Are You Working from Home or Living at Work?

Your home is no longer a safe haven

Photo by Breno Assis on Unsplash

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.

But now, our people — all of them — must work from home if they want to keep their jobs since we need to both comply with measures to stop the pandemic and keep the organization going.

We’re engaged in one of the biggest acts of social solidarity in history, and we know it’s worthwhile. Some have been forced to sacrifice their livelihoods altogether, and others risk their lives to provide essential services.

We also know we’re lucky to be able to work while fighting to #flattenthecurve, but it comes at a cost even to us.

We’ve not only forced people to provide their own workspaces, we’ve taken over their homes.

In my case, I’m lucky to have a comfortable, spacious apartment with a designated office, although I hadn’t spent enough time setting it up to make it work as well as it suddenly needed to.

In contrast, colleagues struggle for space in a corner or a laundry room. Some only have one table or…