“The Psychological Benefits of Commuting to Work: Many people who have been working from home are experiencing a void they can’t quite name.”

My jaw is literally on the floor with this piece of propaganda dribble.

The Psychological Benefits of Commuting to Work by “Jerry Useem” at The Atlantic.

First of all, this writer doesn’t even go in to an office for some time now, and admits as much. All the research he cites is pre-pandemic. It’s just atrocious that when media articles or news stories comment on what “workers feel”, it’s a CEO or management to comment. Or a researcher, which cool, we need you, but you work in a very specific environment, i.e. one of constant observation. It’s quite different than other office settings.

I just…no office or company in America has the proverbial 40 full hours’ worth of work to do every single week, 52 weeks per year, all eight hours per day for every one of its employees. Why o why does everyone have to be in the office???? It’s obviously about control instead of productivity.

Anyhow, if I’m spending my commute time thinking about and preparing for work, shouldn’t that be counted as time worked and I then be paid or that affects the number of hours I “have” to spend in the office? Like, can we go halfsies on commute time as “time worked”??? No? K.

But here’s the strange part. Many people liberated from the commute have experienced a void they can’t quite name. In it, all theaters of life collapse into one. There are no beginnings or endings. The hero’s journey never happens. The threshold goes uncrossed. The sack of Troy blurs with Telemachus’s math homework. And employers—even the ones that have provided the tools for remote work—see cause for alarm. “No commute may be hurting, not helping, remote worker productivity,” a Microsoft report warned last fall. After-hours chats were up 69 percent among users of the company’s messaging platform, and workers were less engaged and more exhausted.

“Many people” who???? No one has said this!! No research survey, no god-awful Twitter screen grabs.

We’re seriously comparing corporate office work to military service? Word? Get over yourself, not the same, not in the slightest, you sad, entitled weenies. People were less engaged last fall b/c America was going through a super tough election year, not to mention an inept federal government that completely abandoned its populace in the face of a containable pandemic. Nevermind the intersection of child-care and other care-giving, people were reasonably burnt out, and seeking connection, however pathetic, during a measurably stressful time in our lives. “Unprecedented”, as was oft said.

Technology can help. In a 2017 experiment, a team at Microsoft installed a program called SwitchBot on commuters’ phones. Before the start and end of each workday, the bot would pose simple questions. A morning session helped the participants transition into productive work mode, while prompts to detach at day’s end—“How did you feel about work today? Is there anything else you would like to share?”—brought forth something unexpected. “People apparently would just spill out their day,” Shamsi Iqbal, a researcher who helped design the study, told me. In reliving their day, they “relieved themselves” of it (and sent fewer after-hours emails as a result).

Why was this a good thing? Because the ability to detach from a job, Iqbal explained, is part of what makes a good worker. New research shows that it’s crucial to facilitating mental rejuvenation. Without it, burnout rises, effort increases, and productivity ultimately drops.

Sounds like they liked having someone to talk to, not raving about the commute and being stuck in traffic. It’s called “journaling” and is a millennia old practice. Am I reading these sentences for real? What in the what….

If you send work emails “after hours” you’re a bootlickin’ loser. The heaviest of eye rolls. What that really shows is: you aren’t disciplined enough to get your work done during the work day. There are 8 or so extremely useful hours in the work day. If you have another thought later in the evening, get the OneNote app or open your Notes app, literally take a note on a napkin, and follow up tomorrow.

It’s such a shame that corporate America is pretending like the pandemic didn’t happen (isn’t still happening….). As I continue my projects and my casual job search (I know how privileged and blessed I am to be in the position I am in), I’m sadly not too optimistic about options to work from home/remotely permanently. Even a so-called hybrid model or half days…the whole point is not going in, not commuting, not donating hours of my time in a car. I just want to work from home! In-office interactions with colleagues are overrated and it’s clear the extroverted are valued more than others are.

Nonetheless, I will remain hopeful, but this piece of propagandistic dribble is so disappointing. Do better, The Atlantic.