Working from Home vs Working at Home

by Hava Lyon | More from this Blogger

10 Apr 2007 09:00 AM

I don't know if I was just the biggest ignoramus ever, or what, but before I took this blogging job, I had no idea there was a difference between those two phrases. I used them interchangeably, and thought nothing of it.

I have since come to realize the error of my ways, and in case there are any readers out there who were as uninformed as me, let me make it clear: Working from home is very different from working at home.

Many people tout direct sales (Avon, Mary Kay, Tupperware) as being a job for mothers who want to stay home with their children. All I have to say is: A) It's not a j-o-b, it's a business (that's another blog for another day) and B) When you sell Avon or Mary Kay, you aren't home very often at all. You have to set up parties and yes, some of those will be in your home, but a lot of them will be in other people's homes. When you get a package together to mail, you have to go to the post office to mail it. When you get items in, you have to go deliver them to the people who ordered them. Although some of your business can be done at home, quite a bit of it cannot.

I have been talking a lot lately about courthouse research, and in case anyone missed it, courthouse research is a work-from-home job, not a work-at-home job. A tiny bit of your job will have to be done at home (like uploading the records, unless you found a wireless connection while you were at the courthouse) but the vast majority of the job will have to be done outside the home (like 99.9% of it.)

A work-at-home job would be transcription, customer service rep (taking phone calls at home), virtual assistant, blogging, etc.

So it's up to you, the job hunter, to decide if you want to work at home or work from home, or if a combination of the two would work for you.

Since the courthouse research ads are usually aimed at mothers, I can hear the question now, "Can I take my kids with me to the courthouse?" Lucky you, I was planning on covering that topic this afternoon. Swell how that works out, huh? Make sure to come back then and check it out.

Learn more about Hava Lyon

Hello, my name is Hava or Havs (depending on my mood and yours!) I am a freelance writer who writes for several blogs, both paid ones such as this one, and personal blogs.

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