White Collar Work Ethic
What is it about White Collar workers who telecommute leading angst ridden days?
I’ve been tasting some of the bitterness involved in working from home this month.
Maybe it was my 10 day bout with a cold/flu/infection that sapped my energy, but not enough to officially ‘take a sick day’. Maybe it was the threat of Jury Duty, which threw my schedule for a loop for two weeks while I played a waiting game to see if I would spend 5-6 weeks on a murder trial jury.
Whatever the reason, I’ve had first hand experience of the downside of 21st Century White Collar work which can lead to angst, anomie, feelings of worthlessness. For me it all comes down to schedules. I find if I can get an early start, take a short lunch break and finish by 5pm I have accomplished quite a lot and still have an evening free for social and family time. This is typically what happens when I commute to the offices of the saucy company I work for (English joke). But when I work from home, as I’ve done for the last two days, I find that even though I’m sitting at my home office desk by 9am, I don’t really get anything done until after lunch, and I’m still working away at 7:30 or 8:00pm.
There is, of course, a boat-load of cultural conditioning affecting all of this. From Weber’s Protestant Ethic to the challenges of the modern Organization Man not to mention twenty years of schooling, none of us have really been prepared for the freedom afforded by telecommuting.
I wonder if anything in European, Asian or Latin America culture better prepares people to telecommute? It’s un-American not to jump into your SUV and clog a freeway or two to sit in a cubicle and access data you could just as easily access from home. Many countries don’t have the infrastructure – either the bandwidth or the homes with room for a den or office. Without the broadband there can be no slippers at noon nor rough stubble afternoons.
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