It's not weakness to say you find a commute and working 9-5 overwhelming and terrible
A recent viral video of a woman crying about it on TikTok has ruffled a few feathers
Credit: Variety/YouTube
Periodically, despite the fact that I have been working for myself (successfully) for five years, and in that time have won awards for my work, my mother will ask me if I ever think about going back to work in an office.
“Are you sure you don’t want the security of a permanent job?” she’ll ask. Before the words absolutelynowayinhell can reach my lips, there is already a physical reaction taking place. A nausea in the gut, the sense that someone has reached both hands in my chest and is wringing out each lung like a sponge.
Whenever I say something like this in a social situation, someone gasps and ask why, assuming there is some dramatic reason, like perhaps I was beaten daily and made to work in a Dickensian workhouse. There is none of that – it is simply the soul-sucking, eroding, accumulated result of working in a particular way, in a specific structure that ground out a little bit of my spirit every day.
It was a routine I hated from the first day I put on my cheap little polyester trousers on my way to my first job in telesales at an ad company in London, to the last day of my permanent job, wearing a power suit with a senior management title. I hasten to add – I didn’t hate my job apart from the telesales – I hated the commute that stole hours upon hours of my life, having to work long hours, never having enough time with my loved ones, and never quite feeling as if my life was my own.
Of course, I realise it isn’t possible for everyone to go freelance. Some people work jobs that cannot be done from home, and some people frankly don’t want to. Some need the security of a permanent job and the camaraderie of colleagues. Some of us are also driven by necessity – there is no other choice, and there are bills to pay. Besides, working freelance is hardly daytime TV and raiding the Quality Street tub; it’s often weird hours, periods of panic about finances and feeling misty-eyed about the times when you had paid leave.
However, there is a conversation to be had about what we want from work, now that the pandemic showed hybrid working is possible despite employers stating previously it was not, and most importantly, the true measurement of how detrimental long commutes are to the overall quality of life. In 2022, a study showed commuting had a negative impact on sleep, relationships and stress levels. It is also timely, because according to a study of 1,000 business leaders, 90% of employees will be expected back in offices by 2024, and 28% of them would fire people who are non-compliant.
This week, a video from college graduate Brielle Asero went viral, and in it, she talked emotionally about the struggles of starting her first job, and how the 9-5 hours and – most importantly – commuting, had left her feeling overwhelmed, with no time to do anything outside of work.
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