David Penberthy: The toxic impact of so many people working from home is becoming clearer by the way

At first it seemed great. But after eight months of “work from home” being the new normal, David Penberthy is seriously concerned at its impacts on society.

The concept of work-life balance is not a new one. Karl Marx was rabbiting on about it in his pamphlets in the 19th century. The father of communism envisaged a worker’s paradise framed around full employment, where work was shared, meaning the proletariat would no longer be enslaved but free to work in the morning and then read, walk and relax in the afternoon.

It wasn’t Karl’s worst idea. And with 2020 having been a forced experiment in working from home, the world he describes has come about by accident.

On balance, I am not sure if it has been a roaring economic and social success.

Back in April when the state apparatus took it upon itself to shut down businesses at will and impose new rules on every aspect of our lives – even including how many members of our own family we could have around for dinner – I received a droll meme from a mate that featured a picture of Joseph Stalin and was headed “Are you enjoying your free three-month trial of communism?”

One of the key rules we all had to abide by was to not go into the office. Even with the pandemic having subsided here, many Australians are still yet to return.

The figures in Victoria, the worst-hit and worst-managed state, remain extraordinary and the economic impact is terrifying. Melbourne City Council has commissioned research showing that while Melbourne normally has a daytime population of one million, there are now fewer than 400,000 people in the CBD on any given day.

Friends of mine who work in Melbourne’s Southbank say the normally bustling part of the Yarra, with its cafes and restaurants, has been a wasteland where, until recently, you could fire a cannon down the boardwalk without hitting anyone.

Projections from the research for the coming five years are bleak, with the economic fallout from COVID-19 expected to claim 400,000 city jobs and rip a staggering $110bn out of the economy.

There is clearly a huge economic argument for getting people back to work in a physical workplace. The presence of people in cities is the linchpin by which so many allied service and hospitality businesses survive. It keeps taxis and Ubers moving.

Beyond that, other businesses are getting belted by the fact so few people are back at work. Being lazy, I am not much of an ironer and I went to my local drycleaner lady last week to retrieve my monthly supply of pressed collared shirts.

Weirdly, she was closed, even though it was just gone 3pm. I noticed a sign saying New hours: 8am-3pm Monday to Friday. When I went back the following morning and asked her why she had changed her hours, she basically said 2020 could go and you know what itself.

“Everyone dresses like slobs now,” she said. “No one needs to get dressed up for work. All the weddings and funerals are smaller. I can’t even get out of here to see my family in Vietnam this Christmas. I’m sick of it!”

Aesthetics aside … actually, maybe not aside just yet. Let’s quickly address the question of aesthetics. I am not much of a fashion plate but even by my slovenly standards 2020 has been nothing short of a disgrace, with the ugg boot becoming acceptable fashion wear as you sneak out to do some supermarket shopping while ostensibly working from home.

And there’s nothing like getting on a Zoom meeting to see one of your colleagues wearing a tracksuit and a pair of Crocs.

How productive are you really being when working from home?

As the year draws to a very welcome end, I wonder how much work has actually been done by that vast army of homebound employees who historically would have spent 38-odd hours a week in a city office.

My hunch is that when the pandemic began and there was so much job insecurity people really hit their straps but, as things have gone on, it’s become easier to skive off.

The nature of working remotely has two key features that mitigate against productivity. The first is the truly appalling nature of Zoom and Teams calls, where normal dialogue is rendered impossible by the absence of visual clues and triggers, and where so much concentration is required to keep up with what’s happening that you feel like lying down for half an hour afterwards.

Second, the absence of collaborative, face-to-face human interaction means there is less space to test and challenge ideas in a group setting.

If the quality of work life has suffered, it is possible home life has deteriorated, too.

Getting home from work is one of the best feelings in life, especially on a Friday; now, many of us are there all the time. It’s hard to tell where the working day begins and ends, meaning that what was once free time now brings the temptation to do a half an hour here or there on whatever project you are working on (and maybe should have been working on when you went to the supermarket in your uggies.)

Then there’s the kids, God bless them. There was a moment in our house on Wednesday night that encapsulated the joys of working remotely in 2020. I was busy on deadline writing and unable to keep watch on our toddlers who were in the bath. My wife was flat out, too, and needed to respond to an urgent email so moved a patio chair into the shower cubicle and sat there typing on her laptop.

One of the many distant memories of 2019 is of a world where work was work and home was home. The longer it continues, the mingling of the two is doing huge damage to the economy, possibly our psyche, and definitely our appearance.