I’m in a classic ‘on the fence’ position on the issue when it applies to me personally. On the one hand, I’m a sucker for lying in bed or sitting outside to complete my work, however there are also times when I feel I get the best work done when I’m sitting in my family’s office in front of a desktop computer.

I guess it really does depend on the freelancer’s attitude and personal preference when it comes to where they work. Be it the local coffee shop or the spotless office space, as long as the work is top-notch, the employers are happy.

I thought it was cool that freelancers could make money and not have to sit in those hour long daily meetings about nothing. When the senior editor mentioned how much freelancers made I said “How do I get that job?!” Needless to say, my senior editor did not look amused.

Less than six months later I was freelancing full-time, praying it would work for me. I had already tried teaching math, then I tried editing math. I hated both. I was hoping that writing math would pay the bills and not drive me crazy. So far so good!

If they needed to take a meeting, they would come to our offices. It’s very rare the client would travel to visit them.

I guess my point is this: The owners and editors of a large NYC publishing firm were aware that freelancers didn’t work in traditional offices or dress in traditional business clothing, but this was never an issue.

This may be off-topic, and I apologise, but what’s been said here has me thinking more about how we have embarked on an age of ‘presumed annonymity.’

Blogs and facebook and the like, their ready accessibility, have made it very easy for potential employers to google-and-choose. While I have no desire to work for the high-end corporate world again, I do consider carefully what I put my last name on whilst commenting on the Internet. My blog, though, is rather personal, but always told in a creative non-fiction voice. Thus, it is a true representation of who I am.

In this way, I am always concerned about image. It seems most of us are to some extent, but some of us are more comfortable with the hominess of honesty than others. I applaud them for that.

Some writers I know have several ‘representations’ of themselves out there: a blog for the personal observations; a professional CV-based site; and perhaps another with more career-based information.

It will be interesting to see how the world (and work world) adjusts to this ‘open book’ tendency, especially as the younger generations have no qualms about putting it all out there for the world to see.