Are You Working from Home or Living at Work?
Your home is no longer a safe haven
Before COVID-19, I enjoyed working from home.
It meant the luxury of being able to sleep in a bit, skip the morning commute, and spend a quiet day doing some deep thinking in the comfort of my apartment.
Some days, I’d linger in bed with a big mug of coffee on the nightstand, until nearly 1100, musing and strategizing. I’d usually be alone in my condo building, with nothing and nobody to disturb me.
Now all my neighbours are here.
They’re listening to their music, running on their treadmills, and shouting into their Zoom calls.
The man from down the hall holds his teleconferences outside my door.
The Nosy Neighbourhood Watch is on full alert, ready to call the police at the first sign of an unnecessary delivery or an unauthorized visitor.
But it’s not just that.
My organization started to normalize remote work a while ago, but it was seen as a perk. As the CEO, I saw it as more of a reward or a privilege for good employees than a right. Although we were pretty flexible, our employees had to prove they could be productive outside the office.
