Before COVID-19[1] and lockdowns[2], it was easier to have excuses.
It was also easier to fade into the background, drift away, be somewhere else.
Over the last year, however, we've been captured by screens. Not necessarily captivated, of course, which has led to the sorts of frustrations that few ever anticipated.
I was moved, therefore, to read the plight of one employee who started work as the pandemic raged. Writing to New York magazine's The Cut[3] -- specifically workplace advice columnist Alison Green -- the employee expressed frustration about their boss's so-called Zoom Happy Hours.
"These aren't really happy hours," the employee says. "They're more 'work meetings with alcohol on Zoom,' and while they're framed as not 'technically' obligatory, they definitely are, and I get pointed comments if I choose to not attend."
Worse, they're not in actual working hours. Their boss, though, believes everyone's in lockdown, so what's the difference?
This young employee isn't having it: "The thing is, he's right: I'm not busy in the traditional sense. But what I am busy doing is decompressing from work, cooking, doing chores, trying to organize my life, exercising, calling my long-distance partner, writing fiction, and also just lying on my bed eating chips and staring at the glow of my phone screen while trying not to think about doom and gloom."
Somehow, when Happy Hours were in person, it was all a little different. Now, it's often the boss' misguided notion that these things have to happen with frequency because there's no other way of employees being "together." Even if, as this frustrated employee says, people just drink a glass of wine and talk about work.
Yet