Get up in the morning at 6 AM. Eat a quick breakfast, put on “nice” clothes, leave by 7 AM. Hope to get to work by 8 AM. Sit in a box next to a bunch of people one hates for eight hours. Have lunch at 12 PM. Forgot lunch? Go buy it for high prices from some restaurant. Pretend to enjoy what one is doing. Leave at 4 PM. Get stuck in traffic. Be home by 5:30 PM. Eat a quickly made supper. Vegetate in front of television or Internet. Go to bed. Repeat five days a week for the next forty years. All for a salary that one cannot live on.
Sounds like a great way to live? Healthy? Cultured? Most people don’t think so. It’s a surprise more people have not lost their minds, but this is the average American life. However, this may be changing, as the COVID-19 pandemic has forced people to work from home, and Zippia.com by way of Zero Hedge has published a report saying that half of Americans would prefer to permanently work from home.
For many companies and workers that have never worked remotely this is all completely new. Companies hastily threw together guidelines and crossed their fingers in hopes that nothing would break. Workers wondered if it would all work.
We surveyed over 500 Americans to see how this unprecedented event is impacting the American worker. The survey found out how the coronavirus has affected Americans’ work lives– and if this event will fundamentally change how we work in the future.
Zippia found more than half of American workers prefer working from home and want to continue working from home when all this is over.
Below are some more highlights from Zippia’s survey:
Half of millenials want to work from home permanently
While most people feel more productive, older people feel significantly more productive working from home than younger workers
51% would rather work-from-home full-time than go into the office
More than half of Americans don’t believe their work will make remote work permanent
17% of Americans DO believe their work will let them work remotely following the crisis (source)
Who can blame them? Working in the modern conception of an American office is not only unnatural, but it inclines to sickness, bad behavior, and general dissatisfaction with life overall, especially as one cannot afford anything any more.
Man was not meant to be stuck in a shed for life. He was meant to grow like a plant, but that is not what is happening with him.
Much of what constitutes modern corporate life is just another form of legalized abuse. It is wrong and destructive.
This is not to say that hard work should be despised. Americans are some of the most overworked people on the planet, and this has been noted for a long time. Productivity has increased, but salaries have declined, and so has general health.
Maybe it is time to re-evaluate the nature of work in the US, and consider that people are more effective when they have more control over their environments as opposed to being forced to work in a far-away place from their homes. What is the point of getting dressed up “neat” for a bunch of people who one does not care about? Likewise, what is more comfortable than sitting in one’s slippers and working in one’s own room, with food as far as the fridge, and a bathroom as clean as one wants it to be (without other people going to it)?
There is a lot of talk from the corporate world about making workers ‘happy’ with a ‘work-life balance’. Such talk is insulting because corporations do not give a single care about the health or wellness of their employees save to make themselves look good or try to save money in the form of reduced premiums or tax credits. They would work employees to death if they could and force their families to pay the bills for their deaths if it was “legal.”
There has always been a struggle throughout history between the employee and employer. Much of human relations can be written in terms of this struggle. The balance tends to shift back and forth, but given the latest technology and wealth concentrations, it is arguably in the firm hand of the latter and to the serious detriment of the former. This is also part of the drive for AI, which is to get rid of the former in the name of pursuing “pure” profit, yet without people, there is no profit, so ironically it is a race towards self destruction.
What is needed is a natural and healthy balance.
Employers need to earn money and be productive, but employees also need to earn a livable wage and be able to have a sense of purpose and satisfaction to their work.
Working from home, for many, is a small but understandable and good step in a positive direction.