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In case you missed it, yesterday was ... Doing Business in Your Bathrobe Day

Home-based entrepreneurs develop careers

Tuesday, February 11, 2003

BY ELLEN LYON
Of The Patriot-News

Forget casual Fridays. Yesterday was the first "Doing Business in Your Bathrobe Day," according to Web Momz.com, an online resource for work-at-home parents and home-based business owners.

"We just felt that corporate workers get so much recognition. There are so many entrepreneurs doing incredible things in this world, and they're not getting any recognition," explained Kristie Rimmele, WebMomz.com co-founder and author of "I Love My Life: The Moms Guide to Working from Home."

Organizers hope the second Monday of February will become an annual tribute to 25 million home-based business owners "who have waved goodbye to the corporate rat race and settled into a better quality of life."

The tongue-in-cheek name for the day "signifies the beauty of the entrepreneurial way of life," Tamsevicius said. "The point is [home-based] entrepreneurs have an incredible amount of freedom."

They wear whatever they want to work, set their own hours and, best of all, are their own bosses.

Tamsevicius, who admits to being caught several times working in her pajamas as a Web site developer from her home in the Chicago suburbs, said she only got one angry letter objecting to the name.

"In all seriousness, most entrepreneurs do not work at home in their bathrobes," she noted.

Hershey native Cathy Kessler is one who shows up fully dressed to work in her office at one end of the living room in her Manheim Twp., Lancaster County, home.

She is a certified professional virtual assistant, communicating with her clients via computer and performing a variety of tasks such as proofreading, bookkeeping and research.

Kessler, who has clients in Washington state, Colorado, California, Illinois, South Carolina and locally, worked outside the home for years, usually in an office cubicle.

She recalls the experience as being confined to a cramped space and "not being able to see daylight from the time you went in the [office] door."

These days her dog sleeps on a pillow in her office, her four cats visit her throughout the day, and the biggest distraction is her husband, who runs his own pressure washing and masonry repair business from the basement.

"I love being at home. My home office environment is very productive for me," Kessler said.

She thinks Doing Business in Your Bathrobe Day "gets the word out and encourages people to do what they want to do." But Kessler admits it's easier for her to work from home because she doesn't have children.

Kathy Snyder runs AJS Accounting with her husband from their Marysville home and home-schools their three daughters, ages 14, 9 and 6.

She said she is able to juggle so much, sometimes in her bathrobe, because they control the size of their practice. She home-schools the children in the morning and works in the afternoon and evening. During tax season she gets up extra early to work before the children wake up.

"Our whole life revolves around being home and being together," she said.

Her children have met her clients, answered the business phone and observed her work. "They will have the skills to be in their own business," Snyder said.

Videographer Vince Allen has run his own business (www.allensmemorylane.com) from his home in Hummelstown for about 10 years. He records dance recitals, school plays, weddings and other special events.

His wife has an outside job with benefits, something home-based business operators agree can give a family a little more security.

Allen, who was unaware that yesterday was Doing Business in Your Bathrobe Day, said he doesn't know about the robe bit, but he sometimes has worked late at night in his underwear.

He started his business after learning three days before Christmas one year informing him that he had been laid off from his job as a United Parcel Service pilot.

"I've worked enough outside, and I've seen what's happened with supposed job security," he said. "I found that I can rise and fall on my own efforts." ELLEN LYON: 255-8153 or elyon@patriot-news.com