Jobs that allow freedom to show

[coffeehag]

Like @Ponyplusaninch mentioned, if you have the freedom to be remote, you have to work hard to set work/life boundaries. It’s very easy to get sucked into working insane hours if you let them.

The biggest issue I face is that, while my company allows for a degree of flexibility (get your shit done but you can step out for an appointment if you need to) it’s also client-facing, which means having to look presentable for on-camera meetings and having to work around said meetings.

I do my best to plan out my calendar for the year and figure out which 3-day shows I want to do. I don’t have unlimited PTO, but I take half days on Friday show days to help with set up and school. I do not do rated shows at this time, but would treat it similarly.

There’s still some “respect” you have to show for your job – excellent noise-canceling headphones, not taking calls with a ton of people around, answering emails/Teams messages in a timely manner – and that, I’ve learned, goes an incredibly long way to getting more flexibility.

That being said, I would warn others reading these comments that, in my experience, this flexibility comes from having a degree of experience that shows you can work remotely/flexibly and get your shit done. I know only a few entry-level roles that would allow for this, so just don’t want any young kiddos reading this and not setting expectations!!

[stargzng386]

Agreed! I have an Apple Watch with notifications for emails and teams messages. No matter what if it’s regular work hours I make sure to respond quickly even if it’s from my phone. I may be at the dentist answering a question when someone messages me but I don’t have to use pto for that appointment. I do turn off notifications on weekends.

The culture of when ppl work is important too. My current company everyone works early leaves early I get almost zero emails or anything after 6. I have worked for a company that was the opposite everyone started late and worked late like 7/8 pm ending time. I got some shit for leaving early even though I worked well over my 8 hours I just opened up the office no one was there for my first few hours. My boss didn’t care but it wore on me over time.

[showy]

Heiress is a pretty great job…

Kidding

In confirmation of @Rel6 above … lawyers are surprisingly flexible. I’m transactional and work many Fridays from the horse show, hotel or car.

I am always responsive on my phone and will be “unavailable” for a call only for about an hour while walking my course and showing. Only doable with full service though. My horses are old pro jumpers so they do not need a long hack in the show ring or school in the morning. They just get out to move around and stretch for 20 mins.

[Arzny]

I am a tax accountant at a public firm. While you can forget showing the entire winter circuit, firms are pretty flexible otherwise. We don’t work much during the non busy season, and my firm is small enough that I can go show a few weeks in Feb-March without it being a huge deal.

I can also work at the horse show, which is a flexibility that a lot of people don’t have. As long as I have excel, I can work!

[Punkie]

I work as an I/O psychologist in the healthcare/biotech sphere. Very little of what I do is structured and aside from onsite visits, I work on my own schedule/time. I contract independently, so everything I do is based on billable hours. I do have to keep my phone on me and stay on top of my emails, but I run a 30 acre farm with a limited amount of help and still make a very comfortable living as a consultant. I spend the summers showing up north and the winters in Florida.

[lazaret]

I have a similar arrangement but I’m in house counsel for a company. This means I mostly advise, review contracts, and provide info to the outside firms we contract for litigation (probably firms like yours!)

Thus I am 100% remote and as long as I’m available on Teams or by email everything is fine.

It’s counterintuitive but I also find that going to Florida is both time and cost efficient. With the show so close I can show up, show, and be back at my dining room table working in the space of 2 hours and I don’t even need to take time off

[Kaucos]

HEALTHCARE.

I’m a travel RN. Two-year degree. I work three days a week (typically M/T/W) and one weekend a month. I do work 12-hour shifts, but after adjusting to the workload, I still ride most days after work. I can easily stack my days and have a week off without having to miss any work or touch PTO.

In addition, travel RNs are paid pretty well. Rates skyrocketed during covid, so they are slowly coming down. But gross pay depending on specialty is $2,000 - $4,000 per week. My sister also travels and is on the higher end of $5k/week. She moves across the country every 13 weeks and just goes where the money is. I end up on the lower side because I stay “local,” which is anywhere between a 30min and a 2-hour commute. But gives me the option to rent an apartment and not rely on furnished temporary housing. I really only take advantage of the travel aspect to go south for the winter. So I do a winter contract near Ocala every year.

Definitely other options in healthcare. Most are 2-year degrees and work the 3x12 schedule.

Happy to answer any questions and go more in-depth. (Or make suggestions for non-nursing healthcare degrees)

[lynne]

I work at the US Patent Office as a patent examiner, which has a surprising degree of flexibility for a federal agency. I do not have a set work schedule, just have to complete 80 hours within each biweekly pay period. I can work 12 hours one day and 6 the next, or work 30 hours one week and 50 the next. I can take a mid-day break to go out to the barn. I can go to a horse show in the morning and get to work at 2 pm. Hours have to be worked between 5:30 am and midnight Mon-Sat, and I do have meetings to schedule around, but generally I set my own hours.

We also have the option to telework from anywhere in the US, and are able to have two official ‘alternative work sites’ so it would be possible to, say, rent a place for a winter circuit and work from there. We are not allowed to work on wifi for security reasons, so working from a hotel or at the show grounds is not possible.

Another plus is that within a few years one can reach the GS-14 pay level while maintaining the flexible schedule and not having to directly supervise anyone else. Pay scale for the DC locality is publically available. The job does have a never-ending workload, production quotas to meet, and lawyers to argue with, but the flexibility can’t be beat.

[clanter]

outside sales for me as a regional manager of a eleven state area plus covering most of the area east of the Rockies for trouble site inspections allowed me to be just about anywhere at any time with most all expenses covered expect those at the show.

[HJdaydream]

@leighbo009

Honestly I am just curious what gives the best flexibility. Or those that don’t have the flexibility, how they make it work for them.

I work in healthcare, specifically in imaging. I work 4 10 hr shifts a week, and have some flexibility on which day M-F I have off. For horse shows I schedule my off day (so not using PTO) on Friday. The division I show in is usually Friday/Sat, but sometimes it’s Thur/Fri, in which case I have to use a day of PTO. I’m in a full care program where my horse goes to the show on Mon or Tue. I used to do everything myself, and that would not be feasible these days without burning ALL of my PTO. I did 6 shows this spring and plan to do 3-4 more this fall. All in, I will probably have used 5-6 PTO days this year horse showing, which I don’t think is too bad. It was much worse when I worked 5 days a week!

That being said, my barn travels to several out of state shows a year and I cannot attend those without either spending an arm & a leg on flights back and forth, or using a ton of PTO. IME those that are able to attend multi week out of state shows routinely are usually able to work remotely or are retired.

[saturnalian]

I haven’t shown since moving to the US so I guess I don’t have a practical idea, but as far as I can tell it’ll be pretty easy once I do start!

I think a lot of it comes down to the company you work for. I get 5 weeks of PTO per year, all of which are available to use on Feb 1st, and we are encouraged to use all of it.

Other than that though, I’m a software engineer at an e-commerce (so… kinda tech?) company that’s sort of post-start up. Fully remote, but I think the only thing holding me back is I do have a TON of meetings - I don’t have 1 day in the week without a reoccurring one. I personally wouldn’t feel right asking to skip any of them to show, so I think that’s going to be my biggest obstacle once it comes time. Otherwise, my time is super flexible and I’m able to work whenever and wherever as long as the work gets done. I typically work 8-4 which allows me to ride in the mornings in the summer and before it gets dark in the winter.
I think any tech/tech-adjacent role has a good degree of flexibility, provided you get it at a company that doesn’t micromanage.

[outside_leg]

I work in public affairs in the energy industry, and I have a schedule that lets me work from home and offers very generous PTO allowances. This winter I went down to Florida for part of the time and worked remotely. That was a bit more challenging than just taking the time off to show like I’ve done this summer, since I had to balance calls between unpredictable show ring schedules. I’ll likely just take time off if I go south again.

My work life balance is pretty ideal right now in my mid-thirties. I will say I spent my twenties working 90 hour weeks in government and politics, and then a brief stint in NGOs. I was able to ride and own my own horse, but not really show at that point. So those early years can be a grind, but for me it’s worth it now to have flexibility and good benefits.

[MsM]

Remember too, that you need to like your job at least a little too. You are going to spend a long time working and it can seem infinitely longer if you really dislike the work. I’m not saying it has to be your dream career of “fulfill” you, but it should be at least okay considering your personality.

[Railbird]

I get paid 100% commission on what business I bring in for the company. If I am not getting the job done, they don’t have to pay me. The expectation is for near constant availability to clients, but in exchange there is an understanding that I will work in things for myself. There is no specific time where I am fully off line and unavailable to anything work related- includes the day I had my son. There are some days no one needs me and some days I delegate more than others, but the flexibility to go to the horse show and ride at 10 am tomorrow also goes the other way. I think a lot of people see someone horse showing or riding and don’t see the other side of that coin. Wouldn’t trade it and I love what I do, but it’s not for everyone.

[Foitin]

Most folks I know showing hunters frequently and successfully are only traveling to shows on the weekend to do their division, so traveling Friday, and then showing Sat and Sun, returning Sunday afternoon/night. It is different for jumpers, from what I can observe, but I don’t know many people in either ring who hang out for 4 days at a horse show, because if it is not their job, its their kids, aging parents, and pets. I frequently nearly miss flights because I try to spend as little time away from my kids (elementary ages) and job as possible and cut everything super close. I once boarded a plane with my hunt coat and number still on. I am an academic and have a lot of flexibility when not occupying an admin role (plus even more in the era of Zoom), but careers of this type, at least in the humanities, are sadly going the way of the dodo and are not lucrative.

[Peggy]

As others have noted, retirement.

I taught at a community college. Once you reach a certain amount of seniority you have somewhat more choice in when you teach. When you’re starting out, you may end up being on campus every day almost all day with large chunks of time when you’re not teaching. Teaching at night worked well for riding and it wasn’t something that most tenured faculty wanted anything to do with. Since there typically weren’t classes on Friday night, that gave me Fridays off as well, which is good for showing Friday-Sunday, though showing early Friday morning after teaching a lab that ran until 10:30 pm on Thursday wasn’t great. But the smaller USEF or county shows I did either ran Friday to Sunday with open classes on Friday, or just ran Saturday and Sunday. Being at a show earlier in the week, especially outside commuting distance, was only going to happen in the summer or during spring break week. I did 1-2 weeks of Thermal two different years which was too exhausting, especially since most of it fell during the winter session (one semester of OChem in six weeks, but was most of my showing money).

Since just riding during the week took away time I should have been using for prep and grading, I did the bulk of that on weekends and my MO was to have everything essential set up and ready to go by the time of my first class on Monday. Showing on weekends took that away so it was always a bit of a scramble. During the school year I typically did shows I could commute to and would go home after the show and get the essential stuff done. Once Al Gore invented the internet and email and online class-management software became a thing, I was really good about answering emails and online questions very promptly.

Teaching at a community college, at least in an urban area in California, is kind of a sweet spot. The pay is better than HS or even many of the small liberal arts colleges and you don’t have the responsibility of research, which gives you a bit more control over your time.

[Texarkana]

Teaching has come up a few times. The longer I’m in this profession, the more I would say I just don’t know.

I certainly know of a handful of teacher-trainers who event. But it’s definitely not easy for them.

Summers off are great, but the show season isn’t only in the summer. You’re really limited in the busy spring and fall seasons. The teachers I know who are serious competitors are in busy eventing locales where you have a lot of one day options to show off your trailer. Want to go to Florida in the winter? LOL. Good luck with that.

@Peggy

Teaching at a community college, at least in an urban area in California, is kind of a sweet spot. The pay is better than HS or even many of the small liberal arts colleges and you don’t have the responsibility of research, which gives you a bit more control over your time.

In my 20s I had a really sweet, non-teaching gig at a community college and I have been trying to get back ever since. But unfortunately in my area, high school teaching pays more. If it made financial sense in my area, I would complete enough graduate hours in chemistry so I could teach at the CC level in a heartbeat!!!

[clanter]

@Railbird

I get paid 100% commission on what business I bring in for the company.

I was also making low six figures when that was real money , until the company was bought out then I was moved to salary.

The position remained the same, only problem was being supervised by people who had like concept of what I really did

[victoriakent]

You guys are giving me some great idea for future life goals!

Perhaps marketing/graphic design/PR in the nonprofit sector wasn’t my wisest choice, but at least my boss is understanding of things like vet appointments. I’ve led zoom meetings from the truck pulling the trailer while my barn owner drives. Generally my boss gets a little twitchy about WFH, but allows it if there is a specific reason you need it on a certain day. But no hope in doing the circuit on a nonprofit salary!

[PNWjumper]

I’ll chime in with another “sales” answer. If you are willing to work hard and you are even halfway decent, you’ll make good money - so you’ve got the $ and the flexibility.

I have been in biotech sales for the last 20 years. I’ve had jobs at just about every position from sales rep to VP, and I have always had the time and ability to show. Work has always been remote and flexible, and not having an office you have to go into is a huge part of how I’ve made the horses work for so many years.

The downside, as others have mentioned, is the amount of juggling it takes to (often) work and show at the same time. I try to take PTO for shows as much as I can, but even then I’m often working through the entire show because my boss doesn’t understand PTO (except when he takes it).