Deborah Woehr

Tomorrow marks the ten-day countdown to when I get to leave my job. I’m still very excited about that, although my husband wants me to find another job. I’d like to find another job, one closer to home. I’ve looked on Craigslist.org and found some part-time admin jobs similar to what I’ve been doing. The problem is the hours and my kids’ school schedules.

I’ve decided to take a month off to learn some new skills and brush up on some old ones. Ideally, I’d like to find an evening job but I can’t see myself working in retail or flipping burgers. I’ve been wanting to work from home for the past three or four years but haven’t been able to find anything that a) wasn’t a scam, or b) didn’t cost a lot of money to start.

While I was surfing Craig’s List, I found some people who are virtual assistants. I looked at their profiles and realized that I could do this. With 20 years of admin experience under my belt, doing the job would not be a problem. Gaining the client base will be a challenge, as is the case with any business.

I spent most of yesterday perusing the Virtual Assistant (VA) associations (where I found some great articles on the future of admins) and individual websites to get a feel for what is required. The certification programs are expensive (ranging from $500-$2,000). The training at AssistU sounds excellent, but my husband would never approve of the expense, especially since he’s looking forward to buying a new car.

This forced me to look further. I found this book called “The 2-Minute Commute,” which was written for Virtual Assistants. One reviewer commented that freelance writers could also benefit from the information in this book. I snagged a copy immediately.