Would You Really Prefer Working from Home?

Appearance

Well, just look at you: slopping around in your jeans doing a little light emailing. That's what you think: it'll soon dawn on you that, unless you're power-dressed and wearing enough cologne to damage the ozone layer, no-one will take you seriously. Not even you.

Bedroom

Do you really want to spend a lifetime suffering from Mrs Rochester's Syndrome - padding around a bedroom, sorry, office, in your slippers?

Cats

Cats, once happy to grub around outside, will now meow plaintively and claw at your window, like Cathy in Wuthering Heights. Passers-by make comments about the RSPCA.

Dogs

Also disturbed by your new daylight appearances.

Enigmas

Working virtually means you won't know your clients' favourite colours/ personal relationships/ lucky Lottery numbers/ glove compartment contents. You'll wonder what picture they have of you - then again, perhaps you'd rather not know.

Front door

Whatever you do, don't open it - it'll be a can't-believe-his-luck Mormon or if you're very lucky the Bettaware person who wants to be your best friend.

Gossip

Deprived of office gossip, be warned: you may find yourself becoming abnormally interested in your partner's boring work colleagues - a pathetic gossip junkie's secondhand fix.

Home

In a real office everyone is supposed to work with a common aim - at home, when you emerge grim-faced from your 'office', you'll find others grazing semi-comatose in front of Murder She Wrote and asking you where the chocolate spread is.

Instant nostalgia

All-of-a-sudden irritating colleagues will appear pleasantly-eccentric; overreaching management just a victim of the system. You'd really give this up just to get on first names with your Avon representative?

Jealousy

You will feel that every client on the phone automatically knows you're sitting on a hideous, purple quilt that looks like something worn by Abba's Agnetha in 1977. This can induce 'real office' envy very quickly.

Keyboard

If you're not slumped in front of one for twelve hours a day - a prime candidate for RSI - then you must be the new part-timer.

Lonely

If you finally solve your people problem you'll have to face up to the next one: solitary confinement. But don't worry - the cat will try to cheer you up by meowing down the chimney with full Dolby sound effects.

Motivation

At 'proper work' (as you'll have to think of it) you could always read the company's mission statement if you were desperate for a laugh. Now you'll stare at the pile of red bills, have another cup of coffee and, to raise your self-esteem, remember that you were once commended in a cycling proficiency test.