Gone, for some are the days of commuting, unless you are commuting on the Internet highway; no more stress of gridlocked roads, go slow motorways; or smiling builder’s bums of workmen digging up roads that were only filled in a few days before, by different contractors, for a different company. Why these people cannot talk to each other, and work on the same bit of road, at the same time, is beyond me, but that's another story... No more Monday mornings wondering if the boss has had a rough weekend and is going to take it out on you; You may get a dodgy e-mail from him but a delete key can do wonders for your own Monday morning blues.

There are approximately 2 million people who are based at home and the figure is rising every year. Companies are realising the benefits of having some staff, where possible, home based. Big multi national businesses like BT and the Co-operative Bank have staff at home and fully endorse the trend. There are just so many benefits to employer and employee alike. For the employer the possibility of expansion in the workforce without expansion of office space is phenomenal. Multi media PCs are now part of the furniture, so to speak, in millions of homes, again reducing an employers’ expenditure, although some financial outlay would be expected for upgrades, appropriate software and general wear and tear. This is of course presuming that he wouldn't want to supply you with a PC to be used for work only which would be very nice thankyou.

Why is it then that home based employment, legitimate home based employment can be so hard to find? Mention the word ‘homeworking’ to many managers, and you can almost see the picture that is conjured up in their minds, of "fag ash Lil" (not meaning to stereotype anyone called ‘Lil’ who smokes, you understand), sitting at the kitchen table, doing a mind numbing job, for a pittance of a wage that is well below the national minimum. It is often difficult getting them to understand that it is possible to have someone working for them at home. Many proprietors, managers and HR personnel have asked me how they can make sure that home based staff are not abusing the company time or resources. My reply is that that they should judge an employees by their productivity and performance, and not merely by thier presence in the office. Monday morning chats at the coffee machine about who did what, with whom, over the weekend, can take up a lot of time. If anything home based workers tend to overwork...

You do have to be a certain kind of person to be able to work from home. You need to have the commitment, drive, and, most importantly, self discipline, if you are going to succeed. We have approximately 400 people on our database all looking to work from home, and we receive at least 15 CV’s a day, so competition is high, and if you can't do the job, there is always someone else who can. Employers who contact us expect home based staff to be slicker and more efficient than someone doing the same job in the office. Our advice to people is there is more to being "home employable" than just the ability to use a word processor, spreadsheets, the Internet and e-mail. The more experience you have in your particular field the more the possibility of you finding work.

Kit scam	These usually appear in local newspapers. You buy a kit anything from £20 plus. No matter how precise you are, and how long you have taken, whatever you send back will more than likely be rejected on the grounds of it not being good enough
Directory scam	Here you will be asked to send in a £15 plus fee, In return for a directory of companies looking for people who wish to work from home. What you get is a list of addresses, all of which ask you to send another registration fee of anything from £20 -£200
Recruitment scam	This involves you placing ads in local shops. You will have probably paid out £15 or more to join this scheme. For each person then that you persuade to join the scheme and part with their £15 pounds, you wll get around 40p. Therefore, the only way you can get your outlay back is to get another 50 people or so to join.
Chain letters	An illegal scheme that involves you receiving a letter with 5 or so names and addresses on it. You send off a payment to one or all of the people on this list. You then buy a ‘mailing list’ and send a similar letter to hundreds more people, removing the top name from the list, and adding your own to the bottom. They claim you can earn massive amounts of money, but really only dupe people on or below the breadline into parting with money they cannot afford to lose.
Envelope stuffing	The all time classic. Send off £1+ for the information. You will be told to put ads in your local shops for others to send off £1 to you for information and you then tell them the same thing.

People often ask me, as a mother of three girls (5½, 2½ and a 2 month old baby), "how do you manage?" My answer, as a self employed home worker, is simple: "no work no money." Because I am self employed I can choose the times I wish to work. If I cannot sleep, which is unlikely these days, I can log onto the Internet at some obscure time in the morning, to source possible clients. However, if you are working for a company, then although you are at home, the hours may not be completely flexible. Due to the nature of the work you may still find yourself working the 9-5 hours. Balancing your private life, and, your work life is imperative, and easier to do, when at home than in an office. Depending on your work and your workload, a quick couple of phone calls on your private phone to apologise profusely as to why a bill hasn't been paid isn't a problem and you won't get the boss chastising you in front of your colleagues. A morning routine helps and if you feel better donning some formal office wear, then do so. Get yourself a cup of tea and sit down, before you even power on the computer make a "things to do today" and "things to this week" list if it is a Monday morning.

Although still viewed by the majority as a peculiar and eccentric way of working, with a continuing upward trend, the endoresement of the government, and several large and respected corporations using it, working from home is looking more and more like the preferred, or even, most common paradigm of the future. As Blighty usually follows in the footsteps of our more, er, advanced, bretheren in the ‘New World’ of America, this is almost certainly a taste of things to come, as the working from home paradigm is enjoying an unprecedented boom there. Europe too is showing healthy signs of a similar trend. The British are always slow to take on board new ideas and concepts from accross the Channel or the Atlantic, but we do usually give in eventually. This new concept stands to revolutionise the way that millions of people will work in the future.