The RatRaceRebellion.com Blog (For our main site, including screened home-based jobs, go to www.RatRaceRebellion.com)

Tales of the Rat Race, Cont’d. -- Guilty Parenting

With 60-hour commutecubeweeks, errands gumming up the weekends, and recession-squeezed parents taking on extra work to make ends meet, the rat race devours almost all our time and energy. With so little left over for parenting, what do we do with our children?

Indulge ‘em.

Everybody does it. It’s become embedded in daily rat-race life. It’s turning everything upside-down between us and our kids, but we can’t see it, because every day is just “another day at the office.” This makes the whole process devilish and subtle, like math homework.   

Here are some helpers, so you can root it out of your life, and become a better Mom or Dad.

Top Five Signs of Guilty Parenting

1. Your daughter has so many Webkinz, she doesn’t bother creating online accounts for new animals any more; she gives the codes to friends. 

2. You know all the words to “Nobody’s Perfect.” (Normal parents only know a few. Maybe five. I know most of them. Check back in a week for the rest.)

3. You paid so much for a Hannah Montana ticket, you’re afraid to mention it to your spouse.

4. You give your third-grader’s unrequited crush an iPod, so he won’t break her heart. (Normal parents wouldn’t do this till fifth grade.)

5. You help your preschooler pick out her tattoo. (Normal parents wait till middle school.)

How to Say "No"

Saying “no” to such things doesn’t have to be hard. We just need a little emotional Kevlar, some adjustments to our internal monologues (“Less Webkinz, more time! Nobody’s perfect. You live and you learn it!”), and a slight reordering of priorities (“OK, no spa today. I’m going to sit in the treehouse and color”).

See it wasn’t that hard, was it? And if you’re time-starved, and your blog, for example, needs an update on a Sunday eveni…. Just a sec.

(“What? I’m working, sweetie. Yes, it’s my blog. He dropped the cat off the balcony? OK. We’ll get another one. Don’t worry. I’ll be done in a sec.”)

Nobody’s perfect.

"What's a 'SAHD'?" Essential Jargon for the Telework Jobseeker

Every movement has its jargon, and the work-at-home movement is no different. Here are some terms (in lazy-blogger order) that you’ll need to know as you navigate the Brave New World of Internet-Enabled Employment, Business, and Freelance Projects (or BNWIEEBFP).

WAH -- work at home

WAHM -- Work-at-home mom

WAHD -- Work-at-home dad

1099 -- The number of the (US) IRS form used for independent contractors. (Many off-site workers -- including those Bohemian-looking folks working on blogs, website design, and freelance articles on their laptops in the cafes -- are independent contractors rather than employees.)

DSL -- Digital Subscriber Line (Internet connection over regular telephone lines, but much faster than a “dial-up” connection.)

Hotel -- (verb) To come into the office on a periodic visit, necessitated by your work or your boss. As in, “I’ll be hoteling in the Stamford office on Friday.”

IC -- Independent Contractor

IM -- Instant Messenger

IT -- Information Technology

SAHM -- Stay-at-home mom

SAHD -- Stay-at-home dad

SOHO -- Small Office / Home Office

Telework -- (verb) To work at a distance from one’s employer or client, using electronic tools such as the Internet, phone, fax, etc., to send or receive work.

Telecommuting -- Almost synonymous with telework, though often used when an employer requires regular on-site presence (as in, “My company has a telecommuting program. We get to work from home two days a week.”).

Distributed Work -- Work done away from the employer’s offices (aka “remote work”).

VOIP -- Voice Over Internet Protocol (telephone over the Internet, like Skype)

Wi-Fi -- Wireless Fidelity (the connection of two network devices wirelessly)

MLM -- Multi-Level Marketing business. Usually structured like a pyramid, with people higher up making more money, MLMs reward you for selling products or services, and recruiting salespeople to work under you. (Although MLMs have a negative reputation overall, many are in fact legitimate, but are difficult for those who are not inclined toward sales and recruiting, or who didn’t appreciate the amount of selling they’d have to do to succeed.)

Vacation -- A vestigial and esoteric term predating most of the above. Its precise meaning has been lost, but we're working on it 24/7.

How to Make Money Blogging

It’s not easy to make money blogging. But if you pick interesting topics and market effectively, it can be done. How do we know? Because we post jobs for bloggers almost every day at our work-at-home jobs page at RatRaceRebellion.com. 

Getting Started
With the popularity of blogs, starting one has become much easier. Here are four simple ways to launch your blog:

• Websites such as Helium let you earn money while you learn to blog. You won’t get rich -- and you’ll need to work at your writing and networking -- but it’s a good place to begin.

• Blogger offers user-friendly tools for the novice blogger, and many bloggers got their start here.

• TypePad, like Blogger, offers convenient tools for launching and growing a blog, including a wide range of templates to give your blog a professional look. It can be a good fit if you feel comfortable with a little more complexity.

• WordPress gives the independent blogger many options to individualize his or her blog. It can be a good option if you’re a little more technically inclined. (If you get stuck, there’s even a “WordPress for Dummies” book.) 

Some Basic Do’s and Don’ts
Many bloggers start out enthusiastically, but wind up abandoning their blogs. Often, people grow bored with their subjects or themes, don’t market their blogs effectively, or can’t figure out how to “monetize” (make money from) their blog or otherwise turn it to their advantage.

Here are a few tips to help you get the most from your blog:

• Pick a topic or theme that you really care about, that touches a core passion. This will not only help you avoid burnout, but will open up your creative flow generally.

• Learn the online opportunities that will help you market your blog and get your writing out there on the web. (Blog Carnivals, which showcase bloggers across a wide variety of themes, are an excellent place to start. Guest blogging is also a popular option.)

• As you build your blog, take the time to familiarize yourself with the tools that help distribute blog content, such as RSS feeds and widgets, and links to Digg, StumbleUpon, and similar sites.

• Post to your blog at least several times a week (which won’t always be easy; we often miss this schedule ourselves).

• Interact with other bloggers, and read their blogs. Leave useful comments on blogs wherever appropriate.

• “Monetizing” your blog generally requires two things -- traffic, and ads on the blog itself. Google AdSense, Amazon’s affiliate program and Chitika eMiniMalls are several popular ways to feature ads on your blog.

• Making money isn’t the only benefit a blog can provide. A blog can also showcase your expertise for prospective employers, impress present or future clients, or help you build a portfolio to get a job or assignments as a writer, proofreader, or editor.

Next Steps
If you think blogging might be for you, there are plenty of resources online to learn more about it. Here are a few to get you started:

• Darren Rowse’s site. A world-class authority on blogging (who earns six figures for his work), Darren provides a constant stream of tips for novices, intermediates, and experts as well. (Check his job board for bloggers, too.)

• Blogging expert Skellie’s site. Skellie is an excellent source of upbeat advice on getting your blogging act together and wowing your readers.

• Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff, aka “The Blog Squad.” Denise and Patsi have been involved in the professional side of blogging for years, and give tips and other guidance here and through the links you’ll find on that page.

• Personal-growth advocate Steve Pavlina has made some excellent posts on growing and monetizing blogs. For more, click here.

A Final Word
Make no mistake, the world of blogging is a competitive one, and if you decide to maintain an active blog, there are roughly 15 million bloggers (according to blog trackers Technorati) who will post content right along with you. (On the flip side, most blog posts are not written in English.) 

But regardless of whether your blog ultimately earns meaningful revenues, you'll still have your writing credentials, the excellent thought-sharpening that writing can bring, and a creative accomplishment to take pride in.

“The Dilbert Factory” -- A Story of Contemporary Life

Here in the US, we begin institutionalizing our children when they’re babies, when we hand them over to “daycare centers.” From there, they proceed to “elementary school” (also an institution), “middle school” (ditto), “high school” (ditto), “college” (ditto), and increasingly, “graduate school” (ditto).

By the time they're 21, and assume the mantle of adulthood to stride forth into the Great Contest of Life (they’re also licensed now to play dodgeball, checkers, and other life-threatening sports they couldn’t play as children), they have usually enjoyed 20 years -- the most formative of their lives -- in institutions.

Institutions, which by definition respect institutions, often recommend other institutions to the institutionalized. Hence, as our children pass through the institution of “schools,” they are rhythmically guided and nudged and channeled, overtly and subtly, toward another institution, that of “the Career,” usually in the form of a job. (Schools rarely encourage entrepreneurship and self-employment, and even more rarely speak of them.) 

When the institution of our career is finally done, we are close to completing the institutional circle as we return nostalgically to daycare and diapers in that fun-filled institution, the “assisted living facility” (old folks’ depot), where we can watch the institution of daytime TV with our convivial fellows. Alternatively, depending upon our physical state, we can transfer into that other daycare institution, the “hospital.”

We have one last institution to live through (so to speak), that of funereal care, after which we lay down our institutional burden, and hope there are no more institutions -- or at least no warmer ones. (But on that theme I gladly yield the floor.)

To conclude our tale, even as we readily acknowledge that institutions can be good as well as otherwise, let me leave you with this one final thought.

If a foal is raised with people alone, he will fear horses. Isn’t that odd? But it’s true. Even when his handlers might often be jackasses.

Five Million Staying Home from Work on UK's "National Work from Home Day"

British Telecom, Transport for London and the Confederation of British Industry are among the organizations supporting the UK’s “National Work from Home Day,” with an estimated five million workers to skip their usual commute and work from home May 15.

“This is not a day off to those participating,” said Phil Flaxton, chief executive of Work Wise UK, in a press release. “It’s the chance for hard-working, open-minded people to demonstrate that without the stress induced by the workplace environment, with the often long commute many have to endure, people can be even more productive by occasionally working from home.”

According to the release, this may be “the largest mass absence from work for a generation.”

Sounds like a good milestone to us. I wonder if the car, oil, and road lobbyists would let us have one here in the US.

For the press release and other details, click here.

“Homeworking, the Future of Business in Britain"

Chris and I monitor telework developments in Europe and other economies, and we use Google “news alerts” to help us stay current. We set the alerts to include mentions in blogs and other venues across the Internet (limited to English, be it said), so the volume of alerts we receive provides a rough indication of the popularity of the subject.

Over the past year or so, we’ve seen a steady surge in the coverage of home-based work in the UK, and it looks like the trend is building serious momentum. (Of course, real progress is still incremental and cumulative, rather than dramatic and abrupt. But forward is good, we say.)

An interesting piece came in the chatter a few weeks ago, titled “Homeworking, the Future of Business in Britain,” by Charles Orton-Jones. The article profiles the UK’s “30 top businesses run from home.”

The companies run the gamut from Lawyers Direct -- with all of its 65 lawyers working from home -- to “Jo Jingles,” a network of over 100 franchisees who offer music and dance classes for preschoolers.

Here are some excerpts that, for me, really stood out:

-- “Companies that refuse to permit homeworking face a serious challenge: hanging on to staff. No industry is immune from this issue, not even traditional professions, such as law.”

-- “You might think we are 80 per cent female,” says [James Knight, who heads the virtual law firm profiled in the article]. “Well, you would be wrong. Half our staff are men. It’s an indication of how appealing this way of working is.”

-- “In the public relations industry, homeworking is now so widespread almost no firm can resist.”

-- Spark Energy is a young gas and electricity firm, and boss PJ Darling says his salesforce work harder from home. “They are happier and more productive when operating from home, so it works for them and the business.”

-- “We have people in Hungary, India, Spain, Greece and France. In the globalised economy, you need to be able to employ the best people, no matter where they are from.” [Quoting the founder of Actinic, which designs “shopping carts” for e-commerce websites.]

--  It is no coincidence that the fastest-growing law firm, travel agent and secretarial firm in the country are among the 30 firms profiled. The benefits of homeworking are more than “aesthetic”; in hard, capitalist terms they are winners, too.

All around an excellent article, for the website Real Business -- which has a tagline we like: “Connecting and inspiring entrepreneurs.”

For Real Business and the article, click here.

Jobhunting? Don't Be Afraid to "Molt" Once in a While!

I used to work in a government agency where discouragement and cynicism reigned, and everybody hated his job.

It was astonishing just how deeply the “job loathing” had sunk into the place. The department heads didn’t like their jobs, the supervisors didn’t like their jobs, the staff didn’t like their jobs, the cockroaches didn’t like their jobs. 

The walls, the files, the rugs, the blinds -- everything was saturated with pessimism and darkness. The window panes were dim with a residue of bureaucratic embalming fluid.   

The people there not only hated their jobs, they hated them so intensely that they detested themselves for doing them. Many of them had been there for years -- some for decades -- and seemed to plod slowly along the halls like drayhorses, weighed down with murky thoughts and rueful memories, and a joyless view of the path to come.

Kafka would have loved it (his ghost probably drank the watery coffee there), but it made me nervous -- I didn’t want to catch the disease -- and I quickly made plans to move on. The prospect of escape put me in a talkative frame of mind, and I would occasionally ask my colleagues why they didn’t leave, too.

Most of them recited the things we usually do when we stay in jobs we hate -- mortgages, college tuitions, retirement handcuffs, etc. -- but one fellow leaned forward and confided to me that he’d been working on his resume. I nodded encouragingly, and when I did, he asked me if I would take a look at it and offer any suggestions that came to mind.

We went down the hall to his dungeon and he led me furtively past his co-workers to his desk. (Everything was done furtively in this agency, not because of anything like a “secret mission,” but because nobody trusted anybody. He probably made an exception of me because I’d told him I was leaving.)

He glanced around to make sure no one was watching, unlocked his desk drawer, and after rummaging around a bit, pulled out a resume and handed it to me.

The resume was about two-thirds done, but looked pretty good for a start. Then I noticed the date next to the “draft” stamp at the top of the page. It was five years old!

“Is this the last time you worked on your resume?” I asked him incredulously.

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“How come?” I asked.

There was a book open on his desk, with vivid pictures of sea life on the pages. In one picture, a crab was molting, coming out of its old shell.

He glanced at the book and thought for a moment. “I guess I don’t know how to molt.”

Looking for a new job can be a chance to molt. Don’t forget how!

Five Ways to Wreck a Home-Based Business

It takes much more time to build a business than to wreck one. Here are five common pitfalls you’ll want to avoid as you pursue your business goals.

1. Letting your spouse take control of the business. Even if it’s only an occasional word processing or web design project, you probably went into business so you could “be your own boss.” Secondly, people usually choose to offer a service or product that they know something about. In other words, this is your niche -- not your partner’s. Letting your spouse take the rudder can quickly send the boat onto the rocks (and sometimes, the marriage with it).

If your spouse wants to share his or her expertise with you -- in advertising, or bookkeeping, or some other operational area that he or she knows well -- that can be a plus, and some couples work well this way. Even so, you may still want to keep in mind the old Middle Eastern proverb: "Once the camel gets his nose inside the tent, his body will soon follow."       

2. Loading up your credit cards to launch the business. Far too many solo businesspeople sacrifice what could have been a lifechanging initiative by taking on heavy debt in the early stages of the business. Resist the impulse to outfit your home office with the latest computer, the Ritz-Carlton wallpaper, the Rodeo Drive-priced ergonomic chair. Be a tightwad now, and you can treat yourself -- in moderation, of course -- as you hit your revenue goals.

3. Specializing in something you don’t know well. As every building contractor knows, in boom times, everybody becomes a carpenter (or a real estate agent). On the Internet, a few years ago, when companies began to realize the importance of having an “online storefront,” everyone became a web designer -- with decidedly mixed results.

Resist the temptation to chase the hot trends, which can cool as quickly as they warmed. Choose instead a specialty or niche that lets you capitalize or build on your existing skills, and that taps into one of your passions. A successful business can transform your life, and can even change the world. Choosing the right niche is an act of respect, love -- and wisdom. Treat it accordingly.

4. Shirking accountability. As the Old Salts will tell you, the most important element of business is trust. Not money, not growth, not whether the dollar is up or down or sideways, but whether your customers and your business partners and allies can trust you.

Trust is based on accountability, and whether “your word is good.” We all let someone down sometimes, but in smaller businesses in particular -- where the individual and the company are often perceived as identical, even when you've added staff -- dodging responsibility for fumbles can quickly spell doom. If you drop the ball, don’t blame the glove. Own up -- quickly -- and work on your game.

5. Losing focus. This is a kind of catch-all, encompassing such indispensables as marketing, work ethic, quality, and strategy. Since it’s a rare business that “launches itself,” yours will likely require sustained and effective effort -- and this means focus.

How can we spot a lack of focus in ourselves?

• A prospective customer brushes us off, and we take it personally. (As the mobsters always say in the movies, “It’s not personal, it’s just business.” And they’re right.)

• A sunny day beckons outside our window, and we abandon an important deliverable to indulge ourselves, “because we deserve it.”

• We’re tired, and we know that one more hour on a project will take it from average to spectacular -- but we don’t put in the hour.

• We’re quite aware that we need to come up with well-considered plans about the future of our business. However, we continue to allow operational distractions to gobble up our days, and force us to make strategic decisions on the fly.   

Advice is Abundant and Free
The Internet may not have cured the common cold, but we can’t complain that it hasn’t given us enough information. Veteran entrepreneurs now maintain blogs, websites, and archives of articles on almost every key aspect of business, and magazines and government resources (to name just a few) round out the mix.

Here are a few places to start, and may the camels stay out of the tents as you forge ahead.

-- Guy Kawasaki has been around the entrepreneurial block. See his site here.

-- Inc. magazine has covered small business for years. Check them out here.

-- If you want ideas about legitimate home-based businesses, see our own list and experts here.

-- In the US, Small Business Development Centers can be good sources of nuts-and-bolts guidance. You’ll find details here.   

Interview with Jim Mirabella, Online Teaching Expert

Online education is a rapidly-growing trend, creating a widening range of jobs for online teachers. Jim Mirabella, a former US Air Force officer and Air Force Academy graduate, is an expert on the trend, and author of  Make Money Teaching Online: How to Land your First Academic Job, Build Credibility, and Earn a Six-Figure Salary (Wiley, 2007).

The book, which we reviewed in the February 22, 2007 issue of the Rat Race Rebellion Telework Bulletin, is an excellent “how-to” for people exploring online teaching. (It's available at Amazon here, and you’ll find more on Jim Mirabella -- who is also a Contributing Expert at RatRaceRebellion.com -- at his website.    

We caught up with Jim via email.

RRR: Tell us a bit about how you got started in teaching online.

JIM MIRABELLA: I was teaching as an adjunct professor for several local universities, and one of them (Webster University) had just added online courses to their curriculum. Since I was the MBA chair for the Jacksonville campus and had several years experience with them, I was selected to attend the training for the online platform. A few months later, I was given a statistics course and was among the first online instructors in their MBA program. After a couple of semesters’ experience, I started to search for other universities with online programs, and applied to their faculty with great success.    

RRR: You authored your book, Make Money Teaching Online, with Danielle Babb. Tell us a bit about how you came to partner with Danielle on the book.

JIM MIRABELLA: The first purely online university that I joined was Capella University in Minneapolis, MN. I have been with them for over 5 years now. After about a year of teaching in their PhD program, Danielle Babb emailed me that she was interested in having me serve as her mentor / dissertation chair. I responded to her email and we exchanged several emails, getting to know each other. We really clicked.

She was my first ever PhD mentee, so I was learning the ropes at her expense, and she put a lot of trust in me. I chose a dissertation committee with two other men who worked full-time as adjunct professors, just as I did. Danielle flew through the dissertation process, and when she had her final defense, she was jealous of how her entire committee were all sitting in their homes enjoying the day instead of working in an office. She asked me how she could have such a life too.

While she had experience teaching a bit, she never did it to the level that I did, so I coached her on how to make teaching a career. She took my advice and within a year, she was a full-time adjunct too. She found herself coaching others on how she came to this lifestyle. Eventually, she emailed me and asked if we shouldn't write a book about how to do this since my ideas worked for her and her coaching was working for others. The rest is history.

She and I have worked on faculty together, have served on dissertation committees together, and have now written a book together. I am very proud of her and what she has become since earning her PhD.

RRR: Let's say I have little or no teaching experience. What's the best way for me to get started teaching online?

JIM MIRABELLA: Experience in some form of teaching is important, be it conducting a corporate training, presenting at a conference, leading a meeting, or guest speaking in a class. Universities are hesitant to hire someone without any experience whatsoever since they don't want to invest time and money prepping you for teaching when you may not like to teach or have any teaching ability. If you look hard enough at your experience, you will find several examples of teaching that will suffice (once you get experience with a real college course, you needn't use those other experiences). So truly anyone with a college degree (Masters or higher is preferable) can find online teaching opportunities. Searching out the jobs is a matter of searching the web and the Chronicle of Higher Ed., going to the different university websites and filling out applications, and most importantly, networking with those who are already teaching online.   

RRR: Give us your favorite "Do's and Don'ts" about teaching online.

JIM MIRABELLA: Do get high speed Internet access and a laptop so that you can go to a coffee shop if your internet service is down. Do check in daily or the work will pile up and the complaints will pile up higher. Do be responsive, dependable, and professional at all times. Don't whine or complain orally or in weblogs; if you don't like the conditions, find another university (there are plenty out there). Don't mix your personal politics, religion or biases into your courses. Don't treat your students like anything but human beings who are trying to earn a degree; it's easy to forget when your only communication is via email. Don't look at this as just a quick buck; it is hard, rewarding work and education should never be cheapened. 

RRR: What's the pay range, and for how many hours of actual work, that one could expect, teaching college courses online?

JIM MIRABELLA: Pay varies dramatically. Some universities pay by the student, some by the week, some by the course. Basically you can expect to earn about $200-$400 per week for a single course, on average. Just be wary that some schools appear to pay well and have immense demands that take up so many hours per week, while others have limited demands. Unfortunately, you won't learn about how each school differs unless you network or try out the school personally. Most schools are similar, and you can expect to put in about 5-10 hours per week for a single course.

RRR: Who are some good employers of online teachers, and where are they on the Web?

JIM MIRABELLA: There are so many, and I have only worked for a few. The more students that are enrolled, the more teaching opportunities exist, so the University of Phoenix is always hiring (but they have more competition too, and are not necessarily a favorite place). My favorite is the one I primarily work for (i.e., Capella University), as I have dropped those that I didn't like as much. The best online employers are nearly impossible for inexperienced instructors to get into, as the turnover is low. Most schools are good ones and there are just too many to list. The bad ones include all of the non-accredited ones as well as some I would rather not mention for personal reasons.

RRR: How do you see the demand for online teachers evolving in the near term, and perhaps five years out? Should teachers in the developed economies be concerned about competition from teachers in the developing economies, such as India?

JIM MIRABELLA: The demand is growing and will continue to grow as more and more people seek out online degrees. I don't expect to see the jobs given to developing economies just to save money; people are paying a lot of money for these degrees and they want published, well-established professors in the course rooms. The nice thing about accreditation is that there are requirements for the people hired as faculty, so credentials cannot be sacrificed to save money. There is also a greater demand on adjuncts to get published, and more and more universities are listing their online faculty on their website, so the quality of the individuals is quickly becoming of paramount importance, as it currently is with traditional public universities. Personally, I am not concerned about losing my job because of economics; I am confident that by performing well and helping the reputation of the university, I will maintain my employment for a long time. 

Virtual Call Centers -- Interview with Mary Bartlett, VP, Arise

Arise Virtual Solutions has been a leader in the virtual call center arena for some time. The company currently has about 7,500 home-based agents (pay averages $10-$14 per hour), providing customer support and similar services to such clients as Verizon, Virgin America airlines, and Home Depot.

Arise differs from some call centers in requiring that its agents form their own corporation (a “Virtual Services Corporation”) before signing on. Arise then contracts with the agent’s corporation, rather than with the agent as an individual. For details, see Arise’s website, and its FAQ page there. 

We chatted briefly via email with Mary Bartlett, Arise’s VP, Virtual Services Corporation (VSC) Relations and Communication, to get a sense of Arise’s hiring plans and what the company looks for in its home-based agents. (For more on Mary, see her bio at the company website.)

RRR: How many home-based agent positions (Certified Professionals) does Arise plan to fill in 2008?

MARY BARTLETT: Because so many large companies are realizing the value of home-based agents, Arise will need to double its current pool of agents to over 14,000 in 2008. Arise currently receives over 6,000 applications per month, but only 8% percent of these are chosen to become Arise Certified Professionals (ACPs) due to our stringent application process. We want to be sure we are only putting forth the best possible agents for our roster of premium-brand clients.

RRR: What is the profile of the "ideal candidate" for Arise for agents from the military community?

MARY BARTLETT: Since the home-based concept works for so many different types of people, there is no typical agent, but an ideal ACP would be someone entrepreneurial and naturally motivated for success with a knack for either customer service, sales, or technical support. The military community can benefit from the home-based concept because ACPs can take their work with them anywhere in the U.S. (except Hawaii) if they should need to relocate – even on very short notice. In addition, the flexibility of being able to choose one’s own hours in 30-minute increments is great for military spouses with children or a second job around which they need to schedule. 

RRR: What is the most common disqualifying factor among candidates for ACP positions?

MARY BARTLETT: As seen in our initial screening process, one of the most common disqualifying factors is candidates not meeting Arise’s data entry accuracy and computer literacy requirements.

RRR: What are the opportunities for advancement within Arise for top-performing agents?

MARY BARTLETT: Arise offers many opportunities for seasoned agents to become instructors and performance facilitators, helping new ACPs learn about an application or field questions on our 24/7 online chat-based support network. In some cases, ACPs choose to continue providing customer support for one client, while instructing or supervising for another client. There are many options available for dedicated professionals to advance their career in customer support through Arise.

RRR: Does Arise have any special programs or initiatives in place (or planned) to hire disabled veterans?

MARY BARTLETT: Arise was first established ten years ago on the basis of providing work opportunities to those with disabilities, and it continues to enable disabled people with an option for home-based work. As technology advances, there continue to be more opportunities with certification programs completely done online, so ACPs today are completely “virtual” and can do any task from their homes. The flexible scheduling allows the ACPs to work a varied schedule around fatigue or pain management. There are also many agents who take advantage of special speech, hearing and vision applications that enable them to perform their job just as any other ACP would. We encourage any disabled veterans to apply if they might be interested in providing customer service, sales, or technical support from their homes.

SIDEBAR -- On Feb. 28, 2008, Arise announced that it was seeking 250 agents bilingual in English-French and English-German. According to the press release, the new agents will handle multilingual customer requests from its technology and retail clients, and with their language skills may earn 20% more than other agents. For details, the press release is here.
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