When I started working from home in 1998, it wasn’t by choice. I was writing for a major record label that decided—in so many words—that I was like a painting that didn’t go with the furniture. (Fine. Know what you get when you play New Age music backward? New Age music.)

My panic-stricken response to sudden unemployment was to send out as many resumes and job applications as I could and explore freelance prospects in my spare time—an exactly backward approach. When I sought freelance work in earnest and sent resumes in my spare time, business picked up.

Long before work from home (WFH) became a well-known acronym, I enjoyed padding down the hall in my slippers and dealing with clients from the comfort of my home office. But when the novelty wore off, I felt my creativity dimming. I needed to hear voices that weren’t just in my head—so I began taking onsite temp work just to get out and be around other people. Sure enough, when an unlikely gig through Paladin led to a full-time position with a marketing firm, I found myself back in a corporate office.

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