Remote workers often brag about how productive they are at home, but a new survey sheds light on what they're really doing all day.
My favorite quote:
While employees in the office might kill time messaging friends or flipping through TikTok, remote workers take advantage of being far from the watchful gaze of bosses to chip away at personal to-do lists or to goof off.
Nearly half of remote workers multitask on work calls or complete household chores like unloading the dishwasher or doing a load of laundry, according to the SurveyMonkey poll of 3,117 full-time workers in the U.S.
Oh noes, people actually doing things that are useful for their families instead of even more computer time.
It's insane that this is even considered strange or surprising. When I work from home, I take longer lunch breaks and I often stop working earlier, but I'm still three times as productive compared to sitting in an office.
At home, I actually get focused time to do something and think. At the office, this is extreamly difficult with all the distractions and noise constantly interrupting my train of thought.
If anything, one should absolutely take care of mundane tasks with downtime between productive tasks. If their workflow allows for short breaks, it doesn't make a difference to the employer if nothing is done or an unrelated task is done.
They pay people to complete tasks for their corporation. They don't own the worker's bodies or minds due to the virtue of providing a paycheck.
This concept of whole ownership of people really is baked into US social consciousness.
I can even imagine that some household chores can be done while "actively" working, like when you're in a call and just listening to the other parties.