Daddy knows best: Is smart working smart enough?
Monday morning 11:05, in the middle of a work meeting…
Kid 1: Dad?
Dad: …
Kid 1: DAAAAAADDDY
Dad: Yes, my love.
Kid 1: Can I do the homework later?
Dad: No, my love, you have to do it now because you have the zoom lunch with your class at 1.
Kid 1: …
Kid 1: Dad?
Dad: Yes, my love.
Kid 1: Can I skip the reading exercise? It’s boring.
Dad: No, my love, you cannot skip it. You can do math first, but you still have to do the reading after.
Kid 1: I already did math. Can you check?
Dad: No, my love, I cannot now. Can you do it with Francesca?
Kid 1: No daddy, I can’t.
Dad: Why?
Kid 1: Because you know better.
Kid 2: DAAAAAADDDY
Dad: What?! What’s wrong??
Kid 2: I lost it!!
Kid 1: Daddy, can you come check my math?
Dad: What did you lose??
Kid 2: I lost the homework; I cannot do my homework today!
Kid 1: He did not lose his homework; he just closed the PDF and he doesn’t know how to reopen it.
Dad: Guys, I am in the middle of a meeting, Francesca will help you.
Kids: No Daddy!! We want you!! You are the best!!
— — —
My partner and I have friends who lost their jobs during the COVID lockdown. Many of them are not lucky enough to live in a country that supports their financial needs. That sucks and is a topic that deserves a much more articulated piece that maybe is not for me to write. But people who did not lose their job are discovering that thing called SMART WORKING. Please let me say a few words about it.
I believe that the term was first used in the UK around 2010. It was generally adopted in Europe to denote a form of work that would be more flexible and agile to meet individual needs and counter old hierarchical models. However, the COVID lockdown has made this term spread worldwide to refer to situations where work is done from home.
Smart working. It is a great name to call a thing. A name that evokes the idea of a smart worker who easily juggles between a call while running, a document report while cooking an omelette, and a zoom meeting while wearing shirt, tie, and underwear. A worker who is smart also because they do not work a minute more than necessary. When 5 pm comes, the smart worker closes the PC, washes their brain off concerns, and immediately starts their private life exactly where they are: at home.
Well, sure. But let me emphasize that this particular smart worker does not have kids. If they do, they have a partner who takes care of them. Guaranteed.
People who have kids often live smart working in a much different way. A way that resembles the dialogue at the beginning of this blog (that, by the way, was happening exactly as I was typing). And I just want to say something: smart working is not smart enough.
Simply moving a 9-to-5 job from office to home is not that smart. In francophone Canada, where I live, they often use the word télétravail — that literally means remote working. I find it to be much more honest. If the work is simply moved from office to home, and the same expectations are maintained in terms of time, availability, and tasks — then it is not smart. It is just remote. Smart working is smart only if it meets the family needs.
Smart working is smart only if it allows a daily schedule that is flexible enough to support couples’ division of labor or single parents’ obligations. I have a friend who has to schedule meetings at 8:30 pm because she has a two-year-old daughter at home and a husband who cannot take care of her during the 9-to-5 period. This couple is clearly lucky enough that at least one has a flexible job. Still, the fact that this person has to work before 8 am or after 8 pm because their partner is smart working from 9 to 5 does not seem that smart to me.
Smart working is smart only if it puts sufficient emphasis on quality over quantity. The expectation of a 9-to-5 presence should be replaced with clear delivery expectations for which the worker must then be free to organize their time as they want. I have another friend who has to guarantee (and demonstrate) their presence online for a certain amount of time during the day. Ironically, they have no need to prove that they are actually working and what they are doing. If something happens with their kids during the day, this person still has to work at night to deliver — in fact doing overtime that is not paid. Again, it does not seem that smart to me.
But perhaps most importantly, smart working is smart only if it brings the needs of kids and parents to the fore. As pitched in the first lines of this blog, my partner’s kids want their dad or mom to help with homework. Sure, I can help, and I am more than happy to — but kids and parents deserve time together and a certain amount of shared activities. Smart working is smart only if it allows making this time.
To be really smart, parents’ job should be built around their kids without impediments — as much as schools should be built around parents, but that’s again the topic for another blog that I will write one day. Working should be something that parents do while they are not parenting and not the other way around. I know that this view looks completely out of the world and requires a massive reconsideration of our societies. But try to imagine it, close your eyes and take this leap of faith. How does it look?
Written in June 2020.
