Remote Work

05-04-23 00 / episode: 79

Script

Remote work.

What's that? Is that where you work way up north in the Arctic on a drilling rig, drilling for oil.

Well, that could be a possible definition.

But these days remote work means not going into the office to do your work.

It means staying at home or optionally going to a place of your choosing and doing your work there.

Remote work sort of started to take off when the Coronavirus epidemic or pandemic hit and lots of people didn't want to go to the companies and meet lots of other people where they might get sick.

So it would help stop the disease.

They were working from home and this created problems at the beginning.

But as people got used to it, they realized they liked it.

They didn't have to go to work.

That meant they could save that commute time and use it in private or personal ways if they want.

Now, it didn't always work out that way.

Some people just worked longer hours.

They took the commute time and ended up using it for working.

That's a problem.

Other people found that they could work at home, but they didn't like working in isolation.

They wanted to meet other people, face to face, talk to them and exchange ideas.

And then there was sort of screen time and too much, too much time on Zoom meetings.

Now, I didn't do any remote work during that period.

So I don't have firsthand experience, but I was told that some people got sick and tired of using Zoom to always meet other people.

And Zoom is limiting when you meet people through uh some kind of internet video meeting service.

There's a limit to how much you can understand.

It's better.

If you can see the whole person in person.

Communication is more complete.

Then at any rate, still people like remote work.

And I have some students who are either they themselves do remote work or people in their family do and they really enjoy it.

Remote work has some good benefits, but it also has significant drawbacks depending on who you are and what your situation is.