We were all living our lives normally, often complaining about the issues at our work and at our home, completely unaware of the disaster that was going to hit us in a matter of time. In 2020, covid came and it changed our lives forever. In addition to all the negative impact it made on us, it also accelerated the shift towards online work at least by a hundred times. Everyone was compelled to work from home.
At first, I was hopeful about this shift, thinking about all the good things it would lead to. I thought people would get time to spend with their families, to pursue their hobbies, with all the time they would save from not going to their workplaces.
But I was proven wrong in few days. I was not seeing my brother for the whole day, even at the lunch and dinner table. It seemed like he was not living in the same house. When he was away from home, at least we could talk to him on calls after his work. Nowadays we hardly see him outside his room.
I was not talking to my friends as often as I used to. On some lucky Sunday, they would call and tell me how working from home has changed their lives, how they are not getting enough time to even sleep properly.
Then I looked at my surroundings and I saw people working day and night to keep their jobs without thinking how much it costs them. And my heart goes out to them.
I want to say this to the people in such authorities that we know it’s the need of the hour to work from home, but please stop exploiting people just because you can. Stop making them work a hundred times more than they are paid for. Stop harassing them to get a quiet room to work, a lot of us live in small houses where it’s not possible to have a separate room for everyone.
Understand that they are not living at some hotel. They owe some of their time to their parents, who are waiting to have at least one meal in a day with their child, to their life partner and kids who yearn for their attention, to themselves and their health, which is deteriorating both physically and mentally.
In these times of adversity, instead of taking advantage of someone in need, we should be helping each other. Be compassionate and thoughtful of people who work for you because you don’t know what problems they are facing, what battles they are fighting in their personal lives.