How Working at Home Found Me

I know in my case, I first started working from home as an insurance claims adjuster. I had to go into the office a few days a week, but otherwise I was on my own to roam my own territory. At first I had a difficult time adapting to the lack of structure and my performance at work suffered. Eventually I left to take another job, working from home on a part-time basis. Over time, I learned how to manage my work schedule to my benefit and my productivity thrived as a result.

I've had both office and work-from-home jobs since, including some that lasted several years where I worked from home 100 percent of the time. I began to love the lifestyle, but I would then find myself back in office jobs every few years as my career desires changed and matured or after I decided to relocate. I missed being home most of those times, but I learned to adjust. Ironically, just as I got used to being back in the office another opportunity to work at home would crop up.

Turning Working from Home into a Business

Since I've lost my last office job - now over 6 years ago - I've been working from home with my own home business. Again, I didn't seek it out - it found me after I got laid off and had to do something - anything - to make ends meet. I'd sent out resume after resume but the job market was so weak there were very few interview invitations forthcoming. I went back to working for some people I'd worked with at my last job on a contract basis and they let me decide if I wanted to work off-site or on-site. I chose to work from home on those projects, and eventually more projects found their way to me, but they were sporadic at best. Unemployment kept me going through the quiet times, but eventually my unemployment eligibility came to an end, so it was time to sink or swim.

At that point, I didn't feel like I had any choice but to start my business and find clients. So I set up my home business, registered my business name with the state and purchased business liability insurance. Taking these steps gave me added credibility with potential clients, who felt that I was more likely to consider their needs as a full-time business owner than I was as an occasional temporary worker. Additionally, the IRS wouldn't hassle them if they put me on contract for extended periods of time without paying me benefits - a practice for which Microsoft got involved in litigation several years back after it hired contractors for multiple-year, open-ended contracts. The contractors didn't have the ability to work for other employers and Microsoft wanted to save the cost of having to pay these workers benefits. So hanging out my shingle to officially start my business definitely paid off for me.