Work-at-home habits of the lazy and soon-to-be unemployed: Pt. 2

More coping mechanisms until La Revolution:
- Hide: Shut off the video camera. There’s no way they’ll know if you’re listening or napping. Avoid engaging in conversations or sharing any ideas.
- Eat during important calls. Don’t worry, it won’t distract anyone.
- Instill a “micro-meeting” culture by taking breaks between online meetings. (5-minute meeting, 55-minute break to reset for the next meeting.)
- Reduce meeting attendees to one person: you. Meetings held under the tree in a lawn chair, looking at the clouds.
- Go from video conferences to old fashioned phone calls to no calls. Ignore your phone for a few hours.

But if you wish to prevent the revolution:
- Promote the “mostly off” work culture as an antidote to the “always on” spirit subtly condoned by management as necessary to be competitive.
- Reduce multi-tasking to single-tasking, specifically strategic snoozing.
- Reduce distraction. Compartmentalize work tasks and focus attention by ignoring everything but Ken Burns documentaries, binge watching “The Boys” on Amazon, and periodic viewing of squirrels riding surfboards on YouTube.
- Recover some of your pre-COVID work routine. Go into the office (if there still is one) sometimes if you can. During the inbound commute, laugh aloud to jokes heard on your favorite podcast and then collect the alarmed reactions of other passengers amid the eerie silence. When homeward bound, grunt for no reason at periodic internals and energetically scratch the same spot on your lower back each time. From the train station, drive homeward recklessly to burn off your day’s accumulated exasperation. Relieve stress and feelings of inadequacy by yelling at your family for no reason at the dinner table. It’s a taste of the good ol’ days. 

So what’s the point? COVID prompted the massive shift to work-at-home that is creating some new work culture twists. Let me restate that I LOVE working at home, it’s a jim-dandy way to earn a living. What’s not to like about it? But let’s see if the virtual workers opt for a velvet revolution after all.

Hello, holodeck!