Jobs you can do remotely from home?

[holden j caufield]

My company lets me work remotely from home 3 of 5 days and it will probably progress to 4/5 days remotely. Bad part is they can call almost any time 24/7/365.

Good part is with my monitor setup is I can checkup on 40+ servers at the same time, the ipmi, remote management and monitoring is pretty good now to where I know the false positives and what is and isn't a problem and with virtual machines and HA it's very easy should I encounter a problem.

They usually have 2 people doing it but I've got it streamlined and setup to where it's very simple for me and I'm bored most days as usually the same issues come up and what was 20 min fix now takes me under 60 seconds since I've documented everything, have a few scripts and know the quirks.

I don't need the money but if my wife ever decides she wants a kid I figure I should be stashing away as much money as possible since college in 18+ years will be an astronomical cost.

Right now everything is lucid and surprising the past video game playing has helped me see what looks like a clusterfk on the screens very clearly plus I still have manual dexterity to look at 40 screens without going bonkers. I do find myself bored and I'm not going to ask do 3 people's jobs even if it's feasible. I get a lot flexibility and I do have an entire free monitor.

What are some options for me as I can navigate multiple screens very fast (still slow compared to some of the starcraft vids I've seen).

 

[purbeast0]

mobile development.

 

[Blackjack200]

Holy crap, is that what server admin jobs are like now? That's pretty cool.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Sounds like you're riding the gravy train -- I'd push them to let you work from home full time and ride this train until it crashes!

 

[Kev]

Wait are you asking for a job you can get that you can do while "working" at your regular job?

 

[jlee]

40 screens for 40 servers? Damn, I have thousands of things monitored on one display.

Are y'all hiring?

 

[holden j caufield]

Wait are you asking for a job you can get that you can do while "working" at your regular job?

I'm given a ton of leeway as long as everything works they don't care how I do it. Plus my metrics are good enough that even if I slowed down a little they'd still be very happy since they are paying 1 person instead of 2.

 

[TreVader]

Options trading. Writing articles. Those are the two I would look into.

 

[JM Aggie08]

Assuming you're a Unix admin, try using Putty + Screen. Tabbed sessions FTW.

 

[holden j caufield]

Holy crap, is that what server admin jobs are like now? That's pretty cool.

I'm sure it varies on what people do at different companies and sites but yeah, there are entire racks with blades on them and you can control everything on the blade chasis with 16 blade servers from a browser, an admin server etc. The monitoring software is very good as are the mobile app monitors, very easy to power on and power off servers remotely.

ESX and hyper-v really makes entire server farms fairly easy to keep track of and HA is very good. I'm sure the crazy things Amazon AWS, cloudstack and azure can do is pretty cool and easy to manage hundreds of servers.

 

[gorcorps]

:thumbsdown: brag thread, not impressed

 

[holden j caufield]

Assuming you're a Unix admin, try using Putty + Screen. Tabbed sessions FTW.

I do use Putty, but unix admin looks like it would make my head hurt and I feel stupid compared to those guys.

 

[Markbnj]

Sounds like you're riding the gravy train -- I'd push them to let you work from home full time and ride this train until it crashes!

Heh, that's how I feel. I've been working from home full-time as a developer for about ten years, and I dread some unforeseen set of circumstances that will suddenly arise and toss me back into an office.

 

[SunnyD]

Stay-at-home Mom.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Heh, that's how I feel. I've been working from home full-time as a developer for about ten years, and I dread some unforeseen set of circumstances that will suddenly arise and toss me back into an office.

Yeah, I've been full time at home for the last 1.5 years but unfortunately it looks like that will likely be coming to an end soon.

 

[holden j caufield]

Heh, that's how I feel. I've been working from home full-time as a developer for about ten years, and I dread some unforeseen set of circumstances that will suddenly arise and toss me back into an office.

I fully agree with Indy and Mark, I don't think I can go back to wasting 1.5 - 2 hours of my life sitting in a car, making small talk about stuff I don't care about, taking hour lunches etc. It takes me 5 minutes to eat and I can work while I eat, I don't need to take the time to dress up before going in.

I do spend more than 8 hours of work and some days much much more but I think in a regular 8 hour work day you probably tack on at least 3 hours of it is spent getting ready/commuting/eating. 3 hours x 240 workdays that's a lot of wasted hours. Don't think I can go back to that since it seems so inefficient.

 

[ImpulsE69]

The answer is so obvious here.

Webcam Girl.

 

[JM Aggie08]

The answer is so obvious here.

Webcam Girl.

Some pretty stiff requirements for that position.

*Being Eastern European is a plus.
*Be comfortable smoking a cigarette while laying on a mattress.
*Broken English, at best.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I fully agree with Indy and Mark, I don't think I can go back to wasting 1.5 - 2 hours of my life sitting in a car, making small talk about stuff I don't care about, taking hour lunches etc. It takes me 5 minutes to eat and I can work while I eat, I don't need to take the time to dress up before going in.

Exactly. I can also do chores around the house during lunch or on breaks, run errands over lunch, etc.

And I hear you about the annoyances of going to a workplace -- I am so much happier not having to deal with annoying small talk, "team building" activities, and office politics. I'm really hoping I can find a way to keep working from home, even if it is only a few days per week. It means so much savings in terms of time, money, and wear/tear on the car.

I've worked from home full-time for 1.5 years as a contract consultant. It is almost paradise compared to working as a staff member somewhere. If nothing else, if I have to switch jobs later this year, I'm favoring just doing another contract so I can avoid the BS staff has to put up with.

I do spend more than 8 hours of work and some days much much more but I think in a regular 8 hour work day you probably tack on at least 3 hours of it is spent getting ready/commuting/eating. 3 hours x 240 workdays that's a lot of wasted hours. Don't think I can go back to that since it seems so inefficient.

My alarm goes off at 6:30 and I typically eat and start work around 7 AM. If I had to commute and wanted to be somewhere by 7 AM, I'd probably have to get up between 5:30 and 6:00 to get ready.

 

[holden j caufield]

I forgot the best part of hour long meetings and conference calls is I can listen, throw in an uh huh or yes every few minutes and I can still do all my work.

I'm looking at something like a logistics job who helps route stuff. Seems something in my skill set. Options trading seems very dangerous though fun.

 

[rh71]

I've been home full-time 10 years or so also and while it's great for not having to get ready every morning or dreading the time as you wind down your Sunday, there's other negatives such as having less drive to build your career. There's simply too many distractions at home. I was only about 25 when they got rid of our office and a wiser older gentleman told me to get out of the company for my own good. I started to see the merit in his advice a couple years later. It's nice and cushy and has been because I've been able to take care of my kids from the very beginning, and I could do whatever leisure activities whenever, but I could possibly be making twice what I make now (especially being near NYC) if I continued my climb.

I think it's a bit of grass-is-greener regardless. People who don't make as much as they could wish they would and then there are people who'd give up some money to have all this freedom. If you're making bank from home and satisfied with your career, then yes that's a gravy train.

As for the OP's question - anything related to web.

 

[blackdogdeek]

I was going to suggest either mobile development or day trading but both have already been suggested. You could probably also cold call sales or do remote desktop/tech/customer support.

 

[Kev]

Do you guys who work from home 100% of the time ever feel like you'll go crazy from lack of human interaction? I technically could wfh whenever I want, but I still go in to get face time and interact with humans.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I think it's a bit of grass-is-greener regardless. People who don't make as much as they could wish they would and then there are people who'd give up some money to have all this freedom. If you're making bank from home and satisfied with your career, then yes that's a gravy train.

I would love my current position to last forever. No job is perfect, but I can't remember the last time I had a job where everything was so perfect and well suited to me and my personality. I just can't get excited about going to an office, sitting in meetings, working with idiot PMs, doing lame "team activities," etc. In my current job, I do a job and get paid for it. Period. No extraneous bullshit and it is great.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Do you guys who work from home 100% of the time ever feel like you'll go crazy from lack of human interaction? I technically could wfh whenever I want, but I still go in to get face time and interact with humans.

For the first month or two, it was kind of weird and I did somewhat miss seeing people, but I got over it quickly. I believe it will be harder for me to adjust going back into an office than it was adjusting to be a home worker. My mentality when working is that I am there to do a job and much of the auxillary stuff you have to do as a staff member (team building, "self reviews," "optional" (ie, mandatory) social events, to name a few) are a drag on my morale and make my blood pressure rise.

My coworker has mentioned starting a company and having me be part of the leadership team. We'd continue working from our homes and doing much of the same work for various clients. I'd prefer that to working in an office for sure but it will be tough to start and get off the ground.