Federal regulators have busted a work-from-home-scam that did not actually help anyone work from home.  The people who signed up received no gainful employment except perhaps the unpleasant job of trying to figure out where their money went.  This is the type of business you used to see touted on flyers stuck to telephone poles – back before the internet became a worldwide staple-ready blank space.

The notices usually said something like this:

Work Without Leaving Home!
Earn Unlimited Dollars In Your Pajamas!

This idea of making a living without having to leave the house has always carried a special allure for me because I am a natural introvert and a lifetime member of Persons Anonymous – a social support group for the low and no profiled.  We attract and retain members by having it as a defining article in our charter that we never actually meet.   But if we ever did get together, I’m certain the Persons Anonymous membership would discover that we, as a group, have been disappointed by “work from home” scams at a much higher rate than members of the general (sociable) population.   And chief among those disappointments would be the realization that “work from home” is not the same thing as “work alone” or “work without having to interact with other people”.  Some of these “work from home” scenarios involve making cold sales calls, or answering the phone, or dropping your pajamas on the floor and picking up your money on the dresser.

In fact, this past weekend’s arrests may confirm that the only way to truly make money in your pajamas is as a sleepwear model.   The sole requirement – that you look fetching in drawstring pants,  appealing in a terrycloth bathrobe and ravishing in adult onesies – an easy reach for Baboons, especially when they do your hair, apply the make up, and turn on the fans.

But of course you’d have to leave the house to go to the shoot.

Drat.

What business have you (or would you) run out of your home?