Unpopular Opinion: Show Me a Full-time Remote Worker And I’ll Show You a Part-Time Bullshitter

Everyone who claims to work 'Full Time' needs to return the office. I see you at the grocery store while pretending to do your job. And brush your teeth!

Hello weirdos!

When I got today’s story in my inbox, I didn’t know whether it was a reader taking a moment to get something off her chest or a story submission. It was about two paragraphs long, no subject line, and read as though we had just hung up the phone two seconds before it was sent. Like a continuation of a late-night heated rant between old friends who were up drinking orange wine (because I love orange wine!) while fueling each others’ annoyance over some mutual source of irritation in their everyday lives. (Here’s where I will fully confess to being a major shit stirrer - I LOVE drama! I love taking mundane stories and creating dramatic backstories to them! I love finding issues or people I don't feel that strongly about and getting ammunition to escalate my feelings on them to full on anger or hatred. I do it all the time, at least a few times a day. It gets the adrenaline flowing! Can anyone relate to this?)

Then I wrote back to Hebra and she turned what she had sent me into this beauty below. I love how she presents her argument, she makes me laugh, and I want to hear how you feel about her take here one way or the other. So let’s hash it out in the comments, as always.

And if you want to show me anything at all that might qualify as an Unpopular Opinion, even just a few wine-inspired words, the drama queen in me will eat it up, and the editor in me will want to publish it (send all things to jane@anotherjaneprattthing.com). Do that any time!

I love you!

Jane

Me, waiting at the school bus stop hoping for more “remote working” confessions.

By Hebra Rush

Full disclosure, I am a teacher. So perhaps my opinion is biased. It’s highly likely that I am also extremely jealous. I’m a mom of two, ever searching for an ounce of wiggle room in my daily schedule.

I once believed the ultimate flexibility for a mom was to be a teacher with summers and school holidays off. That was all before Covid.

Before Covid, I knew three people who worked full-time remotely. These people had moved to different states, yet retained employment because of their long history with a company. These were special circumstances, agreed upon to continue a mutually beneficial working scenario.

Enter Covid. We all became full-time remote workers overnight. It was supposed to be a temporary situation that would end when a vaccine was created. But, when I entered back into the physical work world as a teacher, most of my peers did not. Virtual school was a shit show for parents, students, and teachers alike.

As a professional and a parent, the return to school was a relief. As an overextended, exhausted human being, it ignited a burning chip on my shoulder.

After having an iota of flexibility for the first time in the five years since I became a working mom, it was snatched away. I mourned it immediately.

Everyone around me continued to work from home. I saw them walking their kids to school in sweatpants, sipping coffee from travel mugs at 9:15 a.m., while I had already been at work for half an hour. I saw them in virtual teacher/parent meetings beaming at the camera from the comfort of their overstuffed couches. I began to suspect some shenanigans immediately. For a while, all I had were my bitter hunches.

I eventually decided to scale back to part-time teaching because even a teacher’s schedule is not flexible enough to accommodate the demands placed on the default parent. Working only in the mornings gave me a front-row seat to what was really happening in my neighborhood, stacked with people (whose offices were 30 minutes away) working “full-time” from home five days a week.

Now I was competing with them for the closest spots at the grocery store at 2 p.m. My dog barked out the window when they went on afternoon runs in their shorty shorts. They confided in me about their power naps while we waited at our children’s school bus stop.

One even admitted to popping open Prosecco on a slow day. My theory was proven: working eight hours a day from home is a myth. A fraud.