Diary of a future rentier (67)

What a paradox. Normally, I would have been delighted not to have to go to my workplace every day of the week. From a certain point of view, I thought that teleworking must be more or less similar to the life of a rentier. You organize yourself and dress as you want, you don't have to act in front of your colleagues and your boss, if you want to sulk you can go for it without restraint... In short, on paper, it's great. Yes, but the world of work always manages to come out the winner in this story. Because, yes, teleworking is flexibility... for the employer especially. The amount of emails is exploding, the boundary between professional and private life is disappearing, working hours are getting longer, breaks are getting shorter, the phone rings again and again, video conferences are lined up, overlapping, clashing, the calendar is full of virtual meetings. Welcome to the world of work 2.0, welcome to the world of IT specialists and start-ups. And thanks to the Chinese virus, you also have the kids on your tail and it's a competition to see who can shout the loudest in the house.

I am usually considered to be rather open-minded, but here I have to say that teleworking in the Covid style would rather make me join the club of reactionary old farts. While I had managed to substantially increase my quality of life over the last ten years thanks to my investments and a notable reduction in the time devoted to my lucrative activity, I feel like I have taken a sudden step backwards in recent weeks. Of course, it is supposed to be temporary, but I fear very much that the movement has started and I would be very surprised if we returned to exactly where we were at the beginning of this year. Obviously, we will return to working physically in the office as soon as the Chinese virus has calmed down a little. That is not the problem. The problem is that we have all taken a little of this office at home and that it is well on its way to lasting, even when the crisis is over. There I must say bravo. I bow. Thanks to Covid, the world of work has managed to universalize a practice that was previously shared only by a small minority. I am not talking about teleworking, but about this lack of separation between private and professional life. Before, it was mainly managers and IT specialists who were concerned. Today, it is the majority of employees. Result: a significant increase in flows (emails and telephones) outside of usual hours, for example early in the morning, at noon, in the evening and on weekends.

This gives me yet another good reason (but was it necessary?) to leave this gigantic planetary farce that is work as soon as possible. Long live independence, long live dividends!