Since 2004, I have worked from home and it has both its good and its bad sides. But despite that I could never go back to working for a conventional employer outside the home again.

Once you begin working from home, you can never revert back because almost immediately you are intoxicated by the freedom of being able to get up when you want to, start work when you want to, and take breaks when you want to.

I mean, I highly doubt a normal employer will let me take a one hour siesta in the afternoon, as I do right now. Or let me sit at my desk naked as I sometimes do. Or sit naked at the window waiting for the female blond postwoman to come deliver my mail as I…er….heard some people do.

Sounds good right? However, before you rush to become self-employed, there are four downsides to working from home.

1. Lack Of Human Interaction – When you work in a place outside of the home, you are working with other people. You chat with them, discuss work with them, sit with them in the canteen and discuss last night’s football game. When you start working from home, you don’t have any of that (except via email and IM but that doesn’t really count). The difference is quite overwhelming at first and it takes quite a while to adjust. I know some people who couldn’t handle the loneliness and solitude and went back to working for someone else, just to hear the “buzz” of the office again.
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