Working online to earn money from home will introduce you to various types of jobs. And once in while, you’ll be tasked to do something delightful and fun. I have one such job when I was still new in this field, which has taught me valuable lesson in the end.

I’ve taken a variety of jobs as freelancer. I’ve been a writer, an SEO/virtual/marketing assistant, a blogger and a product reviewer to name a few. But there’s one job that stands out among all these, the one job that I kinda regret that I let go of.

It’s being a Google map marker.

I think the job was specific to the client who hired me, but basically what I needed to do was to mark all the parking lots in a particular area or city via Google Map and note if it’s an outdoor or an indoor parking space. It’s really easy and for someone who’s never been outside of the country, traveling and seeing some of the cities in the US via Google Streetview could be the next best thing to physically being there. Around the time that I was doing this, I was also juggling 4-5 jobs in a week, but this assignment was my stress-reliever. It was the kind of job that could get you lose track of time.

But I came to the point where I realized that it’s nearly impossible for me to take 5 jobs via oDesk and still be able to deliver a decent quality of work for each of them. I was also brewing a project in my head and I figured that I can only have 1 assignment at a time so I can focus more on my project during its infancy stage. I was able to trim down my job assignments from 5 to 2, a virtual assistant work and this Google Map marking, but still I needed to choose just one.

The virtual assistant work was my obvious choice. I was being paid twice as much as the marking job rate, exposed to some cool technologies, learning a lot of new things, plus it has the proverbial “potentials for career growth”. Whereas the marking job maybe as easy as PPC ads clicking, but it can be pretty stagnant .

Where will marking parking lots lead me?

The practical and career-smart person in me argued that while it was fun, I have to think of long term goals.

I was aware that the client had hired 15 providers for this job, but said that he’ll only take 2 to the ‘finals’. He intends to expand his online business globally and the final 2 will take on the challenge of marking some of the largest cities in the world, not just the US. There was only 4 of us left, out of the original 15, and I believed, based on his feedback on my work, that I was a strong contender for the most coveted final 2 positions.

Until I submit my email of resignation. Bottomline, I chose to be a promising virtual assistant than a virtual traveler and parking lot mapper. I chose the one that pays more. Sort of.

But now, I feel the pang of regret. The honeymoon stage of the virtual assisting was over sooner than I had expected. It feels a lot like work now and the pile of tasks that I have to do just drags on everyday. It has become stressful on many occasions and I often find myself wishing that I’m doing the marking job instead. And it doesn’t help to know that the client had increased the pay rates of his markers and that they are still happily marking parking lots and traveling the world.

So much for being a practical, career-smart person, I realized I resigned from the wrong job. Incidentally, I just recently submitted my email of resignation  as a virtual assistant. Goodluck on my career then.

Lesson of the story:

In the world of freelancing, what will carry you through is not how much money you get from your jobs but how long you can stay happy doing what you do.

Learn from my mistakes. Fly high freelancers!

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