CHAINED TO MY DESK, THANKS
I’ll admit I indulged in a touch of schadenfreude halfway though the story on digital nomads on page 36. Giving up the nine-to-five for a life of travelling around the world and working from wherever you can find a Wi-Fi connection looks like many Instagram feeds – a highlights reel of only the good things in life. Coconuts on the beach, business-class upgrades and a life spent wearing nothing but floaty caftans and wide-brimmed floppy hats.
Turns out it’s not quite all it’s cracked up to be (cue my ‘I-knew-it!’ cackle). There’s still something attractive about the idea of digital nomads – the people who can work anywhere as long as they find an employer willing to send them jobs doable from a laptop.
Then I start thinking about what it really means, not only in terms of career advancement but also missing watercooler interaction with colleagues, and not having a place to keep my desk toys.
One of the nomads shared pictures with us that show her looking at a laptop while perched on a cute rowing boat on a lazy tropical river. Looks like a dream destination, but she was looking at email. I have a hard enough time not getting distracted by food videos at work – I’d be a disaster trying to get anything done in the jungle or on the side of a mountain.
That also seems like not only a waste of being in a really cool place, but also risky considering your only connection to gainful employment is your laptop, and it’s suspended over water.
Well, we assume it was email – the laptop could have been turned off and the whole thing carefully crafted for a photo-op. But no modern human would do something like that on social media, would they? Would they?
Anyone who lives in the UAE probably already knows the answer to that one.
On a side note, let’s please not give that social media photo that dominated local and global news this past week any more media space than it deserves.
There was not one thing about it that can be called anything other than reckless – made even worse by the model’s off-the-cuff response that she should be thanked for highlighting a lack of security.