For many who have been working from home during the pandemic for the past twelve months, the year might have felt like twenty years (I’m thinking of young parents with small children). For others, it has been a welcome gift, offering flexibility, a relaxed dress code, and zero commute. For me, working from home is just business as usual. For the past twenty years I have successfully run Sage Search Partners from my house. When I started the business my first home office was an alcove in my bedroom, with a slanted ceiling so low that I could not stand up straight. My bookshelf was an old diaper changing table. I had a land line, a cell phone, a computer with an internet connection, and a printer that worked overtime. My business partner had the same set up at her home office. This was way before Zoom, so she and I had phone meetings or met in person at Peets Coffee. I’ve upgraded to a better, more well-lit, less height challenged space, but it is still in my home.
It has been an amazingly successful and satisfying run. Working from home has allowed me to be a more whole person: I am the business owner who is also the mom who walked her kids to school and cheered on the sidelines of their after-school field hockey games or tennis matches (when I wasn’t traveling); I had opportunities, and the time, to learn new things. And as a lifelong athlete, I was able to continue competing in the sports that I loved.
For many years, I hid from my clients that I worked from home. I didn’t want them to perceive Sage as rinky-dink or somehow illegitimate. Back then, having an “address” for your business seemed really important, as if the quality of our work was derived from having a fancy Seaport street on our letterhead.
Sage is small but we are not rinky-dink. We have a twenty-year successful track record of quality work. By worrying less about the bottom line and the trappings of corporate life, we are able to focus more on serving our clients well. We can take projects we believe in. We can take the time to do them well. And we can be real people with a wealth and diversity of experiences that adds value to every project we undertake. All from home.
