How eAssist Changed My Life- Beth Pokorny

Written by Beth in first person.

I have always liked the strong sense of team that working in a dental office provides. In 2000 after the birth of my daughter, I cut back my hours to part-time. Financially, I needed to work and I wanted to continue doing the work that I have always loved. Eventually, I was able to find a position close to home and felt that I had found the perfect balance. In 2009 my husband lost his job.  He was an accountant for a home building company and due to the housing market crash, no one was building new homes. Not only did we lose his income but we lost our health insurance. My daughter was born 8 weeks premature and does have some health issues so having good insurance was very important to us.  I left my perfectly balanced job and went to work for a large corporate dentistry company as a Regional Manager to provide the necessary income and benefits for my family. This position required me to travel daily and at times to be gone from home a week at a time. But it was what was best and my husband was now a stay-at-home dad. But due to the amount of time that I was away from home, there were many things that I missed; open houses at school, band concerts, school Christmas Programs, and sporting events.          

After 3.5 years out of work, my husband was finally able to find a position. Not working for this amount of time did create some debt for our family so I continued to work full time. I lived in fear that it could happen again so I did not want to leave my position. As much as I wanted the have the balance again of work and family, my fear held me back.

In February 2016 one of my close friends lost her battle with cancer.  The loss of her friendship was devastating to me. For days all I could think of was how all the things that her two daughters would go thru in life without their mother to be there to experience it with them. Over the next few weeks, as I again missed another event at school due to work, I came to realize that though my daughter had not lost me to cancer, my fear of financial stability was not giving her a mother to experience life with.

Two weeks later I left my job and began my journey with eAssist. When I had left my job I really did not know what I was going to do, I wanted to work and dentistry is all that I know. I have been in dentistry since 1982 as an assistant, front desk, office manager, and regional manager for a large corporate dentistry company. I was spending time on the internet exploring different opportunities that might work for me and came across eAssist. My husband did not think it could be a real job, but I felt that a company was not requiring me to pay anything to apply, so what was the risk. I received a call for the interview within a week from Devanee and started my training. Once finished with the training I waited a few months to hear back, then contacted Devanee and left a message to make sure that all of my training was up to date. Within 24 hours I received an email from Katrina Winch with an opportunity for an office and have not stopped working since.  This past year when he did our taxes, I think my husband really started to look at it as a job when he saw my 1099.  

Yes, it was tough in the beginning financially, but we got thru it. I still worry that my husband could lose his job, but I know that if it happens I have a great company that I work for and can increase my income if I need to.  

eAssist has given me the flexibility to set my own hours. As a working mom, it is nice to be able to schedule my work time around my family time instead of scheduling my family time around my work. I no longer miss any sporting events, band concerts, or school events. I am able to fit my schedule around my family schedule and not the other way around.

As a Christmas gift, my husband and I gave my daughter tickets to see Demi Lovato and Nick Jonas in concert.  Given that I can make my own schedule, I was able to finish up working so that we had plenty of time to get to the concert even with rush hour traffic in the city.   We were able to get there early enough to take advantage of an offer to upgrade our tickets to the VIP section and were able to stand front row during the concert. eAssist allowed me to have this experience with my daughter, one that I know she will always remember.

One of my favorite memories to date is from our vacation last year in the Bahamas, during which I did not take my computer, my amazing team members helped me out during this week, and I did it for them when they took time off. Balance can happen with this company if you make it a priority.

amandacross

Director of Marketing, Branding, & Content