Why I Hate Work from Home!

I have been working in IT for almost an year now. I was interviewed at home, i was hired from home, and I started working with my team also from home. This is the first time in my life, where the job has become completely remote, digital and virtual.

Initially just like many of us, I also was excited for this work from home experience. We all were thrilled with the idea of not going to office, and hence avoiding the need to see boss angry face, or attend those boring meetings in person. At home, we could multi-task, work at flexible hours, even watch Netflix show while working, eat while working, no need to wear formal clothes anymore. As most of the team meetings are audio meetings, hence, there is no need to worry about dress code, and even as simple as T-shirt and shorts would suffice. Additionally, the benefit of saving the everyday hustle to go to office by either driving, company bus or trains. Even many saved money which used to get spent on petrol, eating outside with colleagues, and for those who had relocated from small towns to big cities like Bangalore, Pune, they were elated to save the rent expenses, which eventually ended us in bank savings or in stock market.

All these benefits and perks however came at an exorbitant cost. Very few thought that this work from home would end up becoming a liability for the employees. Because inspite of all the perks as mentioned before, employees are not happy anymore. Their assumption of flexible hours were soon replaced by long working, never ending hours. Their savings in petrol and rent, often ended up spending on ordering food from Zomato or Swiggy, as no one could find time to prepare food everyday. Those who got time, became so tired after long hours of work that they rather prefer ordering food online over cooking at home.

The virtual work environment lead to more alienation amongst the employees. Because there is no more human contact left in this work from home culture. Even though video calls are an option, but many don’t like it as it not only exhibits the privacy of their home environment to the company, but also requires the person to get ready with the formal dress code, and other personal formalities.

Then the work has become more banal, and demands long hours. This is because of lack of team motivation, distractions at home including family gossips, or the need to take care of kids while working. Even worse, is the lack of stable and robust infrastructure such as uninterrupted power supply, fast and reliable internet/broadband connection and Virtual Desktop (VDI). Infact, my personal experience with VDI client has been extremely frustating. This is because the VDI has never worked flawlessly for even a single day, and it needs to be reseted once a day, which demands calling to US based helpdesk, where a support rep having admin rights will reset the VDI for me to work. Due to these distractions, the work which can be completed in 8 hours, often gets extended 10-12 hours minimum on a daily basis.

Lack of networking and team collaboration is another side effect of the work from home culture. Before Covid, often people networked a lot besides doing work, took water cooler or coffee breaks, went for a walk in the corridor or office campus, shared their insights about work, goals and team objectives. But that no longer happens anymore. Infact, the HR in my company has started online water cooler break session for people to talk and relax, but very few attend those, because they feel to be like another meeting! Nowadays, people login to work, attend meetings, complete the daily tasks before deadline, update the team by EOD and this cycle repeats again the next day. I wonder what is the difference between a factory worker and a white collar employee these days? The digitisation and virtual work environment have made the white collar IT employees like the digital era blue collar workers.

Apart from all the above problems, I cannot conclude my post without writing about the terrible side-effects on employees physical and mental well-being. Not only has our clothes become tight fitted around waist, but it has also affected our stress levels as well. From my personal experience, the work from home rigorously demands sitting on a chair in front of laptop for long hours, because back to back meetings are often scheduled. Many people prefer to eat while working, which often leads to over-eating. Also, the consumption of junk food like pizza have increased because of the lack of time to prepare home food. Many employees drink less water, especially those who work in Air conditioned at home. The physical activity has reduced and this has resulted in weight gain. No wonder that the marketing of weight loss apps have skyrocketed in last few months.

Even the employees mental well being is disastrously affected. The stress levels have risen, the need for focused work have reduced due to incessant teams chats, emails and calls. Infact, the virtual work environment demands the need to be consistently online, and this has led to lack of personal time and space for many employees. They complain how much less time they get to spend with their loved ones, even though they are working from home. For the projects involving the need to support onsite clients, the employees often are expected to work till late night, and this has affected their sleep cycle, and disrupted their biological clock as well. Thats why the cases of people suffering from anxiety, increased stress levels, insomnia, and body pain have escalated in the last one year.

Thus, the perils and liabilities of work from home are more than its benefits and perks. After all, whats the use of saving few more bucks if one’s health is adversely affected. What is the point of working from home for long hours, when the same work could have been done in less hours in office, due to team work and networking. Are the employees learning by their remote work? Are they motivated during the start of their day? Has their productivity risen really as claimed by the companies, or do the employees spend long hours by working really hard to meet the deadlines, inspite of all the distractions and unreliable infrastructure?

I am sure many employees,especially in IT will agree that the liabilities of work from home are far more, and the initial bullish excitement of this work from home has taken a bearish mode for the last few months. If this continues, the graph of personal health, motivation and work satisfaction will continue to plummet and eventually collapse some day. Instead of mandatory work from home, let people decide how they want to work, either fully from office or home, or in a flexible way, with 3 days from office, and 2 days from home. A balanced, hybrid way of working will be far better for both the employees and companies in the long run.