Representational image.

Since the pandemic in 2020, the world has become weird. Why do I see young men shopping or sitting around in shopping malls on a weekday during working hours? Why aren’t they at work? Moreover, why aren’t men going to the office anymore? Why do I see grown men in their prime lounging around in the middle of the day, on a weekday? Why aren’t they at the office?

Clearly they are not working from home. I see one particular man sitting in the reception of the health club every day, during working hours, with his bare feet unceremoniously up on the coffee table like some unruly teenager. He just sits there watching what sounds like YouTube.  

I see countless men sitting around in other places, maybe working, I don’t know, but in some cases they have opted to not go into work even when their offices expect them to.

I’ve heard, not just seen, some even sitting in public places having private office related meetings. In many cases they do it so loudly that (a) it annoys those around them and (b) I actually end up knowing every detail about what the issue is. Where is the company’s privacy policy when employees often work, not from home, but in public places?

This work from home was never such a good idea, in my opinion. When people go to work they get human interaction with their colleagues. I think they benefit from it. In fact, they even look for it after they choose to work away from the office. I see countless posts on Facebook from girls looking for coffee shops in which to sit all day and do their work or asking if any other girls wanted get together somewhere to sit and work together. What? If that is the case, go to the office.

In many cases, they don’t have to work from home but choose to, they end up lamenting that they feel like they’re isolated. Coffee shops were always there for people to meet would-be employers, old friends and to just have some me-time when you’re on leave. It was never for folks to set up their whole office.

I record my YouTube videos in a public room in the building in which I live. It’s sort of like a library/study room where residents can come in to sit and read. Now, when I need to record a video, in which I am speaking, I always do it when the room is empty so as not to disturb those who are in there with me.

But other residents are not so considerate. One time a person from a company’s HR department decided to work from the study every day for almost 2 weeks because she didn’t want to go to work. She could have worked from her flat but her excuse for being down there were twofold.

One, it was somewhere to go and two, her 5 cats were disturbing her. Really?! Anyway, I wouldn’t have minded her being in there but she was so inconsiderate that she decided that, throughout her time in the room, she would make loud two-way video calls on her laptop about employees’ private matters.

Not only was she doing something that was not allowed by the club rules but she was unethically discussing private employee issues, relating to salaries, in public. One time, I was recording quietly and her entire conversation, and I could hear the other side too, was in my recording which I had to mute and narrate later. I was livid!

Do employers not wonder if employees, who are working from outside the office, might be having online meetings about private office matters in public, for the whole world to hear?

And finally, why are so many children not at school? I understand the concept of home-schooling but I’ve met some of the mothers doing the schooling and I wonder if they’re able to teach anything. They not only don’t seem educationally capable but they also spend time with those kids at the pool when they should be studying. Or they’re messing about in the health club on a school day!