So, who can work from home?

“Work from home!” has been a dictum running right through the crisis that has engulfed the world today. Venturing outside your door could mean that you stand a risk of contracting COVID 19 which for now has no known cure. Many organizations have laid off staff and or cut pay cheques as a way of keeping their heads above the torrents that come with “shut downs” and “lock downs”, terms we have not known in recent times in our economies around the world. Lock downs and shutdowns might be new to the world, but working from home is not. In parts of Europe and America, call centre equipment has been installed in the homes of nursing mothers so they can continue with some level of productivity for work while they attend to their yourng ones at home. A shut in can be very lucrative for certain kinds of professionals, just as long as they have the required equipment at their finger tips.
Let us not forget that many a Fortune 500 company started in a person’s living room, while Silicon Valley is littered with billion dollar companies that were started in one person’s home garage or the other. Information Communications Technology (ICT) seems to have its roots from people working endless shifts developing software and hardware from sleep in arrangements that have also doubled as workshops.
Online marketers, web designers, social media influencers, the boom is on for those people in these kinds of professions.The internet is like a market place that is boundless in its reach and potential. The internet over the years has created its own currency, trading methods and buying and selling technology. People are building websites via sites that teach the process online, gambling and gaming is taking place in processes worth billions of dollars; Netflix an online movie viewing company is breaking the bank in revenues being accumulated via internet viewing enthusiasts.
Media houses that were still doing print Pre COVID 19 will have to make a leap onto the internet or close down. The reading of newspapers online which was mainly a preoccupation of millennials and younger members of the population is about to become the habit of the older generation. Of course, those who cannot get the hang of reading a newspaper from an electronic device will have to take lessons or stick to televsion and radio. Televsion and radio broadcasters can not work from home, even though they have started interviewing some of the guests via zoom, skype and google duo as well as other internet based devices.
Doctors cannot work from home. That is if they are not merely conducting diagnosis or prognosis and do not need the physical presence of the patient. Doctors are now consulting from a distance and prescribing medicines via audio visual appliances. In the third world, electricity is a challenge. Running computers, drives and servers and communication equipment on generating plants costs a whale. But the determination to work from home can only be really aided if we have the support of public utilties to make it easy.
Some of the world’s most distinguised writers and philosophers worked from home, plying their trade in environments that were not necessarily comfortable. They were able to make discomfort their inspirations to write some of the world’s best sellers. Stephen King wrote “Carrie”, his phenomenal best seller from a trailer where he lived while teaching writing in at a High School. King is so good that his stories will stain your mind for weeks and haunt your dreams. J.K Rowling the great author of “Harry Potter” wrote from a cottage in England’s country side where she barely got by on frugal meals and fressh air. It appears there is no telling what a natural environment can do to the creativity of the human being. Literary Professor Chinua Achebe wrote the world acclaimed “Things Fall Apart” from home while holding down a full time job as a civil servant.
Music can be scored at home. Studios can be built into the homestead with the basic equipment for recording a song. Legendary musicians practically lived in the studio from where they composed hit tracks and phenomenal albums that broke the charts and remain forever green in the minds of music enthiasts. Some of them wrote their lyrics while maintaining base lines in their mind to lay in tracks at studios.
The conditions for working from home are simple distinct and little bit complcated in the mix. Do we have the trust of the organization we work for? In the sense that if we perform the basic duty required, will we get paid with no excuses offered for withholding what is due? Since cash will not exchange hands mobile money or bank transfers via the internet are to be the most regular channels of payment.
So who can work from home? Anyone, really! All we need to do is have the proper mindset for it, get the required technology that aids us to meet our objectives, if we cannot do all that we need to earn an income at least we can plan. Planning the process is half, if not most of the job done. What did the philosopher say about work? “They can fire you from your job, but they can not dismiss you from your work”. Every human being has something that he can do that is independent of the job that he does. Possibly, this is the time to find out what that is, and how we can earn money with it. As many people become unemployed in this season, now is probably the best time to find out what we can do for ourselves.