I Got Laid Off and I Didn’t Care
Working for three decades does that to you
As the The Great Work From Home Initiative of 2020 charged on, many tech workers lived the dream of working remotely. It wasn’t just tech heads, of course. Anyone who could reliably work on a computer traded in their slacks and oxfords for loungewear and fuzzy slippers, clocking in hours from their kitchen countertops, man caves and makeshift offices at the dining table.
And clocked in hours, they did.
Working from home, the line between office time and home time got blurry. Hardly anyone minded clocking in a little earlier or signing off a little later. The need for hour-long lunchtimes were no longer a necessary break to just get away for a bit. The phrase “I gotta jump into another meeting” was uttered a million times over across the globe.
Getting work done from home fulfilled the promise of work-life balance that companies purportedly offered. Workers, in turn, felt that since they were home, they finally were able to cash in on the promise.
Or so they thought. Or so they felt.
Instead, supervisors and management kept toeing the line on how much overtime could be coaxed out of salaried full-time employees — without calling it overtime. And since no one was physically at the office, it…
