How can you work from home?

hopefulmom

I am SAH but wondered what kind of job allows many of the women on here to work at home.  I know for a fact that all the jobs I have had in the past would not have allowed it (either for HPPA regulations or "company secrets" or other reasons).  I've worked for physicians, the state, and an automotive group.  I think it is great if you're company allows it...but I just thought it would be easy to compromise the company by working at home.

DandelionMom

DH has a work cell and laptop so it would be pretty easy for him to work at home but he usually has too many meetings. ?He often does work from home in the evenings to avoid staying too late at the office.?

DaiLyght

Actually a good friend of my husband's lives in Virgina. He has a moderate level of security clearance and programs software that is used for high level military equipment and operations. He works from home.

hopefulmom

Any of the places I've worked would not have allowed it (some people have asked).  I'm not sure if I would want info regarding me or my family going to someone's home...KWIM (like CC info, medical, etc).  I realize there are tons of security codes to put in etc...but they are still at home.  What about all the top secret stuff (government) and other personal info that has been stolen because someone's laptop was stolen from their home or car?

DandelionMom

People do it all the time so there must be some kind of security in place. ?I know there's a setting so they can't access certain info at home, only when logged onto the company network. ?

Angela814

I did before I lost my job.  I was a field clinical engineer for a clinical trial of an implantable device used to treat heart failure.  Since it was a clinical trial, patients were given numbers.  I did have their follow up information, but it wasn't directly linked to the patient anywhere.  Only the actual hospital/clinic had patient names with the numbers.  When I had to collect data that had a patient name on it, that name was blacked out in permanent marker before I even left.

I thought you were going to ask how employers allowed moms to work at home without childcare.  I had DD in daycare full time while I was working, but I was able to drop off late or pick up early if I didn't have a lot going on that day.

amygauntt@windstream.net

I work for a private investigator. Most of the employees work from home and we deal with SSN, and mortgage info, sometimes more.

I don't see as many of these things, as I only see the reports (final report that goes to our client, which sometimes has SSN's, but not always), but the analysts get the entire file (mortgage fraud is mostly what we do, so they get the entire file about the mortgage, loan apps, bank statements, credit reports), nothing is in paper form though, it's all electronic.

grja

I am a computer programmer for an insurance company. We have these secure ID's that we have to carry. When we log in, we have to type that security code in (in chages every 30 seconds or so) in order to get on and get to our information.

We also have a gizillion passwords and other security measures. Its a pain to log on every time, but its only to prevent bad things from happening. People also have different levels of security. For example, I don't have the highest level of security so most people's personal information is encrypted (SSN, address, phone, etc).

REOM

My DH works for an entertainment company (no big secrets there other than the status of Jessica Simpson's mom jeans) and he just logs on to the company network from his laptop. 

He worked from home yesterday b/c of the snow.  It is a great option. And he was actually very productive yesterday, as opposed to if he tried to go in, he would have been stuck in traffic all morning.

DaiLyght

I should also add that I am fully capable of doing my job from home, and over the years I've worked here, I have done so on many, many occasions. There is no real security data that I deal with, aside from student's ID numbers once in a while. Nothing is on paper, and everything is done over the computer, just as if I was sitting in my office. There's nothing any more or less secure about sitting at home versus sitting at my desk.

itsmyturn2

I work in marketing for an online job board, so its not like what I do is really top secret. If I was going to steal any secret marketing plans, I could just as easily do it from work. I also have a secure connection into all work systems, so they do have some level of protection set up for potentially private information, but like I said I really don't have access to anything anyone would care about!

Aidens__mommy

I know that Hilton Reservations & The Home Shopping Network both have jobs that let you work from home but they are not hiring right now.

*sparky*

I have a company laptop and can log into my office network from home.  There are firewalls, etc. in place to prevent anyone from hacking into my connection.  It is very secure.

co18co

Technology is set up in a way that it's easy to do secure work from home.  My husband often works in our home office, and has a top level security clearance and designs software for satellite operating systems for the gov't.  There are some aspects of his job that have to be done in a secure room without cells/computers, etc., but much of what he does is through the company's secure computing network.

My job, involves less security, but an appropriate amount of prudence allows for  me to easily complete the work while home.  My company is in Tampa.  I am in VA.  I've worked for them for nearly five years, and the negatives of me not being there are strongly out-weighed by the positives of having someone trustworthy and knowledgeable in the industry/software.

hopefulmom

I would not be concerned about the person working at home having access to my info (since they would have that same access at the company).  I am concerned about my info being in their computer AT their home, IN their car.  I think the chance of theft at a home or from a car is greater than a theft from a business. 

It is great you all can and could work from home.  I just know that the companies I worked for would never have allowed it...for anyone in the company. 

happ17

I work from home some days. I prefer not to, since we have an in-home nanny and not day care. I'm an editor and journalist. I can log into my work email and server from home, make all the calls and do interviews from home, write from home, etc. The only thing I need to be in the office for is when we're in production. So yeah, theoretically I can work from home half the time at least, but I have too many meetings, etc.

Our writer/reporters, however, can and usually do work from home on a freelance basis (some of our full-time staff work from home as well). It's tough as an editor, but manageable as a reporter. Also, public relations and marketing is another job you can do from home.

JCS2007

I work from home for a health care company, and while I dont deal with personal health information very often, we do have many clinical folks that work out of their homes that do work with personal information. We have consultants that set up the home workstations in accordance with HIPAA, and so far it has been working fine.  I have access to all of the same things from home that I had when I worked in an office.

jen5-03

Pretty much everyone in my company (mega oil company) has a laptop. They take thier laptops home at night all the time, they travel with them, etc. And many of us have confidential information on them.

There is no difference, security-wise, between travelling for business and taking a laptop home at night and working from home fulltime. Your company is either set up for it or it isn't.

My DH works in insurance. He has worked for companies that use HIPPA as an excuse to not let people have laptops/take work home. And he has worked for companies that give people laptops or citrix access and have no problem with people working from home. In general, the companies he worked for that did not allow working from home were more lazy about security and the others had more sophisticated security.

Chrisy-Wyobride

I work contract for other working Architect Moms from home (they also work from home)...no confidentiallity issues generally. 

*sparky*

hopefulmom:

I would not be concerned about the person working at home having access to my info (since they would have that same access at the company).  I am concerned about my info being in their computer AT their home, IN their car.  I think the chance of theft at a home or from a car is greater than a theft from a business. 

It is great you all can and could work from home.  I just know that the companies I worked for would never have allowed it...for anyone in the company. 

There is no secure data stored on my hard drive of my lap top - it is all on the network.  If someone steals my PC, they still can't get to any of the secure data without my log on id and password.

DesignerMama

I am a marketing manager/graphic designer and can do my design work very easily from home. I go in more than I stay home because I like to be involved in the day-to-day going-ons of the company for the marketing side of it.?

MarchMom06

I work for a large software company that cares a lot about protecting IP, & I work from home one day a week (and know plenty of people that work from home full-time). Ditto sparky. There are lots of options available from a technical, software, & networking perspective to protect company assets.

shopgirl78

lap top- wireless network/airport card/ log on to the company's site.  Also mandated to keep HIPPA info on the DL