Work From Home
09 May 2021
It’s been a year of the pandemic and I wanted to pen down some thoughts on remote work.
With most people I work with being part of the knowledge economy there have never been boundaries of when work starts and stops. Over the years, this has exacerbated with powerful smartphones. However, the pandemic has compounded “I am always on” and “You should be always on” to another level. Meetings scheduled anytime, meetings spilling later in the evening, WhatsApp groups created (instead of a Slack or a business tool) and the expectation to respond even on weekends. It wasn’t like this before.
People are trying to replace office presence to chat presence. The sooner you reply, the harder you are working.
Maybe, you feel that you need to work all the time so as to get your mind away from the anxiety-laden stress of the pandemic. That’s ok, but what happens to the team members you are working with?
Or, this sort of behaviour is coming from the mindset that since everyone is at home, they must be working. What else is there to do? Right?
Wrong.
I am all for remote work but we all need to realise that people have a life outside of work! They have families, hobbies and are up-skilling. Let’s be more mindful of other people’s times and commitments.
Do you live to work or work to live?