As a native of Medellin, Colombia, I worked in the health industry for about 7 years. Two years ago, I was given the opportunity of a lifetime when I found the MCFTech (www.mcftech.com) post on oDesk (www.odesk.com). With Spanish as my first language, I never thought of working for a US-based company, English as idiom was always something I would like to learn and not something I was planning to use for my work life.

The stress after a knee injury was affecting not just my work but my life. It seemed like my home was the best place to recover. I replied to the post on oDesk and harassed the MCFTech CEO for about one week to get an interview… he is a very busy guy, but I wasn’t about to give up!  :-) Lucky is the word that I will always use to describe the amazing opportunity that it is to work for MCFTech!

Working across borders works for me

The freedom, the great work team, the motivation you get by working from home, the knowledge that you gain, the entire new culture and even the exchange rate are just the tip of the iceberg when talking about benefits. It’s challenging every day, but I still consider this opportunity as a blessing… besides, who doesn’t LOVE a challenge?

To mention some challenges, I can say that the language barrier has been really challenging. As I mentioned, my native idiom is Spanish and I learned English on my own. When I started with MCFTech, my vocabulary was pretty limited; now, two years later and thanks to my co-workers, I can say my vocabulary and pronunciation are really good.

Another challenge I faced was to learn how to stay focused when working from home. The freedom is awesome, but very difficult to manage when you have a lot of distractions all around you. I focused my energy on organizing my priorities and schedule… to be honest, I Keep trying, because there are challenges that you can’t overcome that easily! Now, my family, my friends, and even my pets understand that work time, is work time. I also remind myself that my home and family time is not work time. That work/life balance is SO important.

Since the MCFTech team and our clients are located throughout the world, dealing with various time zones has been another challenge I’ve become accustomed to. In Colombia, we don’t have different time zones. In the beginning, managing schedules for people in various time zones, and trying to keep track of where everyone is was pretty difficult. I couldn’t believe that being in the same country didn’t mean having the same time zone and adding the additional time zone on Outlook calendar has been a great help at times! (Outlook Help Topic)

Life is full of challenges and I’m ready to assume all of them as they come. For now my only concern is to give back to MCFTech at least a part of what they already gave to me. Working across borders (remotely) is different, is better and definitely something I want to keep doing for a long time.

Interested in a Career with MCFTech? Contact us today to ask about career opportunities.