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Working from home during coronavirus crisis: Boon or bane?

Hindustan Times | ByAbhishek Shankar
Apr 02, 2020 08:47 PM IST

The fear of coronavirus has changed work life for people across the world. But while some love the freedom of working from home, others are faced with a new set of challenges.

An unruly bed, chips scattered on the floor, an overflowing laundry bag, a stocked up medicine cabinet, coronavirus news running 24/7 on the TV, and an employee glued to his laptop screen. Sounds familiar? The scenario is more or less the same for everyone who’s working from home, ever since the lockdown amid the virus outbreak. And like any change, this new setting, too, has elicited varied reactions from people.

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Sanjay Batra, CEO of a tile company in Haryana, feels the work-from-home proposition will not only help curb the pandemic, but will also benefit people financially. “Travelling to work includes travel expenses, which can be saved by working from home. Food can be cooked at leisure and they can do away with the need for formal attire.”

But while leisure is the first thing that pops into mind when work-from-home is talked about, for some, home turns into just another action film set with an extra dose of inflammables: read ‘kids’. “Earlier, we had caretakers for our kids. With the coronavirus alert, everyone has cocooned themselves at home. So, not only do I have to attend to complaints from office but to those of my kids as well. And with schools shut, the stress is at an another level. It’s like I am sandwiched between two workloads,” says Hema, a software engineer from Delhi.

In fact, for working parents like Hema, work-from-home is a stress they never asked for. “Children don’t understand the concept of work-from-home. When they see that their parents are home and that, too, for a considerable time, sitting still is just impossible for them. It sure gets hectic, taking care of all things, but I guess during this self-isolation period, we might end up having a lot of family time,” Rashika Kathpalia, an academic writer.

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While work-from-home might seem a laid-back affair, what also often comes attached is the strict monitoring by employers. Aman, who works in the IT department of a media company, shares how every employee’s personal laptop was installed with a monitoring app which keeps tabs on the number of hours they work. Worse, it even detects if a particular employee is away from his/her system for more than five minutes. For many, it is a small price to pay. “I was so scared of getting infected by the virus that going to office everyday was complete hell. With work-from-home schedules, I can sit at home and be completely tension-free about what’s happening outside,” says .

And for people like Biju, for whom office is a habit, it’s difficult to think of sitting at home even for a minute. Having worked for over 40 years, the routine of waking up at a fixed time, commuting to office, having the first sip of coffee with a newspaper in hand while debating political issues with colleagues is an essential one. “I can’t stay at home. My company has asked all of us to work from home and it’s complete torture for me. I have taken a 15-day holiday. Better to enjoy the holiday than face the torture of office even while home,” shares Biju, who is just a year away from retirement.

But not everyone is a workaholic. There are many who plan to “chill” come what may. “If one wants, they can do away with the work-from-home stress. I watch movies and work simultaneously. No one has to know,” says Raunak, who is looking forward to an OTT binge.

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