Job opportunities: Homework

Working from home is an option that many women consider at some point in their lives yet relatively few take up. Many who consider taking it up see their projects never getting off the ground; others give up when the pressure becomes too much or if family demands result in an unhappy conflict of interests.

At best, working from home opens up a whole new world for women, irrespective of age and educational background and, at its worst, it can be the basis for marital and family disputes. If ‘home work’ is going to succeed, an amazing amount of dedication is required, working hours are often long and hard and eat into time that was previously spent on household affairs.

Then there is the issue of pay: some employers, especially those offering online work or those involved in the fashion industry, are under the impression that women working from home will tolerate being paid slave wages simply for the sake of being occupied. In these cases, it is entirely up to individual women to fight for what they deserve. As opposed to those who work for an employer, self-employed women working from home can, if they work hard enough, have the world at her feet.

Amongst the many work choices, unsurprisingly, the clothes business and cooking are the most popular, followed closely by giving tuitions.

Some women are hesitant about factoring in the cost of their time, electricity, and petrol (if going out is necessary for supplies and deliveries). Yet, if they are to make a success of their enterprise and earn the rewards they deserve, then every single cost must be given due consideration right from the word go. 

All in a day’s work

Mahnaz*, a mother of two teenage children and a former English teacher, was offered a job transcribing tapes for a publishing house. She took it up, thinking that, each morning, after telling the maid what to do, she would have a good three hours to work on her own. Badly paid as the job was, it was still something she wanted to do. “I felt that, since I had stopped teaching when the children were young, I had slowly been losing my own, personal identity. Earning some money of my own would also make me feel less guilty on the rare occasions that I decide to splurge on myself,” she says.

While back to full time teaching was out of the question due to family commitments, the opportunity to work from home seemed promising. “It was not an economic necessity for me to work but I needed to do so in order to feel useful again,” says Mahnaz.

Within a matter of days though, Mahnaz ran into problems which, before long, erupted into an all out battle of wills. The issue was something as simple as cooking. Mahnaz had always done the cooking herself, not because she enjoyed it but because keeping a cook had been out of the question. “My maid, who has been with the family for years, is a great basic cook and, before taking on the job, I had arranged with her that she would cook lunch to free me up,” she explains. “This was fine the first few days but, soon the family members began complaining that they no longer got to have the dishes they enjoy, even though I did still cook for them myself in the evening. At first I tried to explain the situation: that it was good for me to have a job and that they should respect the situation. But they all refused to recognise my right to be an individual as well as a housewife and mother.”

The situation went from bad to worse when Mahnaz’s husband, whose office was close by, stopped coming home for lunch at all, insisting on taking sandwiches with him each morning instead. Soon he was complaining that Mahnaz no longer took out the time to drop in on his elderly parents three mornings a week as she used to do before. “Now I can see that he was made to feel insecure by my attempts at developing a career of some kind. The fact that I suddenly had a work schedule and was, via work, interacting with people he knew nothing about annoyed him. I was, in point of fact, developing a life independent of him and our children and he felt threatened by it.

Mahnaz managed to stick it out for all of three months. The work had expanded to include proof-reading too which she generally tackled in the evening while her husband watched television and the kids did their schoolwork or were out with friends. None of the family members supported her and let her know of their disapproval in no uncertain terms. “In the end, I gave the work up, for the sake of peace and quiet,” says Mahnaz, “and now I feel somewhat negated as a person. I should not have given in.”

Success stories

Cyra Anklesaria on the other hand, is looking forward, with a tremendous amount of pleasure, to a future which her home work and dedicated enterprise has made possible.

A teacher by profession, she taught dyslexic children for 24 years but also loved cooking. Friends and family who enjoyed her cooking, encouraged her to go commercial and she started by just focusing on a narrow range of snacks and starters. Soon, demand forced her to do other dishes too. For five years, she juggled teaching and cooking but eventually dropped teaching to focus fully on catering.

Her business is very popular in Karachi circles and her culinary skills are legendary. “I’m my own boss, can make whatever I want to and the timings are flexible,” she says, counting the advantages of working from home.

While Cyra has a lady to help her cut, chop and wash the dishes when they pile up, she does everything else herself. “I love it!” she says. “Very soon  now, I’m off to a culinary school in London to learn more. My dream is to get myself a small café with an adjoining bookshop adjacent to a beach in Thailand.”

Another success story is that of Naheed Moini who, 18 years ago, decided to add interest to the family flower shop in The Metropole Hotel, Karachi by going into the candle-making business.

“I got the idea from a book an aunt gave me,” recalls Naheed. She started out in the kitchen of her home but then contacted the author of the book, a man in Wales, and went on a course to learn directly from him. After this there was no looking back for Naheed whose ‘Candleworks’ took off straight for the moon and remains at the top of the league. “I soon discovered that working for myself, from home, gave me a measure of independence which drastically altered my life,” she explains. “Not only was I suddenly financially independent but being involved in a creative endeavour boosted my confidence.”

Just their luck

Unfortunately though, the cost of establishing a home-based career can come with a price tag few women are prepared for, as both Shabnam and Amna discovered to their shock and horror.

Shabnam*, a fragile-looking, middle-aged lady, with three teenage children, began giving tuitions to A-level students about 12 years ago. Taking on only girls, she would enlist her husband’s help in dropping her students off if it had gone dark and they did not have their own transport. It was almost six months down the line when Shabnam realised that something was seriously wrong. “My husband was acting strangely and more than once I intercepted telling looks pass between him and one of my students. When I challenged him he admitted, to my horror, that he was having an affair with a girl I had been particularly fond of.”

All hell broke loose in Shabnam’s life when her husband walked out and she had to work to keep her house from falling apart. “He didn’t take up with the student, or at least not as far as I am aware,” she painfully discloses. “But our life together was over and since then I rely on the income from tuitions to support my children and myself. I sometimes wonder if developing my own career was responsible for destroying a previously comfortable life but, on reflection, he would have probably left at some point anyway.”

Amna* who took on book-keeping on a self-employed basis, has a very different story. She had worked for a few years before getting married and having children. “I missed my career and, with my husband’s blessing, took it up again from home. Soon, thanks to a good number of clients, I was earning more than my husband did at his own office job.” Amna did so well that when her husband said that he was resigning from his employment and going in to business with her, she was relieved at the thought of sharing the task. But instead of working with her, he would simply laze around the house.

“I thought that he was simply taking time to adjust to a home routine,” says Amna. “But before I knew it, I was working round the clock, supporting him and our lifestyle, while he did nothing at all.”

This went on, despite repeated promises from him that he would change, for almost 18 months when, Amna simply cut the cord and has never looked back!

“I now thoroughly enjoy my career and my life without having to cater for a man. Our children divide their time between us and appear to have benefited from lessons learnt too. Our daughters will certainly never take any nonsense from a man and, I hope, my son will treat his future wife with the utmost respect,” she concludes.

One of the most difficult things faced by women working from home is getting family members and others to take their efforts seriously – especially in the beginning as, because the woman is still at home, people have the wrong impression that they can interrupt at will and on any pretense. People ringing for a chit chat, others dropping by at will or demanding that the working woman attend this or that function or go here and there shopping or whatever and all can, sometimes, be difficult to refuse and yet, if the woman is determined to make a go of what she has chosen to do, then it is essential that she learns to say a great big ‘No’ to all temptations.

• The names Mahnaz, Shabnam and Amna are pseudonyms to protect indentities.

Published in The Express Tribune, Ms T, October 26^th, 2012.

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