to keep me busy!
His new position
At the same time this was all happening, a recruiter reached out to my husband. They represented a company desperate to find programmers with knowledge in a particular programming language called Laravel. My husband was one of very few that had experience coding in that language (in large part thanks to our previous entrepreneurial attempts) and so they wanted to interview him ASAP. After the first interview he was optimistic. He liked the manager, and the company seemed promising. Business was growing quickly and they were in a stable industry.
There was a long stretch of time where we heard nothing and thought maybe it had fallen apart or they had selected somebody else. Instead what had happened was that the recruiter had quit! Without that middleman in place, there was no way to contact each other until a replacement was found.
Recruiters are often somewhat like used car salesman. A good one can be somewhat hard to find. They will try to sell the job to just about anyone even remotely qualified, will say about anything while trying to make the “sale” connecting the employer and employee. The previous recruiter had been excellent, the best either of us had ever dealt with. The replacement was not great. After one really aggressive, painful call I was convinced the job might fall through for him. But the employer was having a similar experience on the other end too. They finally were able to get in touch with each other again.
It took some time for it all to come together, but eventually he was awarded the job!! A significant increase in pay came along with it, as well as additional vacation time.
He’s been at it for awhile now, and while it is demanding on his time, things are generally going well. He really clicks with the manager, the coworkers are good and he’s gotten accustomed to working from home.
So we’ve done it! We’ve reached our primary goal of mobile income and being together for living, learning and life. 🙂