Work from Home and Long Working Hours
Has anybody wondered why our working hours increased in lockdown and why it is still the same…?
When the first lockdown was imposed we all were very happy as we didn’t have to go to our offices on daily basis and can do our work in a relaxed environment from our homes. Most people took advantage of every extra second they got either by doing something they wanted to or by sleeping a little longer in the morning.
Things started to change after the 1–2 weeks when many services were physically inaccessible and had to be migrated to a platform where people can reach them from the ease of their homes i.e the internet. Many developers like me were facing a situation where these services were in the development plan but not for at least 5 years and had to be implemented and in the least possible timeframes and thus came in the long working hours. There were moments when I slept alongside my laptop as I had to join an early meeting the next morning. It was all chaos with low or zero space for personal life.
Some people who were not in IT were asked by their managers/bosses to do the tasks giving no regard to their time/personal life simply because they were already at their home and couldn’t go out. So, they created problems with their untimely demands just in the name of pandemics and crises when all those could have easily been taken care of the next day. Some friends of mine who were either getting married or were on maternity leave were asked to work for at least 2–3 hours a day.
Things got a little bit settled after a year and most of these services were stable and had a great response from the people, but many people were still working till late at night.
I was reading the book “Atomic Habits”, which explained the impact of the environment on our habits. I realised that I had created the environment of working from any place in our home be it the living room or dining table or the bedroom. It was I who was working from all those places most of the time. I had no sense of clarity about when it was time to do office work and when to take care of my stuff, it was all blurred.
Now, the offices are opening back up and I have an opportunity to get things into order. I am working as I was before the lockdown from 10–5/6 most of the days and have spare time to pursue new things from a fresh viewpoint. I am hoping for offices to open up like before and put a stop to these long working hours.
I hope this gives you a better understanding of the long working hours even after this long time of the first-ever lockdown.