Working from Home: Tell Us All About It

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Hi! We're journalists (Anne Helen Petersen and Charlie Warzel) currently working on a big, sprawling book on working from home — all the ways it could screw us, but also all the promising ways it could change the nature of work in the years to come. We're looking for people to tell us about their experiences with working from home, both *before* the pandemic and *during* the pandemic. We're asking for your email address, but only so we can get in touch if we have any follow-up questions — and if we use your response in the book, we'll send you a free copy.

If you have any questions about the project, feel free to get in touch: annehelenpetersen@gmail.com / charliewarzel@gmail.com

Email *

What is your full name? We're just going to use first names, but we want to know you're a real person. *

If you'd like to use a pseudonym to protect your privacy / speak freely, please provide one.

Where do you live? You can be specific or slightly vague (e.g. "Dallas suburbs")

Describe your family / co-living situation. Feel free to add any other information about yourself that you think is important to understanding who you are and how you relate to the world.

How would you describe your current economic class? Be a specific as you'd like here. "Supposedly middle class but in a ton of debt," "paying a third of my income on housing and no savings but make $5k a month," "two robust salaries and comfortable only because we don't have kids," "recently bought a second home," "struggling from loss of partner's income," etc. etc.

Describe the work that your company does — and the work that you, personally, do within it. (You can be somewhat vague here if you need to be)

How would you describe your relationship to your work? How much of your identity and self-worth is rooted in it? Now what's your *aspirational* relationship to work?

Companies usually have a stated "culture" (what they say they value as a workplace) and an actual culture (what they expect and demand). How does it work at your company? (If you work for yourself, this still applies!)

If your manager or boss tells you to take time off, is it *actually* okay to take that time off?

Yes

Other:

Clear selection

Describe your pre-pandemic work schedule — when did you get to work, how long were you at work, how much work did you do on the weekends? Did you come home and work more from there? Be as specific as you'd like.

How would you describe your office's email/messaging expectations?

Unstated expectation that you respond to everything as quickly as possible

Varies from person to person, but definitely spend time outside of "official" work hours

Everyone is pretty chill and gets to things when they can, which periodically means responding outside of official hours

I never look at work email or messages outside of official work hours

Other:

Clear selection

Now describe your pandemic work schedule. Are you working more or less than you were before? How do you feel about it generally?

What has your company done well to facilitate working from home, either pre- or during the pandemic?

What has your company screwed up or made more difficult about working from home? Could be policy, could be unstated expectations, could be management, could be software choice, whatever.

Now imagine working from home *not during a pandemic.* Imagine, if you had kids, that they were at school, or in care. Imagine you could go to a coffee shop if you wanted, or a co-working space. Imagine you could live anywhere you wanted, or, depending on your scenario, see your coworkers once a week, once a month, twice a year. What would your ideal scenario look like? How many hours would it actually take to do your job — and when would you schedule them?

In the dream scenario you described above, what would your company actually need to do — or change — to make it work long term for yourself and others?

Are there any benefits OR drawbacks to this ideal scenario that people, depending on their own background and attitudes and identity, might not intuitively understand? (Shifts in "professionalism" that benefit people who aren't white men; increased opportunities for people who are disabled; more cliques; fewer cliques; more conducive for introverts; less conducive for extroverts; less money spent on "work" clothes; no escape from the demands of the home; feel free to go wherever you'd like with this)

Are you happy with the amount of time you're able to dedicate to involvement in your community? *

Yes

Other:

Do you feel like you know/have a good relationship with people in your neighborhood?

Yes

Other:

Clear selection

If you had more time in your life just generally — and weren't using it to recover from work exhaustion — what would you do with it?

If you live with a partner, do you feel that there's an equitable split of all the unpaid work that needs to get done around the house? (That includes parenting or other forms of care giving)

Yes

Other:

Clear selection

If you had more flexible time in your life, how could it potentially shift uneven distribution of labor in your home?

If you have any additional hopes or fears about a hybrid work from home scenario for much of society — feel free to lay them out there.

Send me a copy of my responses.

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