The Viral Path to Reclaiming Work/Home Balance
This article is a guest post by Bianca Pick, a writer, editor, and director exploring the intersection of tech, society and culture. She also works as an independent speech coach (biancapick.com). Edited by Jorge Vega Matos.
Sure, it’s a funny video. According to some, it has the comedic value of a scene written by Oscar Wilde.
The video of professor and expert of South Korean politics Robert Kelly, who desperately tries to stay composed as his kids and wife walk in on him during a BBC interview, certainly provides a pleasant alternative to the current political fiascos that clutter most of our newsfeed. And while its Wilderian absurdity certainly has comic appeal, the video’s real value lies in how it perfectly summarizes the realities of the current job market in less than a minute.
More and more people work as freelancers, remotely, project-based or in a home office, the dramatic collision of this man’s professional and personal life is something many of us can relate to. Between being Facebook friends with our bosses, receiving midnight messages from colleagues or conducting conference calls from our bed or holiday resorts, Kelly’s video captures how digital media is slowly merging what used to be two somewhat distinct spheres.
As contemporary as this blurring may seem, the challenge of juggling personal and professional life is of course nothing new. Sure, back in the day it would have been unlikely to have your baby in a stroller crash your BBC interview unless you had explicitly taken it along. But even for those who have more conventional office jobs, the struggle of leading double lives has always been real. I could hear the sense of solidarity for this man in my father’s voice when we laughed about it. Like him, he was trying to hold down a serious job while also being the father of two. And be it ex’s, divorce, children, sickness or family, we all have experienced the challenge of keeping, let’s call it the Kelly cool, when things are really going south at work.
The fact that Prof. Kelly had to confirm during a subsequent press conference that indeed he was wearing pants underneath the desk, a common stereotype about freelancers or people that work from home, just shows how ingrained the feeling of distrust is on professionals that seek more of a work/home balance.
The bright side is that new digital communication forms are urging us to let go of these boundaries that separate the private and professional. Together with videos like this they question the current nature of work and what increasingly feels like an arbitrary distinction. After all, let’s not forget that that prior to the industrial revolution, which lead people to work in factories or offices, most ‘jobs’ like farming or craftsman trades were deeply intertwined with family life and personal identity. The current shift in work culture is therefore not necessarily breaking the mold, but bringing us back to more longstanding patterns and holistic ways of life.
Though closing the gap between professional and private certainly has its pitfalls, there is something humbling about the ways in which we are becoming more open to reveal to our humanity to our fellow workers who are, after all, human themselves. So thank you Professor Kelly and family for taking the blow. It may have caused a brief of moment of embarrassment, but his ‘failure’ certainly made us laugh, and remind us that despite our efforts to put up fronts, we are all just people after all.
