on the phone...

Back in September I needed to have some dependable income coming in so I contracted with a company to do customer service from home. I thought it would be tolerable at best but I have been pleasantly surprised.

It pays as well or better than they indicated during the hiring process, and although there are many little technical issues and some kinks to be worked out - it's a pretty well run business.

I have never liked "punching a clock" and still don't enjoy having obligations (yes, I'm one of THOSE people) but I essentially tell them the hours I would be willing to work and they schedule me according to those times.

The biggest surprise for me is that I love it. Some moments are stressful as any customer service job is - but for the most part, it's FUN. I know FUN seems a bit of an exaggeration but really it is. I spend 50-60% of my shifts shopping with people - on clothes and other high end items I couldn't dream of affording (trust me, this gig and my other clients don't pay me nearly enough to jump on a $1700 pair of shoes - or a $5600 purse!). It's like window shopping except you are shopping for other people AND getting paid for it.

Anyway... that's one of my "hats" I'm wearing right now. I had a couple emails asking what my four jobs I'm working are from my mom's comment. Everything I do is under my business so technically it's one job... but it's quite a variety of work. I spend about 15-25 hours a week doing this CS contract, I am still doing ChaCha (which is starting to bring in some $$ too), I'm helping my client the insurance agent build her business by following her warm/hot leads, I am subcontracting for my mentor, and I have my own clients (and a new one this week!! YEA).

Here's the scoop.

Dan has finally taken the leap and jumped into the finance industry (what a time right?). He was a finance major (and marketing) back in the day at the University, but went with marketing to shave a year off his schooling. When he was getting his MBA he did a lot of coursework in finance and kind of fell back in love with it.

When a bunch of things were going down with his job earlier this year and he knew he was going to be looking again, he contacted a friend of ours who is a financial advisor. Our friend gave him some advice and helped him with the process, and so he has spent the last 3 months studying to be a financial advisor. He passed his Series 7, Series 66 and now the Health Insurance (there was a glitch with getting scheduled for the life portion of the exam). He was offered a branch here in our town and Dan is thrilled at this opportunity. During the business building stage though - it's 60-80 hour work weeks and a little more than minimum wage during this training stage.

I had a lot of questions about these two topics so I thought I'd share with all of you. Things are really ok, just stressful and a little worrisome at times - but we know there are better days ahead.