There was a stretch of my life when an eight-hour workday didn’t mean eight hours of my day. I left the house at 5 a.m. and got home between 8 and 9 p.m., sometimes later. Here in the Philippines, my route was Valenzuela to Quezon: tricycle, then bus, then jeepney—three rides just to get to the office and the same in reverse to get home. Eight hours of actual work, six hours of commuting. That was my day.
I didn’t think of it as a problem back then. In 2018, I started my term as Treasurer of Sangguniang Kabataan of Barangay Punturin in Valenzuela City, a role I’ve held all the way through to 2026, juggling it alongside whatever other work I was doing at the time. I graduated in 2019 with a degree in accounting and, on top of that, started working in bookkeeping: bank transactions, financial reports, and the kind of detail work I was good at.
Not long after, I moved to a construction company under Japanese bosses, one of only two new employees on the team. I was the newest person there, which meant I had to adjust fast. At first, I just wanted work in line with my course, so I took it in stride. The commute was the harder part.
I was grateful to have the job. I budgeted my lunch allowance carefully so I could save more of my salary, and I told myself this was just what a stable job looked like. I didn’t know yet that stable didn’t always mean sustainable.
They Told Me the Real Money Was in Sales
At some point, someone told me that if I wanted to earn more, sales was where the money was. So I moved from accounting into sales. The role had me working with two big, well-known names in real estate and property development, and my coverage sometimes stretched all the way to the south. I wasn’t wrong about the money, but I was wrong about the fit.
Then COVID happened, and working from home became the only option for a lot of us. That’s when something shifted for me. I had time again: time to think, time to rest, and time to just be home. I realized I didn’t just like working from home. I liked what it gave back to me.
But once quarantine lifted, that quiet went away too. Sales had me on duty in far-flung areas, literally far from where I lived, so the commute came back. It wasn’t as constant as before. At least I had a set schedule this time.
Even so, I stayed grateful. So many people had lost their jobs during that time, and here I was, still employed in the middle of a pandemic. That mattered to me, even on the days the sales grind wore me down. But the memory of working from home didn’t leave. That was the real turning point, even if I didn’t act on it right away.
Learning Everything About Being a VA, Except How to Apply
By 2020, I had started seriously looking into virtual assistant work. I joined seminars, took workshops on general VA skills and bookkeeping, paid for some of them out of pocket, and read everything I could find.
What I didn’t do, for a long time, was apply. I was afraid of being rejected. I didn’t feel like I had enough experience to call myself ready. So I kept learning instead of applying, which felt productive but was really a way to avoid the scarier step. I did eventually send one application before I left corporate for good, but nothing came of it right away.
In the meantime, I tried a different way to make sales work for me. I became a financial advisor, drawn to the flexibility it offered and the control it gave me over my schedule. But I learned something important in the process: if you don’t genuinely love what you’re doing, it’s hard to keep showing up for it. It told me sales, in any form, wasn’t where I wanted to build a career, and it sent me back to what I actually knew: accounting.
Back to Corporate, and Ended Up Leading
I returned to corporate as an accounting staff member, expecting to settle back into familiar work. Five months in, I was offered the chance to become a Credit and Control Supervisor at a fast-moving consumer goods company. I hesitated.
There were coworkers who’d been there longer than me, and I would be the youngest supervisor in the company, so I didn’t feel like I’d earned it yet. But my manager believed I could grow into it. He told me he had self-studied everything before landing in that same position himself and that everything can be learned. That was enough to get me to say yes.
I held that role for five months, and it was a completely different world from being staff. I now had people reporting to me, which meant I had to lead, weigh decisions, and take responsibility for outcomes, not just complete the tasks handed to me. Month-end was the busiest stretch every cycle, the kind of pressure that doesn’t let up until the numbers close. I didn’t always get it right, but I tried my best.
Eventually that realization was loud enough that I quit without a clear plan for what came next. I gave myself three months to just rest. Not to hustle, not to build a portfolio, but to actually stop. Somewhere in that rest, I got certain about one thing: I wanted to work from home. Not as an escape from the last job, but as something I was finally choosing on purpose.
The Post That Changed Everything
I saw a former colleague’s post on Facebook looking for an assistant, and it caught my attention in a way a stranger’s post wouldn’t have. That colleague was Rhen Cepe.
I was looking for work after my break, and I grabbed the opportunity. Something in me just said, “Let me try and see if I can do this.”
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Rhen connected me with Irene because the team needed someone for WordPress tasks. My first real interaction with her was nerve-wracking in the best way. It was my first time to actually experience an opportunity like this and I’m curious about how much I could learn rather than worried about falling short. My first tasks were learning the workflow and handling WordPress, and for a while I felt like I was catching up in real time, in a good way.
What I noticed early on was something I hadn’t consistently experienced in my previous jobs: I was trusted. No one was checking my every move. I was told what needed to happen and given the space to figure out how to get there. Working somewhere peaceful felt like a bigger deal than I expected. The people around me weren’t people I had to compete with. They were people I found myself learning from.
I am endlessly grateful to Rhen and Irene, and I don’t think that gratitude will ever fade. Rhen introduced me to the VA world itself and believed in me before I fully believed in myself. Irene gave me the experience, the trust, and the room to grow that made me more independent, not just as a VA, but as a person.
That was almost three years ago. I’ve been with IreneChan.co for 2 years and 9 months now, working as a Tech VA.
What I Have Now Is Time
I used to think what I wanted was a job close to home. What I actually wanted was work where I could breathe. Now, I can juggle my Tech VA work with side gigs and still have real time left over for friends and family.
It’s not just about working from home anymore, either. I can work from anywhere. Even in the middle of a family gathering or hanging out with friends, I can still get things done without having to choose one over the other.
I’m not spending six hours a day getting to and from a building. I’m not waiting for someone to check whether I’m at my desk. I’m the one holding my own time now, and that’s not something I could honestly say during my corporate years, supervisor title or not.
If you’re where I was, researching, attending every free workshop, and telling yourself you’ll apply once you feel ready, I won’t tell you to just follow your dreams. I’ll tell you what actually happened to me: I applied once, got quiet for a while, rested for three months without a plan, and then said yes to one Facebook post from someone I already knew. It wasn’t confidence that got me here. It was being willing to try before I felt ready.
I didn’t start over. I just took everything I had already learned and brought it somewhere new. Maybe that’s what becoming a beginner really means: not starting from zero, but finally giving yourself permission to begin again with everything you’ve already earned.
