On Working From Home in the Philippines

The initial question here would be, "Is it even possible?" Well, I wouldn't be writing about it here if it wasn't, right? And I would certainly not be the first one to blog about it. Living here in this country and working for U.S., U.K. or any other foreign country-based firm is something I have been doing for the past year, and I thought I'd share some of my experiences so far.

First off, I do not know many people who work from home like me. Okay, I do, but they're not from the Philippines so that makes a huge difference. They seem to have more opportunities there (especially U.S. and U.K.) than here. I often get referred to this and that opportunity only to read from the FAQ that the requirement is that "the individual must be living in the U.S. or Canada", or wherever, just not in the Philippines. So it's kind of frustrating to know that yes, there are a lot of opportunities out there, but only some of them are available to someone from the Philippines like me.

Second, some people envy me for having this type of job. Yes, the pay is way better than what is paid by local jobs, but it has its fair share of disadvantages. I believe I already discussed that earlier but I have to add some things. Being thousands of miles away from the source of income, it's hard to get your money on time, unlike with a regular job. Errm. My mom has a regular job but does not always get her money on time because the LGU she works for has an incredibly corrupt mayor. Hehe. Intermediaries often screw up and my salary is almost always late in coming, so the bills pile up once in a while. Okay. Always pile up. I know I seriously need a crash course on budgeting. Filipinos have yet to find the best way to send money from there to here. May I live to see that day. *Sigh*

Third, and this is what most people here do not understand, sitting in front of the computer is not an easy task. Writing IS NOT an easy task. Working from home IS NOT EASY. People hear about my job and think, she must have it pretty easy. Well, dummies. I DON'T. It takes a lot of thinking, incredible hard work and a lot of cussing to get a decent income off the Internet. Cussing might be easy to do for anyone, but thinking and hard work? I don't think so. Hehe.

Now what's great about it? I've already discussed this as well, I know, but here are additional benefits. Aside from being near my child everyday, the currency which I am paid with, when converted to our own currency amounts to a tidy sum of money. Most foreigners wonder and/or derogate me because I put up with payment as low as $3 a page. They do that without even doing the math, without even knowing that what I am paid for everyday sitting here in front of my computer doing three-four hours of work is more than what most companies here in our country pay the average manager for eight hours of grueling work. More often than not, foreigners do not have a grasp of how different our currency is, how large a money $1 is to us.