It might not seem like such a huge leap, for me to leave my current job and work from home, but it feels pretty big. This is the longest I have ever worked at one job. I am hoping that some of my regular clients will follow me over here, but I know that some of my clients come to see me because my office is downtown. They either live close to downtown, or work downtown and it will be more of an inconvenience to drive all the way to the other end of town. However, I hope that the people I have been treating for many years will value their trust in me over a shorter drive. Saskatoon is a pretty small city, and even in 'rush hour' traffic it only takes me about 15-20 minutes to get home. At non-peak times it takes me about 10 minutes to get to or from work.
I am hoping to not do much advertising, other than word of mouth. There are some creeps out there, and I would prefer to not have a hug influx of new clients coming into my home. However, being in a newer area of the city with lots of young families, I see the potenital for some new clientele from our area. I may look into putting an ad in the community newsletter, or possibly deliver some flyers in the area. We will see how it goes!
I think what pushed me to finally want to make this step is a couple of people I know making career changes. My good friend Arleen, who has been working at Camp Kadesh for many years resigned this fall. When I talked to her last, she wasn't sure what she was going to do next, but just felt that her time at camp was over. I respect that, and look forward to seeing what direction she takes. I also had a client at work who's husband took a job a year ago WAY up north on an island off of the North West Territories for the RCMP. Since he has worked there, I think he has only been home once and it has obviously had a strain on their relationship. She has been unhappy in her work place for a while, so she decided that she is going to quit her job and move to the arctic. I think he signed a contract for 2 or 3 years, so another year or two for them to live up there, in a tiny community (maybe 80 people) with access to very little. She is hoping to read, work out (do P90X she says), destress, and simplify her life. I can't imagine moving to a place like that, but you do what you have to do for love.....but again, her story kind of inspired me to take this leap in my own career.
I said to Jason when I first started considering this, that if it fails miserably, that I will take it as a sign that it is time for me to move on. Whether that means going back to school or just finding a different job. I have felt sort of restless in my work for a couple of years. I just didn't think that I would be able to do massage for the rest of my career, and I started to wonder what was next for me. I looked into all sorts of schooling options, and even enrolled, briefly, at Athabasca University to take some correspondance classes, before I realized that I didn't want to be in school right then. I think that this will be a good opportunity for us to have some flexibility with my hours (earlier or later than I work now, and probably some Saturday hours as well!), and to pursue some more photography opportunites with Jay.