I’m Florante Valdez, a husband, father, blogger and certified freelancer. Workmates and clients call me Drey because they have a hard time pronouncing my name. I can’t remember how many times I’ve been called “Poo- ran-te” or “Flu-ran-tea” so I had to put an end to the undue abuse of my name.

Alright, let’s cut the drama with my name. It has taken too much space already. Let me bring you to this surprise below. This is what freelancing did to my family. No joke.

I’d say that freelancing was the turning point in my 9-5 life. And this is what makes it pretty special. It spawned Certified Freelance and that’s why you are seeing this now. Actually, it also evolved from my passion of writing in relation to the changes that I’ve experienced along the way.

The first blog that I authored was Drey’s Call Center Weblog. It was a journal of my work experiences as a call center agent for over 3 years. Eventually, the blog foiled and opened up this new frontier August 2009 when I made the choice to go full time with my freelance work.

You may be wondering who’s doing all the writing here, it’s me. Even if I love how outsourcing changed the world, I still do my own stuff. The articles written on this blog are primarily based on my first hand experiences, books i’ve read, blog posts that interests me, and stories of friends or colleagues that I find inspiring. I have a few rants but i’d rather entertain the good side of things.

In the meantime, how about go browse around the site, drop me a hi or a hello. And of course, thank you for visiting this site and I hope that in one way or another, you’ll glean some treasures that will enrich your work, family, and spiritual life.

Cheers!