We must not let remote work make life worse
It is urgent that Canada change something, either culturally or legally
Do we dare to feel a sliver of optimism? After watching the pandemic unfold like a slowmotion car crash from behind masks and screens, COVID-19 case numbers in Ontario and most of the country are finally starting to fall. Chalk it up to a ramped-up vaccine rollout that, at long last, is making its effects felt.
And thank God — some hope is desperately needed. Even for those who have been lucky enough to work from home, the past year has been a slog. While we should, of course, defer to the tireless efforts of front-line and essential workers, remote work has hardly been a vacation. Endless Zoom meetings, the relentless pings of emails, Slack and other messaging apps, and the feeling that work isn’t so much remote as ubiquitous has left nerves frayed and souls fatigued and worn.
But like food and grocery delivery services or virtual school, remote work seems like a pandemic phenomenon that will cement itself into the new normal — whether or not we want it.
Yet as that inevitably happens, it’s worth thinking about the costs. As technology allows work to bleed into all aspects of life, making work inescapable, without a profound cultural change, or even new regulation, remote work may, in fact, make life worse rather than better.
To many, that may sound counterintuitive, even bizarre. After all, remote work lets you work in your pyjamas — who could object to that? And it’s true that it inarguably has a plethora of benefits: a lack of a commute and a corresponding increase in time for family, friends and leisure; a more flexible work day that may allow for errands during normal business hours; and the simple but not insignificant relief of working on a couch or in casual clothes.
The shift to remote is also not abstract either. Canadian tech giant Shopify has already announced a shift to working from home, as has Twitter, some big American banks and innumerable other companies. Remote work is here, and it’s here to stay.
If there are benefits, what’s the issue then?
Long before the pandemic, new technology began to shift the nature of work. As the volume of email increased over time, it went from useful communication tool to ceaseless time suck — less a thing that kept you in touch with your colleagues than something that kept you chained to them.
Then came the smartphone — the device that lets you check your messages or be on a call while you’re out in nature, or just at the grocery store. Work began to become even more insidious.
Then in response to a cluttered inbox, we got Slack or Microsoft’s Teams — ostensibly things meant to streamline communication but that in reality turned into never-ending communication programs in which the conversation about work never seems to end.
When COVID-19 hit and office workers all began to work from home, work’s infiltration into life only intensified. The rise of Zoom and related video conferencing tools forced millions to pretend to pay attention to a blurry image of their peers. More than that, though, work drifted, stretched, expanded. Like a gas filling a room, a workday without the borders of an office that opens and closes at a fixed time bleeds into the evening, the early morning, ubiquitous. Forget the sad desk lunch. Now we drag ourselves from bed to land straight onto a laptop. This is to say nothing of increased workloads that pile up because it’s assumed remote workers have more time on their hands, or are more productive.
The trouble is that the technology of work has changed, but its culture hasn’t. While some countries such as France have implemented so-called “right to disconnect” laws — rules around how companies may connect with employees outside of regular business hours — Canada is only at the preliminary stages of thinking through the issues.
But as we emerge into a postpandemic world, it is urgent that we change something, either culturally or legally. The relief many feel about remote work isn’t about its inherent good — it’s about a break from the drudgery of rush-hour commutes, forced pleasantries around the proverbial water cooler, and the oppressive constraints of modern capitalism.
A start might be limits placed upon how much work is dumped upon remote workers, or when and under what circumstances they are expected to be on call or toiling away.
Work is a central facet of life. It occupies our days, and can give our existences shape and meaning. As new technology allows work to multiply into new forms, spreading out over the day and week, and following us home and outside, the least we can do is put up some limits to how much we are expected to do.
We are about to create a new normal. When it comes to remote work, when the distinction between being off and on has become very blurry, we must redraw hard lines, and make sure our whole lives aren’t swallowed by a slippery idea that masquerades bondage as liberation.