Work From Home... but for Whom?

COVID 19, undoubtedly has changed the world's diaspora. For ages, many aspects have changed man's life. From his days of foraging and vagabond lifestyle during the Homo-Sapien growth phase to discovering fire or farming and more. But all changes on man's life (pardon me, today it may sounds sexist, but I am habituated to old English style, so I mean mankind or all the humans) have not only brought a new venom but also a nectar that though, has not made him immortal but has remained with him for as long as possible.

Glancing about those history is unwarranted on this post so I'll straight away jump to three major changes in man's life - 

  1. The industrial era
  2. The technology and service era
  3. The post COVID era
What I can express is known by many very well, but something exclusive I can share here is, what industrial era brought to man's life is the idea of a job. Robert Kiyosaki, in his book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, which I read somewhere in 1999, has vividly expressed the perils of pursuing a job and how before industrial era the concept of job was rare. Every individual from the days of barter system with currency as means of exchange was largely self-employed. There were no large scale companies or job providers but yes there were investors - the capitalists who drove the self-employment of yore...

Then came the industrial era which created two more categories in the world, businessmen and employees, typically Engineers and Workers, since industrial era created the "working class". The poor started doing "job" at the "businessmen's factories and offices"; the businessmen took money from the "investors and merchants" and the small businesses, actually managed by "self-employed" people were shifted to factories and offices. So a tailor, serving a small village of 50 villagers was out of work and the village to the city nearby was served by a garment factory spawning new businesses such as new types of traders, vendors, retailers & middlemen for that factory produce. The world's order changed drastically to satisfy the new era from erasing self-employment largely to people getting technical training to formal education. Doing a job was definitely the new promise and a promise that was really fulfilled. 

People changed their life with new definition of success and happiness. Education scenario changed from learning or imparting basics or sufficing the need of the hour to elite education and harboring top ranker graduates (read Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge etc.). Science, mathematics, economics, psychology, art etc., many things changed in the arena with construction of temples of knowledge to birthplaces of knowledge. Higher the education, higher was the remuneration. He who is from reputed institute got more paid by the employer. This has been the norm even today. I could elucidate a separate set of discussions on learning from a top institute to lowest ones and contribution of both the set of people to the nation or to themselves but will address it later sometime. 

Then came the technology era, where the same set of people who were hired to do jobs (working class), were being replaced by machines. So now a bank teller is replaced with an ATM or a tailor is replaced with large machines,  so were the horse carts with cars, so on and so forth. 

Today there is a new change coming within these sectors long before COVID. Just like industrial era was fueled by technology or rather all the eras, so is today's too. Apparently, tired of teaching humans, we want to teach machines now. Machines themselves have been replaced by machines only with a difference. The best example is the super machine in everybody's hands - The Modern Cell Phone (Android or iPhone) a.k.a. SMART PHONE, which I feel is in a mission to make the person holding it as DUMB. Nowadays, one can see more people becoming dumb at an alarming rate, though corroborating it to SMART PHONE might be an exaggeration, but anyways, point is the new device is a virus very much like the COVID, consuming many machines and of course the memories with them. With some deep reckoning, the reader might agree with my findings. Here are the list of machines or devices or things or aspects or essence that SMART PHONE  has long swallowed them and no one wrote the obituary or made them redundant:
  1. WRIST WATCH
  2. ALARM CLOCK
  3. A PHOTOGRAPH CAMERA
  4. THE CAMERA ROLLS
  5. A VIDEO CAMERA
  6. MAPS (IN GENERAL)
  7. NEWSPAPERS
  8. STOPWATCH
  9. LANDLINE PHONE ITSELF
  10. DIGITAL DIARY
  11. PHYSICAL DIARY
  12. AN ORGANIZER (USED TO BE MY FAVORITE POSSESSION, ONE TIME)
  13. TELEPHONE BOOTH
  14. BOOK (GROSSLY REDUNDANT FOR MANY)
  15. PC (LARGELY REDUNDANT FOR MANY)
  16. MOVIE HALL/CINEMA HALL (STILL EXISTS, BUT HAS LOST THE ESSENCE)
  17. MOVIE TICKET ☺☺☺☺😜😜😜
  18. VCR OR VCP
  19. MUSIC SYSTEM
  20. CD/DVD (WELL THEY HAD KILLED AUDIO CASSETTES, PART OF THEIR OWN CLAN)
  21. A PEN DRIVE (IT IS ON THE VERGE, I FEEL)
  22. AT TIMES EVEN THE MIRROR
  23. STAND ALONE APPS (PEOPLE WANT SOFTWARE DEVELOPER TO DEVELOP EITHER AN SMART PHONE APP - STANDALONE OR INTERNET BASED OR A WEB-BASED SYSTEM)
  24. EVEN GOING TO RESTAURANT - WORK AND ALSO EAT FROM HOME
  25. STANDING IN A QUEUE TO BOOK TICKETS OR PAYING BILLS (THE MOST GRACIOUS PART, FOR ME IS THIS)
  26. RAILWAY TIME TABLE
  27. TV (IT MIGHT BE ON THE VERGE)
  28. PHYSICALLY SOCIALIZING
  29. VOICE /AUDIO RECORDER
maybe more....

The main topic is the current era, which with an untested vaccine for its efficacy has been already christened as POST COVID ERA. What will happen, nobody can predict, even if he/she is an astrologer but what is happening is worth reckoning. 

WORK FROM HOME (WFH)
COVID has emphasized frugality or austerity by force to many but it has really changed the dynamics of jobs almost at 180 degrees. From being self employed to chasing a bus/train or driving your own vehicle to a place called "office" where you do things and get paid at the end of the month to losing job aside, working back at home but again for your home at your own home. 

WFH has ushered in a lifestyle unheard of. Not for a century at least. The Smart Phone has been the faithful dog in this doing most of the above enlisted works. WFH has made our own house, whose housing loan we were paying by doing a job at an office as an office of the same company we are still working. On commercial note, in addition to the salary to be paid, will the employers be willing to pay the rent of this virtual office? No one has thought about this, I think.

About 15 years ago, when my wife (back then she was my GF) working in a tourism company had once requested her boss to hire an additional staff for the work load she faced. Her office was in the toniest space of Mumbai where the per sq ft price was a whopping 20,000/- INR and her boss obviously blasted on her due to this request. His blatant reply was the chair you are sitting occupies a space that costs a princely sum which is more than your salary, so hiring a person is a cost to the company in terms of the office space he occupies, who will pay for that? Our offices are not our inheritances

It is from this thread, I wonder, whether in WFH, the companies will pay the rent of the office space occupied by us for them within our own home? Of course NO!
Has anyone thought about this? I do not know anyone other than me.
Does it make sense commercially? I mean is it lawful? Of course YES!
It is a Pandora's box that shouldn't be opened, especially when there are COVID induced job losses all around. 

Another aspect of WFH that is not considered for the employees is, the office politics. Are we, the employees, insulated by the politics or is it more clandestine now in the virtual space? Do we know how to deal with it? We could see who enters boss's or manager's cabin and can make a mild guess of the whiplashes that can chase us. In the virtual space, we wouldn't even know. We cannot have our own spies too on this. So the dangerous conniving people will use this more efficiently. It will be like stone age man meeting modern man with his guns.

Companies will save revenue for sure as of now, but there is an added cost of qualitative aspects. The attention an employee could give to meetings and briefings will be and it is being, largely disturbed or disrupted with home war zone when kids are around or perhaps grumpy in-laws or other family members. Often, we hear about, leopards intruding in human dwellings for stroll or food and the pro-animal activists obviously show us that, we have invaded their space and it is not their fault. I agree. What will we say now, when home dwellers are invaded by office suite? Oldies have their TV times, right in the middle class home of living room. Kids go all around in their own mode, typically noisy. My kid, who is almost 3, is more curious when his father is near the laptop delved deep into the screen whereas, I reprimand him for going close to laptop while watching his cartoons. My wife has to take him away downstairs just for my WFH. Is it fair to her and the kid? Will my employer pay for this emotional and family imbalance? Of course, NO!

Double income couples have the problems not just twice but multi-folded. A recent experience sharing of my friend was that he being a smoker, in office he had those breaks, he used to chat with his trusted lieutenants or even bosses, the politics was unraveled, the tea with smoke gave solutions to his problems at work etc. etc. but now with WFH, he not only cannot do this, but he can neither smoke at home or step-out to do that for 2 reasons, one his family would know and the other is his boss won't let him to. Overall, his smoking is reduced, of course, good for his health but his job might be at stake because of the original way of work being dismantled. I've no comments on this part, but yes, the dismantling is affecting for sure.

WFH also kills relationship management at a certain level. People might get short-tempered due to online scheduled meetings not able to attend due to additional works at home too, especially women in India, who are supposed to do household routine if they are at home. Minus the cost of travel and travel fatigue, for a WFH worker the costs are added. For some it's the constant habit of AC in office, which they have to replicate here, thus mounting electricity bills. For some, being at home has caused, more increase in weight. For some, the communication gap in chat or mail has added stress to their lives. For some, it has been a life to step-out after logout and that is just for groceries and so. For some, the topsy-turvy life of call centers and that too WFH has changed the dynamics of their relationships with their kin. 

Everything from a foul language to smoke breaks to keeping personal life and professional life separate has changed. All for what? For whom? An answer, that cannot be found out at home maybe.


Comments

Anita said…
How do this help house wives? I loved your blog
Anonymous said…
Very nicely assessed article on WFH culture
Varsha B said…
Hi Sundar

I really enjoyed this post. It is very ingenious and exuberant.
This WFH which is trending now due to Covid is actually best for people who are disciplined in their work, rather than those who need constant supervision. One more point I want to add that though Employers are seeing the short term benefits of WFH culture, they haven't comprehended the drawbacks yet due to unmonitored performance, risk to productivity, hampered team work, missing deadlines, risk of underworking that is not able to work to their fullest potential due to distractions at home..
SUNDAR said…
Thank you for all the kind words...
Piyu Y said…
Very thought provoking
Unknown said…
Hi,after long time I read your article,it is focussing on newly unwelcomed challenges ,thanks for words of conciousness

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