I ~kind~ of work from home, as in that my office is literally my childhood home, but I don't really fit the criteria exactly.
My dad though, he's been self made for 13-15 years now. He's an engineer and designed a lot of configuration and schematics for Turbine Engines, really cut his teeth well in the industry when he first got hired out of college and quickly rose to a managerial position at other engineering companies (Westinghouse, ETSI, etc.) designing and running these systems. He made the bulk of his cash out the gate essentially just installing and providing field service support for these type of machines.
After a year or two, lots of power plants were not really "automated" and "optimized", and the components to actually run a system were kind of big and bulky. But there was a newer product on the market, Opto 22, that boasted itself as being able to do controller logic, while remaining cost effective and unintrusive. You are able to easily program the logic from a developers perspective, while being able to easily activate and utilize everything from the power plant workers perspective. So my dad did a little bit of research into Opto 22, and was looking at a list of vendors......primarily Opto22 is based out of California, but the East Coast specialist, in a CRAZY fit of good luck, actually lives like....maybe 1 mile from my dads house? Lol. So they've actually became friends after linking up to do business, and now their business does better because they each are able to give each other deals.
It certainly seems to have its perks:
- My dad is his own boss. He has a business partner, and his partners daughter and myself are the only other employees. He takes time off when he wants, and did that as I grew up too. He never had to miss any event or anything....he can make time.
- That being said, work and shit needs done, he works a lot of hours. Most days he works 8-6. Hour for lunch. Sporadic breaks throughout day to just "clear his head" (he doesn't vape, he literally is just clearing his head lol) He definitely puts in time on the weekends if he is not doing anything else...he will sit and do work while watching football for example, rather than get loaded.
- He writes off tons of stuff for "business related expenses" in regards to taxes: Can't tell you how many dinners on vacation were simply a "business meeting."
Gas, food, etc. So I don't know if he has actually "saved" money this way, but it seems like a perk.
Its tough though. He's kind of stressed about work often, but he loves being his own boss and not having to answer to anyone, so its a fair trade in his eyes. Plus, I was kind of scrounging around and was collecting unemployment, he needed someone to do technical sales work, so I just go up to my old room and do sales calls most days.....but he also lets me teach myself programming here at the house, I've learned how to set up and program the OPTO 22 controllers and have been sent out of town to do simple installations, I get to see my dogs everyday at lunch and play with them
.....he's a legitimate company, so although I don't have a college degree, I feel the year plus experience in sales and also familiarizing myself with some technical engineering work can only better my chances at finding employment in the future.
)
