Often times I receive questions from readers wondering if there is any possible way to manage working from home on the phone with young children around. This is a unique question, as each person’s situation varies. I have had personal experience working a call center job from home while having a one year old and a three year old at home. It didn’t work out for me, but it was because of personal reasons that you will see in my response to this reader question, which I received the okay to share with you all.
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Do you know of any people who have one to two year olds, and held their job as call center agents from home? If so what tips do you have?
My Response: I did it. But I found I had to put my office in my garage and could only work when my husband was home to care for the kids. It was hard because he would fall asleep while I had a 1 and 3 year old!!!!
Which, ultimately caused me to find other work. I just couldnt comfortably “got to work” not knowing if they are even being watched….but that is my personal situation with a husband who was working third shift and seemed to always be tired at the time. I know of some other people who have been able to pull it off, but they had to work very part-time.
Some of them would work late at night after the kids went to sleep while others who work early in the morning before their kids woke up. But that would require knowing your own kids and if the noise would wake them, or if they have odd sleeping patterns.
This type of thing also requires that you find a call center job with VERY flexible scheduling. Here is a recent article of 9 virtual call centers with flexible scheduling. I worked for LiveOps, which was very flexible.
I believe my situation could have worked out, had my husband been able to handle it better. But I am glad it didnt because it forced me to find a non-phone job and it also led me to start my blog. I hope this helps in some way.
I believe Anna from RealWaystoEarn.com has an article on this subject that may be worth reading over for her tips as well.
The Bottomline
Understand that if you want to manage working from home with young kids around, you need to find a way that you can work in a quiet environment, without distractions. Which will mean someone has to care for your kids.
It is possible that working with young kids around is not possible for your situation. Or, it may just be very stressful trying to manage. If that is the case, there are non-phone work at home options and writing jobs. While there aren’t as many and it can be harder to find a non-phone job that fits your needs, it may be your best option.
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You can do it with help. I’ve done this many times without help. With 2 small kids starting then both from newborn status both 2 years apart.. Just imagine how much they needed me that young and I breastfed. Held the job for 2 and a half years before I was unfortunately laid off (entire project laid off). WAH phone jobs can be complicated with kids but there are workarounds that can make it better. It made me stronger, it taught me how to be: even more proactive and how to truly multitask. I became more responsible. It paid off and was good training for future situations.
This article is very useful for women who want to manage with kids and work at the same time. I think it is very difficult to work a phone job with young kids at home because kids need a lot of attention, every minute mother should care about children in another way they can harm. But I have one friend who works at paper writing service Powered Essays and she combines work with children care. So, to my mind, everything depends on the kind of work and the requirements on it.