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March 25, 2020

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The problems of working from home

Source: AP | 00:05 UTC+8 March 25, 2020 | Print Edition

In the early days of working from home to prevent the COVID-19 disease from spreading, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers talking strategy on a video chat couldn鈥檛 help but get distracted by their team leader鈥檚 kitchen cabinets.

鈥淭here was absolutely nothing special about them except for the fact that they were in the private home of someone senior to us,鈥 said researcher Kate Darling, who started gossiping about the cabinetry in an online back channel.

It was a minor and welcome disruption, an early sign of bigger hiccups that office workers, educators and others around the world are dealing with on the fly as the coronavirus pandemic shuts people out of offices, schools, coffee shops and co-working spaces.

Integrating work into the home has rarely been easy, but measures to contain the virus have brought those worlds into sudden and sharp collision. Untold numbers of Americans are shifting their day jobs from offices to living rooms, spare bedrooms, kitchens and basements. This massive, unplanned social experiment can strain productivity and domestic tranquility as toddlers scurry around and business meetings and classes shift to noisy group video chats that resemble a checkerboard of talking heads.

It is also forcing many parents into unexpected new roles. Carmen Williams, a therapist in Macomb, Michigan, finds herself not only seeing clients sporadically, but working as a babysitter, paying tuition for her 7- and 14-year-old kids and home schooling them. 鈥淚鈥檓 used to helping with homework, but I am unable to teach thought-out lectures and work. It鈥檚 overwhelming!鈥 Williams said.

This plunge into the unknown, accelerated by the growing number of states ordering residents to stay at home, could impact how the US weathers an almost certain recession. That will also depend on how well individuals and their families can manage the complications of studying and conducting business from home, at least for the subset of employees with desk jobs and the ability to do their work remotely.

Tech companies are pledging to avert more serious disruptions by increasing data capacity to handle the onslaught of the newly quarantined.

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