I am sometimes amazed at the various opportunities there are to work from home. Take a conversation I had last week with a neighbor who lives two doors down from us.
We have lived in our home for nearly 8 years now and although we are friendly with our neighbors, we haven’t had a chance to really get to know all of them. So I happened to be out front one day and another neighbor was outside.
We ended up striking up a conversation about a cat that wanders around the neighborhood. That turned into a variety of other topics, including the fact that he works from home.
Turns out he used to be an investigator but for the past five years he has been working for Michael Connelly, a New York Times best-selling author. His books are based on crime stories and so my neighbor apparently does the research for his books.
I was absolutely in awe of this man’s work. He gets to research, read the author’s books, provide feedback…all from the comfort of his home. He didn’t tell me how much he makes but I gather it is fairly substantial.
And apparently in April he and his wife were flown out to New York on behalf of Connelly. Talk about a dream work-from-home job.
All of this made me think about fellow blogger Sarah Berthiaume’s recent blog, “So What Do You Do for Work?” I think sometimes it can be really difficult to describe what you do when it is not your ordinary run-of-the-mill job.
I was then able to share with my neighbor what I do in working from home, which isn’t always easy to describe. I am a web content writer, not a position many people are familiar with. But I was also able to throw in there that I am a professional blogger (once you get paid, it becomes professional—at least, that’s my rule).
I explained how most of my work is for law firms and so it involves research, writing (articles, blogs, news stories, FAQ’s, etc.), and editing. He seemed impressed with my work as much as I was with his.
After the conversation was over, I thought about how it just goes to show that you never know what home-based jobs are out there. Who would have ever thought you could get paid to read books from a New York Times bestselling author?
I think this should be motivating to anyone out there looking for something unconventional that they can do from home. What interesting work-at-home jobs have you heard about?
Related Articles:
How to Become a Professional Organizer
Photo by lelahwithanh at Flickr