Charlie Warzel* says we need to make sure the rise in remote work doesn’t mean the death of work–life balance.
If you are one of the privileged workers who can do their jobs remotely, you’ve spent the last few months working from home (WFH).
Maybe you’re struggling.
Or maybe you’ve achieved Diamond Medallion WFH status — which includes but is not limited to sending an email from the toilet using the phrase “let’s circle back”.
Whether it’s going well or miserably, you are doing your job from where you live.
But you are not working from home.
You are labouring in confinement, under duress.
Work from home troubles are mostly gilded problems — not in the same universe as the exploitation of workers or the stresses faced by frontline and essential workers.
But workers still struggle.
You’re not thriving, you’re surviving.
Which is why I’m anxious about seeing the Facebooks of the world turn their gaze on remote work.
Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, expects that half his staff will work remotely in the next five to 10 years.
On the surface this sounds great.
But basing work from home policies on case studies conducted during a pandemic might prove misguided, especially around ideas of “productivity”.
The WFH Forever revolution promises to liberate workers from the chains of the office.
In practice, it will capitalise on the total collapse of work–life balance.
In an interview with The Verge’s Casey Newton, Zuckerberg cited surveys suggesting that around 40 per cent of employees were interested in working from home.
And he was surprised to find that they seem to be performing well at home.
“A lot of people are actually saying that they’re more productive now,” Zuckerberg said.
Increased productivity — but at what price?
In April, Bloomberg reported on a US employee survey that found that just a month into the pandemic, “about 45 per cent of workers said they were burned out” after working from home.
“Whatever boundaries remained between work and life have almost entirely disappeared.”
Indeed, those boundaries collapsed for me when I made the transition three years ago from commuting into a Manhattan office to working from home in Montana.
My first months in, I spent so much time working from my couch that when I’d sit back down on it at night to unwind, I’d break into a cold sweat, my mind and body unable to understand why I was in my “office” mainlining Netflix.
My bosses reaped the benefits, whether they knew it or not.
Work on weekends?
Why not?!
I’m already at the office.
My productivity was through the roof, but I found myself burning out every few weeks, desperate for a vacation or anything that could help demarcate work from leisure.
A shift to remote work may allow employees to leave the expensive, crowded coastal cities where so many organisations have clustered.
It may usher in better lives for those with the privilege.
But I simply don’t trust corporations to preside over the switch without forcing employees to sacrifice, in the name of productivity, what little work–life balance they have left.
Through trial and error, I learned many lessons about how to work from home without losing my mind: put on real clothes in the morning, try not to do work in the same rooms you sleep or relax in, break up your day, set boundaries.
I began to use the privilege of working from home to prioritise balance, not productivity.
I often work out or run a few errands in the middle of the day — and use that missed hour or so in the evening to catch up on work that requires more focus when things are quiet.
And when work does slow, I try not to spin my wheels: I go for a walk, I play with my dogs.
If something pops up at night, it doesn’t feel as soul-crushing when you haven’t spent the day chained to the computer.
Of course, my WFH flexibility is shaped by the fact that I don’t have kids.
This makes me a good model of a younger worker — available almost all the time.
For those raising children or caring for older or sick relatives, remote work could allow for a restructuring of a daily schedule that allows for more time with family when they’re around.
That said, employers could use that flexibility to pile on work for the traditional off hours — forcing work late into the night after the kids go to bed.
Working from home is sustainable only under the right conditions.
To truly get it right, working remotely is an adaptation — getting rid of the inefficient and maddening parts of the office — that feels like a little act of protest.
Offices are bullies.
They force us to orient our days around commutes; commandeer our attention with (sometimes lovely!) unscheduled, drive-by meetings; and enforce toxic dynamics like trying to look busy or staying until the boss leaves.
All those weird quirks are ported over to the remote work world, but they can be quickly silenced by closing your laptop, even if just for a few moments.
When the pandemic loosens its grip on the world, the world will look different.
Many knowledge workers may leave the office and their now-desiccated desk plants behind for good.
Mass remote work could be an opportunity to begin to right the many wrongs of work overreach and burnout.
But not if it resembles the remote office lives we’ve constructed during quarantine.
Right now, we’re surviving.
We can and should demand to aim higher than just “getting by”.
* Charlie Warzel is a New York Times Opinion writer at large. He tweets at @cwarzel.
This article first appeared at www.nytimes.com.
