The woman standing next to me on the platform finished checking her email, and I smiled knowingly. It was my afternoon off, all my clients knew it, but I still felt compelled to acknowledge a couple of messages myself.
She was headed to the dentist, running late because she had tried to get that “one more thing” done before she took off. And she was still trying.
Does workshifting tether us to the job more?
Don’t get me wrong – I love the freedom that technology brings. And Wi-Fi is awesomeness. But it used to be that when you left the office, you were gone. People didn’t expect to hear from you until the next day. Now people are taking calls and emailing documents from the beach (which is fine when you’re working at the beach). But the downside of this results-only workplace stuff is that we’re swapping our downtime for “work where you want, when you want, but be reachable.”
Maybe it’s not workshifting, but perhaps we ought to be a little bit more careful about what we wish for. Or maybe it’s just about reestablishing boundaries for ourselves.
What say you?
Photo credit: Pulpolux !!!
