Meet Manuel

“I was in construction for 18 years. Commercial construction. I’m not sure how familiar you are with that industry, but it requires a LOT of traveling. And not the good kind. The take-you-away-from-your-family kind. For weeks and sometimes months at a time. I just reached the point where I was so over it.

I was done waking up every morning, driving, dealing with traffic morning and night. Even if I got off work at 5, I wasn’t home until 6:30 or 7. I was done having my girls grow up without me. I either wasn’t there or I was barely there. In construction I had to be on-call one week out of every four. We had a boat. Invariably we would get out into the middle of the lake and I’d be called back. We’d get camp all set up and Boom! Back to take care of a service call. Even my time wasn’t really mine. And then there was how hard construction was on my body. Climbing ladders. Packing heavy things. Every single day. Just massive amounts of wear and tear.

Finally, after 18 years I decided to make a change. I have to admit that I never really saw myself doing medical coding. In fact I have a brother-in-law that used to teach classes in medical coding back while I was still working construction. For years he offered to train me and I just kept telling him he was crazy! I was a construction guy! How could I ever sit in a chair and have baby soft hands and type on a keyboard?

You know what I mean—I’m a construction guy! I’m not this office type person! But I never even imagined the kind of life I could have and MEDICAL CODING is what made it happen.

Now I get up in the morning, stay in my pajamas; I have breakfast with my girls. Did I mention my girls? I have two of them. Two daughters: one 17 and one 13. I get to have coffee every day with my girls. My wife comes out and joins us. It’s the life I never had.

You see, I have always loved to travel. And in construction, I was only allowed to take, ya know, maybe 1-2 weeks of vacation a year. Now, in the four years I’ve done coding I did the Oregon Coast on a 10 day trip and was able to keep working. I’ve worked from Mexico, Nicaragua, and I spent a month living in Spain. Two months living in the Dominican. We had a condo right on the beach, maybe 10 feet from the water. That’s where I worked every day.

But honestly the #1 best thing about this change in career has been being with my family. What other job can you get up and hang out with your kids in the morning? Both of my girls do online schooling because we travel so much. They used to be in public school. I actually got in trouble with my daughter’s principal a few years ago because we went to Hawaii. Of course she missed a bunch of school and they actually wanted to fine me! So I pulled the girls out of school and enrolled them online and now my family and I are living the dream.”