My replacement BahnCard arrived on Friday, so yesterday I was actually able to take the train to work as normal instead of working from home, as I had been for most of last week. I was actually quite pleased to get back – despite the advantages of working from my own home (one of them being the opportunity to sleep for a whole extra hour but still start working earlier than I usually would. Lie ins. Bliss!). Sitting at home, all alone, just isn’t the same as being surrounded by colleagues. Admittedly the person I share an ofice with is on holiday this week, but I still have people popping in to ask me for help with a particularly badly written English text, and of course there’s always the tea breaks. A tea break all alone in your own kitchen seems pretty pointless to be perfectly honest. And after spending all of Thursday and most of Friday at home, by the time I signed off from work’s system I was suffering from cabin fever! in fact, I phoned Jan and asked him if he would meet me for food somewhere because I just had to get out of our flat! If I ever did go freelance I would definitely have to rent an office somewhere that I could go to at the beginning of each day and escape from once work was done, otherwise I think I may just find myself going crazy!
Confuzzledom 
That’s interesting that you’re not terribly fond of working from home. Darling Daughter is now doing just that (except she calls it “starting my own business” rather than “freelancing”!), and she’s quite happy. She is one of those people who works well at odd hours, without having to keep to someone else’s schedule. She works quite quickly too, and when she has worked as a team member in an office, she found it frustrating to not be able to move on to other projects at her own pace. I guess people just need to identify and go with their strengths!
I don’t know how it is in other countries, but here there is a legal difference between starting your own business and being a freelancer. Mostly it has to do with taxes. And you can’t be a freelancer in all professions, but translation is one of the ones where you can.
In my office, everyone pretty much works independently, and I can move on to the next project as soon as one is finished (providing there is a “next” project to move on to – usually there is, but there are slow times). That’s what I like about my profession. You can work as though you were a freelancer, but still have a team behind you for support if needed.
I agree with you on the difference in environment. I worked from home last year for about two months for my old job…just to ease the transition of my leaving…and it was a struggle. The days drag on when you’re home alone versus in the office.
I wish I got tea breaks….