My Story

My life has been anything but conventional.

I’ve moved around most of my life, rarely staying in one place more than five years while I was growing up. Maybe that’s where my restless nature comes in. 

I’ve had 24 different jobs in two countries in my life going back to my first job at a local supermarket when I was 15, earning $3.35 per hour minimum wage. Not very much compared to today.

My work history started rocky. 

After getting another job at a higher paying supermarket ($6.50 an hour! Moving up!) I got fired for…stealing a chocolate milk from the fridge.

So I got my third job over the summer at a local flower store.

A FAKE flower store. No real flowers at all.

A few months later I went off to college. That didn’t go so well.

I flunked out of college in only three months, moved back home (to my parents’ disappointment) and went back to my job at the flower store. 

It was now Christmas season, and the flower store was selling fake Christmas trees to go alongside the fake flowers.

The future seemed grim. By then, my whole life seemed fake.

At that point, I needed some direction, so I joined the Navy. Just in time for the first Gulf War. Just my luck.

Four years later, I gave college another try and graduated with a degree that didn’t have a lot of job prospects. Oops.

I went back to school and took some computer networking courses, got a few professional certifications, and eventually ended up working for a small local telephone company. 

Later I moved up to a major global telecom company and worked there until they collapsed in one of the biggest accounting scandals in history. I and 18,000 of my coworkers were laid off in one day.

I just could not catch a break.

Various other jobs followed, until I got a government contracting job. Good pay, but I had to work nights. All night.

From 10pm until 8:30am were my work hours. I would come home, go to bed at noon, wake up at 8pm and go do it all over again. I did this for four years. 

It became nearly impossible to do things during the day like normal people. So much so, that it cost me my marriage.

I was at a low point in my life. And then I remembered something my father once told me.

He was an airline pilot. I got to go to some interesting paces with him, although since I was busy working so many jobs, I didn’t get to travel with him nearly as much as I wanted to. Everyone has regrets; that’s one of mine.

But he told me something that I never forgot: 

“Emery, if you get a chance, you should try living somewhere overseas. When I travel somewhere, I can’t stay. I have to move on. That’s my job. 

“But it doesn’t have to be yours. You should try to find a place worth staying for a while.”

That stuck with me. 

And the opportunity finally came when I found myself ‘in between jobs’ again. 

I moved to Japan in 2008 and ended up staying for ten years. I traveled to a lot of different digital nomad destinations too. What a time.

And then COVID came and forced nearly everyone into their homes and away from their offices. People had to work from home whether they wanted to or not. 

I had never worked remotely before. Turns out…I liked it!

Without the distractions of an office environment, I found that I could get a LOT more done.

I saved a ton of money and stress by not having long, soul-sucking  commutes to and from work day in and day out.  

Technology advanced quickly to adapt to the changing times. It’s hard to keep up with tech changes even without a pandemic, so I sought out ways to learn quickly.

And now I’m creating this blog so I can share what I’ve learned with you. If you’re not sure how to set up a home office, or if you think you’re not ‘tech savvy’ enough to work from home, I’m here to help.

Maybe all this time it wasn’t the jobs…it was just the office environments.

I found that working from home is the best way to get things done. You may disagree. But if you did, you probably wouldn’t have found me anyway. 

So welcome, you made it. Let’s get to work!

Cheers,

Emery

P.S. If you want to reach me directly, click here. Thanks for being here.