Breaking Up with Clocking In
Image via Adobestock.
By Ashley Simpo
All five days of my work week used to be frantic from beginning to end. The morning dance included fixing my hair, locating my kid’s school uniform, doing my makeup, and making their lunch, all while keeping one eye solidly on the clock, which moved at lightning speed. When I dropped my son at school, I was often too hurried to stop and say hello to the staff that lingered in the hallway. A chaotic New York City commute followed. Then, there was the stress of the office.
My morning routine looks different now. I make tea and sip it while I flip pancakes. I’m able to focus my attention on giving my family what they need, without the distraction of putting on my corporate face. Every morning, I feel immense gratitude for the ease I’ve been afforded.
When listing out the accidental benefits of a global pandemic, the rise of the remote office is a favorite among parents and caregivers for obvious reasons. Remote work often makes for a less stressful work-life balance.
In a plainspoken op-ed titled “No One Wants to Go Back to Work As Much As White Men,” Reshma Saujani wrote, “For most of us, and especially working moms, remote work has brought a level of flexibility and self-determination to our lives that we can’t afford to give up,” There’s data to backup Saujani’s assertion about who’s fired up to be back in the office; white men lead the pack. According to research published in FiveThirtyEight, "The group most enthusiastic to return to in-person work is white men — 30 percent want the office to be the only place where they work. Roughly half as many Black men — almost 16 percent — feel the same. White and Black women are in the middle, around 22 percent each."
In every work environment that I have been a part of, I have been indirectly asked to leave my gender, physical needs, mental-health needs, child’s needs, and Blackness at the door. There were the post-6pm office mixers that I could never go to; the times I had to stow my emotions away and show up to work the morning after police killed someone who looked like a relative; when I used up sick time to recover from menstrual cramps; and the many times I passed on family events to attend meetings that could have been emails. And though, when the world shut down due to the pandemic I felt panic and fear, there was also an immediate sense of relief. It felt like a reprieve from life, one that my tired bones prayed for every morning on the train, and every night when tucking my kid into bed after only a brief few hours of quality time with them.
Since leaving my last in-person job, which I was furloughed from during the shutdown, something shifted in me. I suddenly felt less invested in anything that wasn’t utterly necessary to my wellness. Office politics became meaningless in the face of a crumbling sense of safety and normality. The instinct to compromise my needs, “take one for the team,” and run myself into the ground for a paycheck felt newly onerous. As things came undone in the world, I began to imagine what I wanted my life to look like, instead of continuing to carve a life out of a template I had been forced to use.
When it was time to find work again, the only option available was remote. I found a job with a company that didn’t even have a brick-and-mortar office. Team interactions were intentional and collaborative, and there were no forced interactions or required start times; everyone’s work was mostly self-managed.
For the first time, I felt like my day belonged to me. I could pull away from work to pick my kid up on early days or for doctor visits — which usually would have thrown a wrench in my day and induced eyerolls from my superiors. I could focus my mornings on making sure my son was ready for school and feeling positive and supported, instead of rushed. I didn’t have to endure a stressful commute or the social anxiety I was previously forced into ten hours a day. I could be more effective and present in my work and show up as a whole person, instead of a work-friendly version whose mind was perpetually elsewhere.
Since then, I’ll admit, I’ve become quite stubborn about work. I have turned down jobs that demand my daily physical presence, because I’ve decided that as long as I am able to, I will prioritize my sanity and the health of my home above everything else.