Ok, first question: who here has been guilty of grabbing some snacks and sitting in front of the TV during the last 16 months when they were technically meant to be ‘in work’?
Come on, admit it, yes there has been a worldwide global health pandemic happening, but also Normal People, Gangs of London, Bridgerton, Sex Life, the Olympics, all had many people gripped and needed to be seen! Why wait until after you’ve clocked off? That’s so ‘pre-Covid’.
Another thing that is so pre-Covid is exercising outside of work time. If home working and not taking part in the morning commute has made us realise many things, none have been more embraced than the daily need to get out and exercise, right?
Therefore, second question. How many people have embraced the guidelines to exercise once a day for say an hour and now find that happening during time when you are technically meant to be ‘in work’?
So, we have the stolen time watching a bit of Netflix, which I think we need to acknowledge is not just a quick 20 minutes episode of Friends. How can we say that? Easy, the BBC recently reported we are now watching an average of nearly 6 hours TV per day.
Then we have the exercise hour (7 hours).
Then we have the fact we are spending on average over 2 hours per day on social media according to recent studies (9 hours).
Then we have a study from America that said 42% of people were going on dates during time they were technically meant to be ‘at work’. Let’s call that another 2 hours (9 hours).
All of this before you even consider the stories, we have all heard over the past 16 months of people sleeping on the job, drinking on the job, interviewing for other roles on the job, having sex on the job?! Come on, we’ve all heard it, another 2 hours 4 minutes to be added on (11 hours 4 minutes).
So, if you add all those hours up, bearing in mind this does not include washing, dressing, eating, children, parenting or any other time. AND you get on average 7 hours sleep per night, it really does beg one final question (18 hours by the way at this point.)
When are we actually fitting in the 8 hours work, we are paid to do by the companies we work for?
I’m sure many will read this and think it’s an exaggeration, it’s the extreme, it’s not real. Only you know what you are really doing during any given work day, certainly if it’s a work from home day, or you are fully remote.
So, what are you actually doing during the time you are technically meant to be ‘at work’?
This article was written by Chloe Brown, Marketing Intern for Digital 51, who works from home at least twice a week and ensures everyone she is ‘hard at it’ during that time. We’ll just leave it there for today, I think!
