Free Agent Nation

But in the end, she turned down the offer: "I did a gut check. And my gut said that I'm going to be a little sick to my stomach when I wake up in the morning. I didn't want to give up Joanna Baker to be a cog in their machine."

So, haltingly, she struck out on her own. She joined a professional association, The Research Roundtable, and visited other recruiters. She didn't always like what she saw. These recruiters, she says, "put a high value on having mahogany and brass. There's no mahogany in my house."

In her Evanston, Illinois home office, there are two phone lines and a black Labrador retriever -- elements that Baker considers essential to her free-agent success. The dean has become a friend and even introduces her to prospective clients. And when she attends alumni meetings and sees her old classmates, she realizes that she makes about as much money as they do but has fringe benefits they probably can't even imagine.

"I get to do yoga every day in my house," Baker says, "Other people are commuting while I'm doing yoga."

Deep in the Hudson Valley, across the abandoned railroad tracks, past the rural cemetery, beyond the stone lions, in a cedar-paneled house at the foot of the Shawangunk Mountains, Terri Lonier is working solo. Literally.

Lonier, 45, is the founder of Working Solo, a consulting and publishing operation that advises free agents on how to navigate this new world; it also helps larger businesses understand and reach this growing new market. She is both evangelist and ambassador. She spreads the word, urging the growing flock of free agents to have faith -- in themselves. And she journeys to the more established land of business to decode what's taking place in the strange new realm that she represents.

At her home here in New Paltz, New York, one of the most compelling subplots in the Free Agent Nation story is unfolding in Lonier's basement and across her telephone lines. Throughout the country, small groups of free agents are helping one another succeed professionally and survive emotionally. These groups belie another of the central myths about free agency: that without that office watercooler, free agents become isolated and lonely. As Lonier puts it, "Working solo is not working alone."

These groups -- at once hard-headed and soft-hearted -- are creating new communities. One part board of directors, another part group therapy, these small, self-organized clusters are part of the emerging free-agent infrastructure. Along with Kinko's, Office Depot, Staples, and Web sites too numerous to count, they are forming the new foundation of our economic and social lives.

Every other week, usually on a Friday morning, Lonier and three colleagues -- including Elaine Floyd, 36, a newsletter impresario based in St. Louis, and Pam Davis, 47, a television producer based in San Diego -- hold a conference call to discuss their microbusinesses. They solicit and receive advice, set goals for the coming weeks, and give one another an emotional boost.

David Garfinkel, the free-agent copywriter from San Francisco, is the fourth participant in the biweekly call. He says that being accountable to peers has forced him to get things done that he might have let slide. "I have a lot of great friends," Garfinkel says, "but they haven't chosen this path. No matter how kindhearted they are, they just can't cheer you on. They're on a different emotional frequency."

Adds Davis: "A lot of people don't understand what I'm going through. I see this look on their faces, and I say, 'I'm going to go talk to my group about it.'"

A different Friday morning, a different group. this time I'm in Miriam Krasno's living room in Skokie, Illinois, with a plate of bagels to my left and her parrot BooBoo to my right. This is the Strategy Group, which includes Joanna Baker, the executive recruiter, and three other women: Krasno, 41, a career coach; Cheryl Rodgers, 41, an educational technology consultant; and Beth Sirull, 34, a free-agent marketing guru.

The Strategy Group has fun, but it's structured fun. At their meetings, each participant has a maximum of 20 minutes to speak, with the time divided into four periods. The first period is called Accomplishments and Insights; here, a participant must talk for at least two but no more than five minutes about what she has achieved in the past month -- personally, professionally, and, yes, spiritually. Next comes Struggles and Dilemmas, a two-to-five-minute chance to discuss problems while avoiding self-flagellation. That sets the stage for the nine-minute interactive session, during which the group offers advice (like a corporate board) and encouragement (like a support group). Then comes the one-minute finale, in which each woman makes commitments to herself that the group will enforce.