Beware the Dread Home-Based Self-Doubt Syndrome

Working at home alone can give rise not only to what we call Species Deprivation Syndrome (when you find yourself talking earnestly to Elmo -- or better yet, Dorothy, his goldfish -- then waiting patiently for a reply, sometimes for days), the isolation can also breed self-doubt.

If you answer "yes" to any two of the following three questions, you're almost certainly an undiagnosed sufferer of HBSDS (Home-Based Self-Doubt Syndrome):

• Are you insomniacally sensitive to the tone of emails you receive in response to those you've sent?
• Do you habitually ask a significant other (or worse, hapless strangers you've stumbled into online) if your understanding of a given situation -- no matter how ludicrous, absurd, grotesque or melodramatic -- is accurate?
• Do you look at yourself alot in the mirror?

Any one of these work-at-home peculiarities can spell problems. But two or more... Well, let's just say that two or more are definitely cause for concern. Indeed, they're cause for self-doubt.