Kevin Roose from the New York Times thinks working at home is overrated. He tells us this while working in sweatpants and eating his emergency rations.
Many people during this time of the coronavirus are being sent home, students included. Even those of us here at FSU are being shut down for a while after Spring Break. This has caused problems for lots of people. Travel is restricted, everyone is worried about their health, the economy is tumbling. We are heading toward a future with no offices, no classrooms. And that is not a good thing.
Many places will have to adapt very quickly to a new environment. Classes that were not offered online now need to be. Work that previously put off hiring remote workers is now scrambling to set up remote access.
I can dig sitting at home. Shorts, sweatshirt, home-cooked ramen (I’m a college student), not spending any money on gas, no guy next to me tapping his pencil the whole lecture, work at my own pace. Sounds great. Or is it?
We need social interaction. Daily. We need a creative outlet, and that is other people. Barring the world going 28 Days Later on us, we need to interact with each other.
While we may be more productive at home without distractions, we miss out on creativity. We don’t want to be lonely. According to the article, Silicon Valley is even demanding that workers showing up.
Steve Jobs said that people work best when they can bump into each other randomly. You hear about other people’s ideas and it spurs you to do the same.
We thought we were going to love working from home, but further understanding of the nature of us, as humans, points to not working at home if needed. We get bored at home, we need to see other people. We want to create, we want the hustle and bustle.
While the school is going to close and some of you may cheer it, just wait till spring break ends and after those first few extra days off, you’ll be wishing they open school up soon.
LIS 4022 Spring 2020 