Working Remotely

[Treadingwater]

Hello All

Firstly I would like to say hello and secondly to apologise if I am posting this in the wrong place.

I am after some advice from some of you more experienced liveaboards on making a crust whilst being a cc, what have your experiences been, is it possible, or only if you are an IT whizz or something.

I have thirteen years back office experience and have been looking around for something legitimate that I could do from the boat.

Have registered with some agency's but no luck yet.

Has anyone found anything, would be very grateful for any hints or tips.

Cheers

Suzanne

 

 

[AirConAndy]

Hello there. We have been living aboard for over a year now and I've recently starting working remotely from home. We use a mifi paid monthly for the Internet connection. Works great. I currently do audio typing for a company called documentdirect. If you can type then if you Google them and others by searching for audio typists/transcribing services etc then you should come across lots of companies asking for typists to work remotely.. It is a self employed basis and the money is not great as you get paid per audio minute but all you need is a computer, Internet, headphones and foot pedal. You can even download the software for free 'express scribe'. Not ever gonna be a millionaire but I can do it in my jim jams if I want to!

 

Good Luck

 

 

Karen

[system 4-50]

Hello there. We have been living aboard for over a year now and I've recently starting working remotely from home. We use a mifi paid monthly for the Internet connection. Works great. I currently do audio typing for a company called documentdirect. If you can type then if you Google them and others by searching for audio typists/transcribing services etc then you should come across lots of companies asking for typists to work remotely.. It is a self employed basis and the money is not great as you get paid per audio minute but all you need is a computer, Internet, headphones and foot pedal. You can even download the software for free 'express scribe'. Not ever gonna be a millionaire but I can do it in my jim jams if I want to!

 

Good Luck

 

 

Karen

or even onesies...

[dmr]

If you can find the work then working from a boat is not much harder than working from a house.

However there are a few new challenges...

1 water makes the work ethic go away.

2 anything boat related is much more exciting than doing work

3 after a year on cut your idea of smart clothes (or time keeping) and your clients idea of smart clothes are no longer the same.

 

so to be harsh

If you live in a house and give up your safe job can you still get enough freelance work to survive?

If you can then you can most likely do it on a boat

If you cant do it in a house then it wont be any easier on a boat.

 

...........Dave

[Paul's Nulife4-2]

Hello All

Firstly I would like to say hello and secondly to apologise if I am posting this in the wrong place.

I am after some advice from some of you more experienced liveaboards on making a crust whilst being a cc, what have your experiences been, is it possible, or only if you are an IT whizz or something.

I have thirteen years back office experience and have been looking around for something legitimate that I could do from the boat.

Have registered with some agency's but no luck yet.

Has anyone found anything, would be very grateful for any hints or tips.

Cheers

Suzanne

 

Hi ya susan,& welcome to the forum.

I think your earning potential is directly linked to your qualifications,experience & skills you have in a given field.

I have lots of friends who earn a crust or two,& live on there boats . I have a few friends who earn a crust or two, & work from there boats. But I do think,in general its all about 'Networking' meeting people,chatting to everyone, selling yourself & letting people know you are available for the odd bit of work. So you are probably your best advertising.

I think some of the biggest problems for a liveaboard CCr is, well,you move,so there are sometimes challenging logistical problems to overcome, not only getting to & from a bus stop or train station,but then getting to & from the place of work via bus or train !..

Muddy tow paths overgrown hedge rows , thorn & friendly dogs encounters arnt the best environment for high heels & a channel two piece me thinks !.

Now working from your boat,yes ime sure its doable especially for someone who has skills such as yours,,and Karen's, but again its all about contacts,so its probably worth a web site,or hit the city offices & temp agencies.

Good luck,& let us know how it worked out !.

Edited December 14, 2013 by Paul's Nulife4-2

[Paul C]

I use a desktop PC and a laptop PC regularly. For casual internet browsing, there's little difference. But for things like typing, or spreadsheet work, the full size keyboard and separate mouse respectively, make such a difference in ease/productivity. So if you worked from a boat eg typing up stuff, then I think you'd need to at least find the space for a table/desk and use a proper keyboard and mouse with it. The laptop screen would be good enough though. Easy on some boats to find a space, more difficult on a smaller boat.

[Lady Muck]

You need a proper desk, if you work from a laptop alone you could soon get back problems.

But laptops are preferable, especially solid state (ie no fan), we found our desktops hated the boat, just got full of dust from the burner, you still might find you have to open the back of your laptop every six months or so and squirt it with compressed air - they can get full of dust and overheat.

If Im working onboard I have a wall mounted monitor to plug into. Better for posture and my laptop is tiny anyway.

If you travel around and you need to be connected then id recommend you get pay as you go sims from more than one service provider and unlock your dongle/mifi - we find that theres a huge variation in different parts of the country as to what will work the best.

I found my colour inkjet printer did not like the boat, it got full of dust, the inkjets clogged. We use a cheap laser printer now.

Make sure you back your data up - we keep a set of hard drives at a relatives and back up whenever we go there.

Living aboard is an advantage for me - if I get a contract to work in an office, I can usually move my boat to be near that location.

Get some solar panels!

Keeping smart clothes for work is not easy - everything I own smells of excel - I try to keep certain things in hanging garment bags.

Keeping other work things clean can be an issue as well, you need to do lots of dusting in the winter. Insure you business equipment so it's covered on and away from the boat. We did so with Mardon Marine, my laptop bag with loads of equipment on it was stolen on the tube and they paid out in full, so worth it.

We've been freelance ten years, seven of those we've lived onboard. Agree that the businesses that work well onboard work equally well on the bankside but I think it helps that neither of us have work that requires much space nor do we have clients that demand many meetings (my main client is in Miami).

We had much more difficulty in the beginning - ipads, smartphones and 3g/4g connectivity didnt exist then, computers used to use a lot more power than the modern ones, meaning lots of genny or engine running and solar was really expensive - lots of travel to internet cafes to send emails with big attachments, used to have to post the work out on cd or paper, so had the added hassle of trying to find a post office, but now its all Dropboxed.

Have you thought of doing short term contract work. I know lots of liveaboards that do this (us included), especially popular with many of our friends who cc around London, they work like crazy this time of year so that they can take the summer off and head out of London.

[pquinn]

not sure if this is of any use to you but when we go away boating my wife uses some software called GO TO MY COMPUTER or go to my pc [i am not sure] which allows her to remotely control her computer in the office.it means that if the boss needs something that she can get it with a few clicks instead of somebody else putting in passwords and having to be guided round spread sheets and files over the phone.it has worked brilliant for us and is simple to use but of course it is signal dependant and the computer must be switched on.using this she has logged in on many occasions to find people snooping and trying to access information that they had no business looking at . paul

[Paul C]

not sure if this is of any use to you but when we go away boating my wife uses some software called GO TO MY COMPUTER or go to my pc [i am not sure] which allows her to remotely control her computer in the office.it means that if the boss needs something that she can get it with a few clicks instead of somebody else putting in passwords and having to be guided round spread sheets and files over the phone.it has worked brilliant for us and is simple to use but of course it is signal dependant and the computer must be switched on.using this she has logged in on many occasions to find people snooping and trying to access information that they had no business looking at . paul

 

Personally amazed that any company would let such software run on their computer. It creates all sorts of security issues!

[pquinn]

 

Personally amazed that any company would let such software run on their computer. It creates all sorts of security issues!

tell me more.

[Tuscan]

I've used "go to my computer" which is OK but now with cloud files i keep everything in email type folders within my btaccount this we can access emails and all folders from whetever we are. I have a cloud 0203 land line number that instantly diverts to both mine and my wife's mobile so either of us can answer and it looks like we are in an office.

 

When we planned the boat we included wifi and a dinette so that I could work from the laptop with a small printer linked by wifi. From the boat I have done quite a few international skypped calls with the client in the middle east blissfully unaware I was moored on the Shropshire Union. I carry a dongle to back up any key documents.

[Paul C]

tell me more.

 

Laptop lost or stolen + password (passwords are often written down, or easily guessed) would allow access to the company's network inside the firewall. How many password attempts does it allow until access is locked out? - infinite. Is access audited? - no. So easy to set a password guessing script to run.

[pquinn]

 

Laptop lost or stolen + password (passwords are often written down, or easily guessed) would allow access to the company's network inside the firewall. How many password attempts does it allow until access is locked out? - infinite. Is access audited? - no. So easy to set a password guessing script to run.

thanks.i will pass that info on.

[Starcoaster]

I manage to work from a laptop on a little laptop table on my sofa, and I am a freelance writer,so probably churning out as many words per week as a dictation typist?! It's not ideal, both in terms of my chill out space and my work space being the same and rather cramped, but it's not too bad and it works for me.

However, if I ever can't get an internet signal, I am screwed, as I need to be online for research etc.

[Treadingwater]

Hello All

Many thanks for all your responses, very helpful.

When people say freelance, are they registered with one of these online sites that offer freelance data entry, writing, translating or research work, are they worth looking at or are they scams?

Our wifi seems to be ok , we are tethering to a hotspot on mobile phone, well its ok so long as we hang the phone in a mitten in the porthole, hey it works.

Laptop seems fine, using it in the dinette, although I have not sat at it for consecutive hours yet, or in my jim jams but it is tempting lol.

 

Thanks again all.

Edited December 14, 2013 by Treadingwater

[Lady Muck]

I don't advertise on any websites, no - we both have skills that mean we don't need to work via agencies. I would go on Moneysaving expert as the forums there will have advice about what is and isn't a scam.

 

I've found that many of the freelance sites, people are just trying to outdo each other on price, a race to the bottom and you will never be able to compete with someone who lives in India. I advertised on one a few years ago and got poor quality enquiries from amateurs/entrepreneurs who didn't want to pay what it costs, I now only work with trade only, established pros.

[Starcoaster]

Places like Odesk etc. are over-run with people in poorer countries offering the world for $2 an hour, for data entry type work and typing. I find that for my business, professional clients who want a professional freelancer don't use sites like that- or at least not more than once!

I would say that signing up with a reputable agency like Office Angels would be the best bet for getting ad-hoc typing-style work, but not having sought work in that field, I don't know for sure.

I think that it is certainly fair to say that in order to be able to work from home you really do have to have a niche, and a qualification or skill that is in demand and not common in order to make it work- failing that, I think locuming, casual work and agencies would be the next step.

[RockSodem]

Part of the trick is to build up a reputation on land and slowly you will find that some of your clients will warm to the idea of you working remotely. It is very much about trust and the type of business. I have just done a 60 hour week remotely. Not ideal but a nice payday for the Christmas run in.

[Leggle]

Does anyone have experience using mifi etc on London/SE canals? Is the connection reliable? Are any networks better than others?

I can work in an office but like doing a day or two a week from home and this needs constant internet connection. It's quite an important thing for me, getting a boat is about less time in the office/city!

[Ark Right]

Does anyone have experience using mifi etc on London/SE canals? Is the connection reliable? Are any networks better than others?

I can work in an office but like doing a day or two a week from home and this needs constant internet connection. It's quite an important thing for me, getting a boat is about less time in the office/city!

 

A mifi on 3 will probably do you fine as you will be spending most of the time on your boat dodging mooring enforcement officers, unless you have a marina berth.

 

A

[lenjdon]

Hi Tuscan,we are piecing all the bits together so that we can sell up and live aboard. I am intrested in how your cloud landline works. We do have a bussiness and my one concern is lossing our landline number as it has been the same for some 30years.BT was on my to do list to see what products they could offer. As we would not be cc and marina based our work would be ok.