Communicate Face-to-Face
The Right Networking
Boosts Your Mood
Understanding the Company Better
Better Time Management
Cost-effective
Picture this: youve woken up at around 9am and have been employed in your current position for a couple of months now. Your work hours begin at 9:30, but the commute is going to take at least an hour. The next image that pops up in your mind is that of a disgruntled employer who is reevaluating his decision to hire you, isnt it
Despite the many merits of working from home, the fact remains that the office space is sacred. Well, let us continue to look at work from home vs work from office gd and know more.
Rather than simply providing an isolated space where employees contribute towards the growth of an organization, the importance of offices lie in the kind of output they generate:
Face-to-face communication is the clearest and most productive form of communication in a corporate setting. Its not only beneficial when planning for business, it also strengthens relationships and rapport with other employees. The kind of relationship-building that happens when you sit next to someone or bump into each other at the coffee machine cannot be found anywhere else. The chain of command, the daily tasks that you need to fulfill- they all fall into a seamless communication structure which identifies and corrects shortcomings almost as soon as they are detected and ensures that only the best output is generated.
Every company has a definite structure which is indisputable, no matter the circumstances under which one works. Every employee is answerable to a higher authority and it is through meticulous coordination and feedback that the ideal output is created by an organization. This cycle is only possible when the manager is on the floor with the workers, keeping an eye on what is going on, spotting errors as soon as they are made, giving precise directions to a struggling employee and regulating the overall workflow. The moment things go digital, management becomes a hassle, and work is more often than not either subpar or delayed.
Working from home can cause a lack of business inventory or storage, leading to space constraints. Renting out office spaces can be beneficial for small businesses in order to grow their business. Especially, coworking spaces because, they offer varied office spaces at affordable prices. The small businesses can focus on scaling their business in manifolds, considering the easy availability of office inventory. The productivity also increases when you are in an office setup that heavily inspires innovation and creativity.
While there are certain obvious reasons to keep going to your offices, there are obvious disadvantages as well.
In an office setup, you get to decide very little. Your work hours are fixed, your commute is fixed, and your scope of work is more or less predictable as well. Working from an office is all about following a strict office timetable. No matter your personal problems or that are circumstances working against you, come rain or sun, you must be at your desk every day before your superiors notice a delay.
The ever-mounting pressure only serves to weaken your mental and physical health, making you more susceptible to a burnout.
One of the key aspects of the work from home vs work from office debate is the kind of work environment the organization fosters. It is no surprise that to survive in a corporate setting, one needs to have skin as thick as hide. Your work environment has the power to make or break your productivity-streak and motivation.
Employees dont have much of a choice in or control over their work environment within an office setting. Whether it is an annoying co-worker or other logistical issues, you just have to go along with it. At home, one has the option to optimise their workspace as per their requirements and preferences.
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Let us discuss the Pros and Cons of Work From Home.
There are many such scenarios where a work from home setup is beneficial for both the employer and the employee:
One of the major positives of working from home is the elimination of commute. On an average, people in India spend at least 2 hours in a day, traveling to and from work. This not only wastes time they could otherwise be spending productively, it also hampers work-life balance greatly.
If a person works a regular 9-to-5 (or 6) job and is spending 7% of their day in traffic, its natural for them to feel like they dont have a life outside of work. However, when your work can be done from the comfort of your couch, it doesnt seem as cumbersome as before.
It is extremely important to realize that work is not the be-all-and-end-all of things. There is a life that you have outside work, but sitting in an office for almost half of your day makes that seem like a lie. Moreover, a rigid schedule packed with work can cause employees to burn out rather quickly.
Most employers who provide their employees with the option to work from home also give them the flexibility to choose their working hours, which means that workers can start and end their day as they choose, as long as their work is complete and leads to strong outcomes. This control over your work schedule is invaluable when it comes to attending to the needs of your personal life.
Working from home cuts costs for both sides- the employee is not required to spend money on traveling, food and other miscellaneous costs they occur throughout a working day; meanwhile, corporations save big on energy spendings and other related expenses which would have been unavoidable in an up-and-running office setup.
While these steps are a boon for your wallet, they are also a blessing for the planet- reduced commute implies fewer vehicles on roads, which inadvertently contributes towards making our environment cleaner; a sore need of the hour.
So there are some serious merits to working from home. However, it is not without its challenges:
By its very nature, working from home is a hindrance to teamwork. To make things easier for employees, work schedules are usually fragmented according to their job descriptions and as long as their daily quotas are met, things can flow smoothly. However, a single obstacle can set the entire team off-track.
Coordinating with multiple people over the phone or via video calls, while possible, is an inefficient way of tackling issues because it does not allow face-to-face interactions. It takes a lot of time to get ideas across for approval over a Zoom call where 10 other people are competing for screen time. Thus, Working from Home can dampen teamwork and lead to disarray.
Popular polls will tell you that a majority of people feel like they are much more productive when working from home. However, but this feeling is only translated into actions when you have a set routine- which is integral for maintaining a steady stream of output. While the trappings of home are comforting, that very aspect can turn out to be counter-productive.
Procrastination can blossom unbridled at home, or worse, you might find yourself overexerting yourself. Working by yourself can also cripple your creativity. Thus, working from home doesnt always guarantee results.
Nearly 33% of the people who work from home also dont have the necessary access to office equipment such as high-speed internet, fax/copier machine or a high-end laptop which also adds to their distress while working from home as they have a hard time replicating their work environment at home.
The work from home vs work from office debate is one that perplexes even those who benefit from either school of thought, because the merits of the other are too lucrative to overlook. However, we believe the answer might lie in striking a balance between the two. The following paragraph would work the best for work from home vs work from office group discussion.
Dividing the working week into days where employees work from home and days where they have to report to the office can not only maintain the positives of a work-from-home environment, it can eliminate the stifling of creativity and flow of work in an organization. On days that employees visit the office, brainstorming and meetings can run asunder and these ideas can be translated into the finished output at home. This gives both employers and employees the opportunity to have a desirable work-life balance, and provides the ideal system of work optimizer for the future.
The frequently asked questions on work from home or work from office are given below:
Is working from home more productive than working in an office It is very difficult to estimate employees productivity when they are working in different environments. However, many research studies have shown that people who work home are more productive than the people who work from Office. Hence, most of the people choose work from home to increase their productivty which comes with benefits such as enhanced flexibility, stress-free etc.,
Is work from home better than work from office Both work from home and work from office has its own advantages and disadvantages. If you wish to cut-down the commute time and increase productivity, then work from home is better. However, if you focus on better collabaration then working from office is better. Hence work from home vs work from office has its own set of pros and cons.
Why is working in office better Working from office is better, if you want to collabrate with your collegaues. Working from office allows their employees to collect or access the data as qucikly as they can.
What are the pros and cons of working in an office The pros of working in an office include the ability to collaborate with colleagues in person, access to resources and technology, and a shared sense of camaraderie. The cons include needing to commute, being distracted by office chatter, and having less flexibility in scheduling.
How do I do a group discussion on work from home vs work from office A great way to facilitate a group discussion on work from home versus work from office is to start by having participants list out the pros and cons of each option. Have them discuss the benefits and drawbacks with each other, then use a collaborative brainstorming session to come up with ideas on how to make the most of either option. You could also refer to relevant research and studies on the topic to provide more context for the discussion.
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Some say that it would be better if the majority of employees worked from home instead of traveling to a workplace every day. Do you think the advantages of working from home outweigh the disadvantages?
Office has no longer been the only work place since many people are considering working from home. Some may argue the majority of employees should change their work place from office to home. In my opinion, the benefits of working from home can surely surpass the drawbacks due to the following reasons:
Office has no longer been the only work place since many people are considering working from home. Some may argue the majority of employees should change their work place from office to home. In my opinion, the benefits of working from home can surely surpass offset the drawbacks due to the following reasons: various reasons.
The first sentence is not accurate. It implies that people did not work from home in the past; however, throughout history, many people did work from home, for example, the classical novelists and artists.
“ Can surely ” is an informal expression and does not contribute anything to the preciseness of your writing.
The correct verb to follow the word “benefit” is not “ to surpass ”, but rather “ to offset ”, “ to outweigh ”, or “ to exceed ”.
Do not end your sentence with a colon ( “:” ), unless you want to provide a list of items immediately after that.
Working from home is a lot more comfortable for lots of people. Employees can save a great deal of time and money since they do not have to travel so often, which means people will have more time for work and for themselves, too. Less travelling will also help reduce traffice traffic jam congestion and pollutants to our environment environmental pollution . Besides, working at home does not mean staying inside all day long, people can choose to work in their garden or backyard, wherever makes them feel convenient to work. Moreover, employees are under less stresses stress since they get to decide when to work and when to take rest with a flexible working schedule . These things will help giving out better perfomance to tasks.
Words like “comfortable”, or “convenient” are too generic to use in an IELTS writing context. Generally, it’s better to use other words.
Lengthy phrases like “a great deal of time and money” (7 words) are considered as informal and ambiguous. Try to use shorter expressions, for example “time-saving and cost-efficient” (3 words only).
In a formal context, “ traffic congestion ” is more preferrable than “ traffic jam ”. When being alone, the word “ jam ” can be understood as a type of food. It’s always better to use a word that only has one meaning, regardless of the context.
The third sentence in this body paragraph is an example of poor cohesion. “ Traffic jam ” is not parallel to “ pollutants to our environment ”. “ Traffic jam ” is a condition (abstract), not a physical material (touchable by human) like “ pollutants ”. Therefore, you need to use another condition that is parallel to “ traffic jam ” (“ environmental pollution ”)
The fourth sentence (“ Besides, working at… ”) should be placed in the second body paragraph. The author is tailoring his ideas by providing the advantages of working from home in the first body paragraph, then listing the disadvantages in the second body paragraph while attacking those disadvantages notion at the same time. This kind of idea (“ to play the devil’s advocate ”) is good, but the execution isn’t. Insufficient coherence like this will hamper your score in Coherence & Cohesion criterion.
“Stress” as in “psychological stress” is an uncountable noun.
Try to improve the conciseness of your essay by rewritting a sentence clause (S+V) into a noun phrase. For example, “ since they get to decide when to work and when to take rest ” can be shorten into “ with a flexible working schedule ”.
The last sentence is redundant and ungrammatical.
To be fair, There are still some disadvantages that home-working could bring of teleworking . For instance, working from personal space will reduce direct face-to-face interactions among colleagues. But However, the problem is solved thanks to the Internet. As for now, people from around the globe can easily contact and work with others from distances. Another drawback is that some people may get distracted from work by external factors. This situation requires employees to be highly awared awarded of what they should and should not do for their paid jobs.
The accurate way to describe the act of working from home is not “ home-working ”, but rather “ teleworking ” or “ telecommuting ”. The author has miss his chance to improve the Lexical Resource score.
Generally, in a writing context, do not start your sentence with a short subordinate conjuction (“ and ”, “ or ”, “ but ”, “ for ”).
The third sentence in this paragraph is very unclear, especially when the followed sentence does not provide a good explanation. The author has to elaborate more on the Internet’s merits (social softwares such as “ instant messaging ”, “ collaborative software ”, etc)
The author has failed to provide a counter-argument for the notion of “ people may get distracted from work by external factors ”. Not to mentions he does not elaborate what is the “ external factors ”. Again, weak cohesion.
Do not simply stating “ this ” as a sentence subject. This type of grammatical mistake is called “unclear antecedent”, or “unclear aphoric noun”, and should be avoid by extending the subject with a word like “ condition ”, “ situation ”, “ issue ”, etc.
In conclusion, working from home should be encouraged because the advantages overcome the disadvantages.
The conclusion is coherent with the introduction and the two body paragraphs. Though, it is a little bit too short.
(Words: 261)
Overall: 6.0
Task Response: 6
✓ addresses all parts of the task although some parts may be more fully covered than others (the author has written more than 250 words and addressed the topic question)
✓ presents a relevant position although the conclusions may become unclear or repetitive
✓ presents relevant main ideas but some may be inadequately developed/unclear
Coherence and Cohesion: 6
✓ arranges information and ideas coherently and there is a clear overall progression (the ideas in each paragraphs are coherent with eachother)
✓ uses cohesive devices effectively, but cohesion within and/or between sentences may be faulty or mechanical
✓ may not always use referencing clearly or appropriately (the author usually fails at providing good supporting evidence for his argument)
✓ uses paragraphing, but not always logically (the fourth sentence in Body Paragraph 1 should be placed in Body 2 instead)
Lexical Resource: 5
✓ uses a limited range of vocabulary, but this is minimally adequate for the task (all the vocab used in this essay are very generic) ✓ may make noticeable errors in spelling and/or word formation that may cause some difficulty for the reader
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: 6
✓ uses a mix of simple and complex sentence forms
✓ makes some errors in grammar and punctuation but they rarely reduce communication
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This essay is corrected by Anh Tran - Let's Write Something Group .
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Due to technologies working from home and remotely is easier than ever. Whether you work as a programmer, writer, customer support, freelancer, blogger, teacher, and consultant you can take advantage of working from home.
But along with the advantages, there are certain disadvantages of working at home. While if you work from home it’s good for employers to reduce the infrastructure cost and increase productivity. And it was very important during the covid-19.
Still, there are various new companies and startups that are more willing to build hybrid (home and office) work environments and cultures. If you’re working at home and bored then you need to be aware of the disadvantages so that you can make certain changes in your schedule and it’s also good for those who want to work from home.
But those working at the office or unaware of the advantages or disadvantages can find this post useful as well.
1. saves time and money:.
Doing office work at home will save you time. You don’t have to travel. Not you will be late and drive in a hurry! Not you will be stuck in a traffic jam. Nor do you have to participate in crowd quarrels.
All of this will save time and money. This will benefit you financially, mentally, and physically.
For example, if you have to spend 1 hour daily visiting the office and coming back from the office to home, then you can use this time for meditation, exercises, and learning something new that you never learned.
You can use or invest the money that you saved from petrol or taxi services into mutual funds or SIP. And you also contributed to the reduce the pollution.
All of these are the most practical advantages. And those who finish work very late at night can sleep 30 minutes more in the morning.
Most of us are busy with entrepreneurship and professional life. The expectations of our family and self from us are higher. And taking family responsibility and raising kids is not that easy. Especially when prices are at their highest level. And all of this and professional competition make life like a machine. Everything has a schedule, pre-planned programs, analysis, fixed prices, processes, and patterns of input and output.
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Dealing with all is a compulsion and most of the time we make or we’re programmed like that from childhood.
We want to spend time with family, we want to travel, we want to become wealthy, and we want to improve our living standards but most of us are not able to do that or we struggle. And your new struggle is important and essential to growing.
But working from home at least gives you time to play with kids. You can do breakfast, lunch, and dinner with them. And you can also help them to get sleep as well by telling stories.
Not only that, but when your kids will see that you’re working, learning, reading, and communicating they will observe, analyze and understand your work ethics and behaviors.
If you’re good at that they will get inspired. Else they will feel bad working like you.
Even while you’re working, you can make them interested to sit with you and do their homework.
This point is emotional, but what is a better time investment than investing it with kids and your spouse?
We don’t get that much time to spend in the morning and evening with family when we have to travel and work from the office. And due to that, our kids become habitual with mobile phones, social media, and many other bad habits.
And Sunday is not enough when most of us have to take rest or need to give time for relatives and various others such as plumbing, billing, cleaning, and various other weekly home works.
So, working from home have its advantages in that you can spend time with kids as well while working or on small breaks.
Working from home impacts your health positively. You will get good and proper time to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You will eat good homemade food that is healthier than canteen or office food. You will be able to spend time with family and understand their personal and professional goals. You will get a chance to understand them while at lunch or dinner. Not only that you will get a real picture of how things are going at home and with relatives and neighbors.
Else, if you spend most of your time at the office, then you will have less time and attention to listen to your family members. Not only that you can also share your doubts and insecurities with them. It will also make you relaxed.
At home, you can schedule the time for exercise and meditation. And when you do that in front of your kids then they will also get inspired from you. And you will be able to build good habits in your kids.
When working you can take a break from work as well. And you can use any time to work on when you are most active. You can change your body posture and sit.
While on breaks, you can help your spouse to make food. You can help with small and domestic work. It will increase the love between you and your spouse. This will create a positive environment and you will become more productive at work. And both of you can help each other.
If you’re single, then you can work at any time. You have to make progress, so you can follow a schedule or work based on your creativity.
For example, if you got the idea at 12 PM to do something, then you can implement that immediately.
At the office, you have to sit for long hours in front of computers, lights, ACs, and servers. Most of the things in the office are artificial and consumption of that air, heat, and light is not good.
But at home, you can sit in the garden with natural air and sunlight. You can sit in a dark room for creativity or in natural light when feeling lazy.
You have more options to create and use natural options.
I know that we can’t do all types of work from home. Not all will be comfortable doing it. And it also varies based on the job roles. For example, freelancers have more freedom than regular employees. But employees are more stable financially than a freelancer.
So, everything is based on the choice or interest of people. Everyone has a different experience, interest, and impact.
But along with the advantages of working from home, there are also many disadvantages as well. Let’s take a look at the following disadvantages of working from home:
1. laziness and procrastination:.
If you don’t follow the balanced schedule to work at home then it’s tough to become productive. At home, you have more options to become lazy and procrastinate.
For example, when you know, you don’t have to go office then you will wake up late. Sooner it will become a habit and you will start getting up at 8 AM or 9 AM.
At home, you can be distracted when someone visits at home. For example, when relatives or neighbors know that you’re at home then there are higher chances that they will invite you to parties, travel, and events. If not, they can also come to your home.
And you can’t avoid or ignore them very easily. And it’s tough to become disciplined at work and also in studies at home.
Even if no one comes, at home you will have options for gossip, entertainment and parties, and various other luxury comforts.
So, whenever you will face little difficulty in the work you will be easily attracted by those comfortable or enjoyable options. And it will reduce your productivity and focus. It’s also because at home no one is watching you what you’re doing along with work or how you’re doing the work.
At home, you can eat more or more frequently. This will increase your weight. And it will negatively impact your work and health.
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I know that you can learn at home and build skills online in your spare time. You might not get that time in the office. But it’s not the same case for all.
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When you’re in the office you have more chances to communicate and discuss the project ideas. At the office, you have a proper meeting time and room. Where you will not get distracted.
When you work at the office, you communicate with your coworkers and team members on a personal level as well. You will become more aware of what’s happening or what they are up to.
All of these office activities have more chances for networking and learning.
But at home, you will not find someone to share ideas. Else you can discuss it with your family. But that won’t work all the time.
I don’t mean you can’t learn at home. I mean along with learning you also need awareness and discussion on your lessons.
If you learned something then you have to test that before you finally select that idea. So, communication and networking, and meeting with people are more important for learning. If you can do that at home and online then it’s great, else do that online but also build connections with real-world people as well, especially those who are building virtual worlds.
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If you are single then working from home is more challenging for you. Even for married people as well.
In the beginning, when you start working at home you will be more interested. You will enjoy working at home. But sooner or within a few months, you will start getting bored. It’s because there is no one working with you. Even chatting or video calling is not enough. All of them are outside.
While many manage their work and time effectively. Such as after working for 3 hours they visit a coffee shop or take a walk with the dog.
There are various famous and successful people in history who worked from home or started working from home.
But for that, you need focus, passion, and self-discipline. Not all are able to get that especially when they failed.
So, it’s important to consider your personality and productivity style. At home, you have to guide and order yourself. But at office, your seniors or boss or team leader or company is monitoring you. So, whether you’re motivated or not you have to work.
But it’s also possible in remote works as well. That your work is monitored or you have to respond to people. Even most of the people working for clients and companies as a freelancer or employees are monitored and managed well. But working for years just from home and alone is not a suitable or best option.
The office is a proper and professional space for work. In your profession, job, and business you have to deal and communicate with various types of people. Not all types of deals, people and communications are equal.
So many times, you will be getting distraction while chatting or working with clients or in the meeting. Especially when you’re living in 2 BHK or in a colony. Not only do you get disturbed but your loud communication on the balcony due to a low network signal can disturb others as well.
Else if you have many rooms or separate entrances for one or two rooms then you can use those as an office. But if your work is related to meeting with people then you have to compromise your privacy.
Working from home is more suitable for YouTubers, bloggers, freelancers, and IT-related remote staff. But even these professionals also need to communicate and experience the real world. So that they can communicate better or create more useful content.
Related: How to build a learning environment for your kids at home
If you’re a creative person or professional then it’s important for you to experience new things, people, sceneries, events, and learnings. At home, if you can’t change or make the work environment flexible, creative, and interesting then it’s tough to come up with new ideas and excitement.
Never become out of reach from your customers. In today’s time, there is more than one seller of the same goods and services. That’s why if not you then someone else is right. Common people do not know this or your customers and clients will only understand that you are working from home because your business is ruined. That’s why they will not contact such a person.
Apart from this, customers go to the market to buy, not at home. This means that those who are your customers or clients, when you’re not in their reach then they will not even notice you, and they will get their work done by someone else. People’s memory is getting weak, they don’t remember that you are also an expert. Now they will start counting you among them.
That’s why working from home or living at home means being excluded from social networking and professional networks. And the one who is not in the network does not get calls.
So if you want to build and grow your network in the market you must keep yourself connected to and visible to your target customers. that can be online and offline. But your customer should know that you’re still alive and working.
Our professional and social networks play a big role in our business and career success. Do not ignore this especially if you’re earning money based on your talents.
Conclusion:
Whether you work from home or office the most important thing is your focus and mindset. But it is also important to choose a workplace based on the type of work and goals.
If you’re doing a job in an IT company or working as an IT professional and you think can work from home then it’s great. Do that.
But when getting bored or when you think you can’t work anymore alone then change that.
There are lots of things that we have to do each day. Many times we fail and are successful. But in failures, we question or reason it our workplace or work environment.
Yes, a good work environment and good people in the network are really important for professional growth. But if you think you can do it online or at home then do it.
If you think you can do it at the office then do that.
Don’t worry, about the rent or the cost of the office when you know you can cover it with your work.
You have to give more preferences to your work and professional goals. Rather than thinking do I work at home or at the office?
And also remember, closing a business or closing an office and only working from home looks good in the beginning, but later or after a year or two you will experience the importance of a proper office and physical work environment.
Personally, I work in both places at the office and also at home. But I found that when I work at the office, I was more productive. I also found that when I am focused and motivated then I don’t care where I am working. I just work. No matter it’s an office, garden, home, car, or parking place.
And I also found that it’s tough for you and also family members to schedule or follow each other’s time. For example, if you’re currently focused on work, but then someone is calling you for dinner or lunch or you visit then you will be distracted from that focus.
So, I think it’s more a problem of focus than a place. So, whether it’s home or office, you have to build and use the environment that will make you more focused, excited, interested, and motivated to work. Now it can be your home or office.
During covid-19, it was or is very important and productive to work from home. Even after the post covid many companies and businesses are now more focused to work from home. There are also many people who found that working from home was great for them. While many find it very difficult and unproductive to work from home.
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Hello Friend, In this post “ Essay On Work From Home Boon Or Bane | Work From Home Essay “, we will read about Work From Home as an Essay in detail, with different words. So…
Let’s Start…
Let’s begin with the advantages. Perhaps the biggest benefit is that people can work flexible hours especially for women who have young children.
Many of them otherwise quit their job after the birth of their children to look after them.
Moreover, male employees also benefit from working from home as they can save hours to commute to work and home back, improving their work-life balance and overall sense of wellbeing.
Further, employers also benefit from this arrangement. When employees work from their homes , the cost of running the business comes down.
On the other hand, there are a few challenges as well. Employees working from home may have difficulty building a rapport with others in their team, creating a lack of coordination among themselves.
Further, workers may find it difficult to get instant support from each other when problems arise leading to total chaos in the work schedules.
Worse! This lack of apathy towards each other may be also reflected towards the customer which can lead to the ultimate destruction of a reputation for the company.
To summarise, there are several benefits to working from home including the freedom to individual employees.
Many employers have already realized this and started encouraging their workers to work from home , of course, with some precautionary measures against downfalls of lack of communication and subsequent disasters.
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“ Work for a cause, not for applause. Live life to express, not to impress. Don’t strive to make your presence noticed just make your absence felt “.
These lines suit those people who are working from their homes or teleworking today.
Today the world is facing the Coronavirus crisis , a pandemic that has changed our life.
People are locked in their homes due to the spread of COVID -19 a disease that spread through person-to-person contact.
In this situation, it is important to limit our contact with other people as much as possible.
Most people feel better working from home instead of traveling to a workplace every day.
It saves time and travel expenses . Due to working from home or teleworking, people get more time for themselves and for their work.
Their minimum traveling reduces environmental pollution , and they do not require to stand in a traffic jam.
They can decide when to do their work and when to take a rest. Working from home is effective for a lot of people because they get more time to spend with their family.
There are still some disadvantages of working from home . Social distancing doesn’t suit our nature.
“ Man is a social being ,” said Aristotle a famous philosopher. Due to the rapid spread of Coronavirus, most of the global population is experiencing isolation.
This loneliness can create mental and physical health issues. Working from home reduces face-to-face interactions among colleagues. Direct interactions among colleagues create personal connections and strengthen healthily working relationships.
A positive change is happening around us because of social distancing and work from home that the people are embracing during this pandemic of COVID-19 . But it will be too early to speak of long-term changes.
Working from hom e is better because its advantages overcome the disadvantages.
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Working from home is a convenient method for the professional to work in their home.
According to this pandemic situation, professionals need a remote job. As we review the work culture as a 9 to 5 job.
How difficult and complex, in rushing to the office in traffic and the climatic condition such as the rainy season.
Therefore, professionals got a wonderful opportunity to work from home . Now a day office culture is eradicated.
New and amazing work culture is introduced as a remote job or work from home.
Professionals can work in their leisure. Those who are professional learn to keep their work busier in the home.
That, they can get appreciation from the company.
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A basic requirement of a human’s life is bread, cloth, and house and to fulfill all these requirements money is required and money can be obtained only from a business.
No person can live life without earning money . money is essential needed to survive in the world.
A person undertakes a variety of jobs or occupations to earn a living.
Whether it is in the economic field or political, religious, or academic field .
Because it is said that man is a social animal . but in the present time, the definition seems to be changing.
Today, an epidemic called corona has spread all over the world. looking at the same, there, there is a danger in the whole areas.
Due to which many tasks are being completed by staying at home .
In a way, man is able to do the work of his office and business smoothly from home .
Working from home doesn’t mean you lose the sense of professionalism.
It means you have to create a warm work environment to become more productive than ever.
Working from home can sound like a dream come true. however, like any job situation, there are many disadvantages to home employment that may become apparent over time.
For some, this can mean making a few adjustments to make the situation more tolerable.
For others, the disadvantages can be so powerful that they can put an end to the home office .
Just as there are two sides to a coin there are two sides to every story . similarly, there are some positive aspects of work from home .
First, saving time in a person’s life , that is, when a person goes out of the house to work, he had to face problems of congestion, traffic, jam, etc . but now it fits the exact saying kill two birds with a single stone .
That is, the money spent on traveling is also saved. and the most important problem was fuel savings for the future…
i.e, 24 hours carts roomed the roads with more than half of the people employed.
So, the fuel that is wasted on the roads also pollutes the environment was completely balanced.
Now let’s see how the negative impact of coins is challenging for us .
First of all, social interactions decreases, loneliness increases, mental as well as physical problem increased, expressing ability decrease, etc.
Another important challenge is that work from home is not possible in every area.
like if we, work in the educational field, there are many children who are not even familiar with something called online.
So what is the benefit of the teacher working from home due to which the development of all is not happening simultaneously?
The promotion of many people has stopped in this system working from home seems dull, the ability to work is seen to be destroyed soon.
Which mental fatigue has become a significant challenge?
Successfully working from home is a skill, just like programming, designing, or writing . it takes time to develop that skill.
If any doubts regarding “ Essay On Work From Home Boon Or Bane | Work From Home Essay “, So…Please comment.
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The rape and murder of a trainee doctor at her own hospital has brought up, once again, uncomfortable truths about a country that wants to be a global leader.
By Anupreeta Das and Sameer Yasir
In December 2012, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student boarded a bus in New Delhi a little after 9 p.m., expecting it would take her home. Instead, she was gang-raped and assaulted so viciously with an iron rod that her intestines were damaged. She died days later as India erupted in rage.
Nearly 12 years later, the nation is convulsing with anger once again — this time, over the ghastly rape and murder of a 31-year-old trainee doctor in a Kolkata hospital, as she rested in a seminar room after a late-night shift. Since the Aug. 9 killing, thousands of doctors have gone on strike to demand a safer work environment and thousands more people have taken to the streets to demand justice.
For a country desperate to be seen as a global leader, repeated high-profile cases of brutal sexual assaults highlight an uncomfortable truth: India, by many measures , remains one of the world’s most unsafe places for women. Rape and domestic violence are relatively common, and conviction rates are low.
This week, the Supreme Court of India took up the Kolkata case as one of fundamental rights and safety, questioning how hospital administrators and police officers had handled it and saying new protective measures were needed. “The nation cannot wait for another rape and murder for real changes on the ground,” Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said.
Gender-related violence is hardly unique to India. But even as millions of Indian women have joined the urban work force in the past decade, securing their financial independence and helping to fuel the country’s rapid growth, they are still often left to bear the burden of their own safety.
Longstanding customs that both repress women and in many cases confine them to the home have made their safety in public spaces an afterthought. It can be dangerous for a woman to use public transportation, especially at night, and sexual harassment occurs frequently on the streets and in offices. Mothers tell their daughters to be watchful. Brothers and husbands drop their sisters and wives off at work.
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By Annika Burgess
Topic: Work
From next week, employees will have the legal "right to disconnect" and refuse to respond to work communications after hours. ( Unsplash: ConvertKit )
From next week, Australians will have the legal right to ignore all work communications out of working hours.
The laws follow similar policies in other countries, but there are questions over how much they will change Australia's culture of working "excessive" hours.
Experts say the "right to disconnect" laws are a positive step but employers need to lead by example.
Australia was once a pioneer of setting work limits.
In 1856, Victorian stonemasons won a world-first fight, demanding they work no more than eight hours a day.
But these days, Australians are putting in "extreme and excessive" working hours, experts say.
New digital tools and flexible working models have created a culture where it Is the norm to be constantly contactable.
Research shows many Australians are at "high risk" of work addiction, and our work-life balance is worse than that of many other countries.
But new laws that come into effect next week aim to set work boundaries in an increasingly hyper-connected world.
Similar "right to disconnect" policies have been largely successful in other countries.
But will they be enough to break Australia's workaholic habits?
From August 26, "right to disconnect" laws will apply to businesses with 15 or more employees.
The law will not restrict managers from contacting employees whenever they wish.
But it does give employees the right to refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact from their employer outside work hours unless that refusal is deemed unreasonable.
John Hopkins from Swinburne University's school of business, law and entrepreneurship, said similar laws had been adopted in up to 25 countries.
And so far, there is evidence they have been largely successful in helping to protect the health and wellbeing of workers in the digital age.
"This is a step in the right direction," Professor Hopkins said.
"This is the first attempt to address burnout and mental health issues associated with overwork."
Experts say flexible work models have led to over-time hours creeping up on us. ( Supplied: Melinda Bannister )
France set the agenda in 2017, becoming the first country to require companies to negotiate agreements with staff over their rights to ignore after-hours communication.
Fines for companies that breach the laws have been rare, but they do happen.
In an extreme case, the French wing of a British pest control business was ordered to pay a former employee 60,000 euros ($99,000) after forcing him to permanently leave his telephone on to respond to work requests.
Research by the European Union agency Eurofound showed improved wellbeing and work satisfaction in companies with right-to-disconnect policies.
Eurofound gathered insights from about 1,600 employee surveys across companies in Belgium, France, Italy and Spain.
More than 70 per cent of workers in companies with the regulations considered the impacts to be positive.
And 92 per cent of the workers reported very high levels of job satisfaction.
But Eurofound also determined that a right-to-disconnect policy on its own was "insufficient" to bring about cultural change in the workplace.
Lisa Heap, senior researcher at the Centre for Future Work, said Australia had created a culture that encouraged working long hours.
"We have people who are in full-time employment doing extreme and excessive working hours," she told the ABC.
"And we've got employers who are increasingly expecting people to be available without limitation on that."
A 2023 study by the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute estimated Australian workers were on average doing an extra 5.4 hours a week.
That amounts to about 280 hours of unpaid time each year, at a cost of $130 billion in annual lost incomes.
Ms Heap said Australia was taking a "strong step".
"There's been a kind of erosion of rights in relation to employment in Australia," she said.
"This law is trying to recreate the idea of what is the 'norm'."
However, Rachael Potter from the Centre for Workplace Excellence at the University of South Australia, said if there was nothing stopping managers from contacting employees, it would be "very difficult" to shift behaviours.
"It's a very positive step forward, but it will still be quite challenging to ignore a manager if they contact you out of hours," she told the ABC.
"We need a culture that doesn't encourage and reward sending late-night emails, and it's up to an employer to set the tone."
Rachael Potter says preliminary results indicated 30 per cent of Australian workers showed "high risk" of work addiction. ( ABC News: Evelyn Manfield )
Expectations to put in extra hours exist across all industries and levels within a workforce.
And more employees were feeling pressure to work overtime due to fears about job security and the increased cost of living, Dr Potter said.
Dr Potter has been involved in global research that shows Australians are among the most at risk of work addiction and are increasingly unable to switch off.
But Professor Hopkins believes Australia should not be any different to other countries that have adopted the laws.
Although the impacts might be "subtle", he said they should lead to important discussions.
"It's not going to eliminate contact at all," Professor Hopkins said.
"Hopefully we'll reduce it, and encourage those conversations about who is getting contacted outside of work hours."
Ms Heap said the laws would send a signal, and give employees the assurance it was OK to say no.
"Even if employees don't do anything about it right now, because they don't necessarily have the confidence to raise that concern, they know that's not what's supposed to happen," she said.
The European Union study recommended that policies should be accompanied by awareness raising and effective measures to limit out-of-hours connection.
Dr Potter said employees could start by simply switching off.
"Individuals need to set their own boundaries by turning off notifications and taking work emails off their phones," she said.
"People are needing recovery time … these laws send a message that we need to disconnect more, but whether that's enforced or not we'll have to see."
To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories .
In July 2017, I wrote an article about toplessness for Vogue Italia. The director, actor, and political activist Lina Esco had emerged from the world of show business to question public nudity laws in the United States with 2014’s Free the Nipple . Her film took on a life of its own and, thanks to the endorsement from the likes of Miley Cyrus, Cara Delevingne, and Willow Smith, eventually developed into a whole political movement, particularly on social media where the hashtag #FreeTheNipple spread at lightning speed. The same year as that piece, actor Alyssa Milano tweeted “me too” and encouraged others who had been sexually assaulted to do the same, building on the movement activist Tarana Burke had created more than a decade earlier. The rest is history.
In that Vogue article, I chatted with designer Alessandro Michele about a shared memory of our favorite topless beaches of our youth. Anywhere in Italy where water appeared—be it the hard-partying Riviera Romagnola, the traditionally chic Amalfi coast and Sorrento peninsula, the vertiginous cliffs and inlets of Italy’s continuation of the French Côte d’Azur or the towering volcanic rocks of Sicily’s mythological Riviera dei Ciclopi—one was bound to find bodies of all shapes and forms, naturally topless.
In the ’90s, growing up in Italy, naked breasts were everywhere and nobody thought anything about it. “When we look at our childhood photos we recognize those imperfect breasts and those bodies, each with their own story. I think of the ‘un-beauty’ of that time and feel it is actually the ultimate beauty,” Michele told me.
Indeed, I felt the same way. My relationship with toplessness was part of a very democratic cultural status quo. If every woman on the beaches of the Mediterranean—from the sexy girls tanning on the shoreline to the grandmothers eating spaghetti al pomodoro out of Tupperware containers under sun umbrellas—bore equally naked body parts, then somehow we were all on the same team. No hierarchies were established. In general, there was very little naked breast censorship. Free nipples appeared on magazine covers at newsstands, whether tabloids or art and fashion magazines. Breasts were so naturally part of the national conversation and aesthetic that Ilona Staller (also known as Cicciolina) and Moana Pozzi, two porn stars, cofounded a political party called the Love Party. I have a clear memory of my neighbor hanging their party’s banner out his window, featuring a topless Cicciolina winking.
A lot has changed since those days, but also since that initial 2017 piece. There’s been a feminist revolution, a transformation of women’s fashion and gender politics, the absurd overturning of Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction in New York, the intensely disturbing overturning of Roe v Wade and the current political battle over reproductive rights radiating from America and far beyond. One way or another, the female body is very much the site of political battles as much as it is of style and fashion tastes. And maybe for this reason naked breasts seem to populate runways and street style a lot more than they do beaches—it’s likely that being naked at a dinner party leaves more of a permanent mark than being naked on a glamorous shore. Naked “dressing” seems to be much more popular than naked “being.” It’s no coincidence that this year Saint Laurent, Chloé, Ferragamo, Tom Ford, Gucci, Ludovic de Saint Sernin, and Valentino all paid homage to sheer dressing in their collections, with lacy dresses, see-through tops, sheer silk hosiery fabric, and close-fitting silk dresses. The majority of Anthony Vaccarello’s fall 2024 collection was mostly transparent. And even off the runway, guests at the Saint Laurent show matched the mood. Olivia Wilde appeared in a stunning see-through dark bodysuit, Georgia May Jagger wore a sheer black halter top, Ebony Riley wore a breathtaking V-neck, and Elsa Hosk went for translucent polka dots.
In some strange way, it feels as if the trends of the ’90s have swapped seats with those of today. When, in 1993, a 19-year-old Kate Moss wore her (now iconic) transparent, bronze-hued Liza Bruce lamé slip dress to Elite Model Agency’s Look of the Year Awards in London, I remember seeing her picture everywhere and feeling in awe of her daring and grace. I loved her simple sexy style, with her otherworldly smile, the hair tied back in a bun. That very slip has remained in the collective unconscious for decades, populating thousands of internet pages, but in remembering that night Moss admitted that the nude look was totally unintentional: “I had no idea why everyone was so excited—in the darkness of Corinne [Day’s] Soho flat, the dress was not see-through!” That’s to say that nude dressing was usually mostly casual and not intellectualized in the context of a larger movement.
But today nudity feels loaded in different ways. In April, actor and author Julia Fox appeared in Los Angeles in a flesh-colored bra that featured hairy hyper-realist prints of breasts and nipples, and matching panties with a print of a sewn-up vagina and the words “closed” on it, as a form of feminist performance art. Breasts , an exhibition curated by Carolina Pasti, recently opened as part of the 60th Venice Biennale at Palazzo Franchetti and showcases works that span from painting and sculpture to photography and film, reflecting on themes of motherhood, empowerment, sexuality, body image, and illness. The show features work by Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe, Louise Bourgeois, and an incredible painting by Bernardino Del Signoraccio of Madonna dell’Umiltà, circa 1460-1540. “It was fundamental for me to include a Madonna Lactans from a historical perspective. In this intimate representation, the Virgin reveals one breast while nurturing the child, the organic gesture emphasizing the profound bond between mother and child,” Pasti said when we spoke.
Through her portrayal of breasts, she delves into the delicate balance of strength and vulnerability within the female form. I spoke to Pasti about my recent musings on naked breasts, which she shared in a deep way. I asked her whether she too noticed a disparity between nudity on beaches as opposed to the one on streets and runways, and she agreed. Her main concern today is around censorship. To Pasti, social media is still far too rigid around breast exposure and she plans to discuss this issue through a podcast that she will be launching in September, together with other topics such as motherhood, breastfeeding, sexuality, and breast cancer awareness.
With summer at the door, it was my turn to see just how much of the new reread on transparency would apply to beach life. In the last few years, I noticed those beaches Michele and I reminisced about have grown more conservative and, despite being the daughter of unrepentant nudists and having a long track record of militant topless bathing, I myself have felt a bit more shy lately. Perhaps a woman in her 40s with two children is simply less prone to taking her top off, but my memories of youth are populated by visions of bare-chested mothers surveilling the coasts and shouting after their kids in the water. So when did we stop? And why? When did Michele’s era of “un-beauty” end?
In order to get back in touch with my own naked breasts I decided to revisit the nudist beaches of my youth to see what had changed. On a warm day in May, I researched some local topless beaches around Rome and asked a friend to come with me. Two moms, plus our four children, two girls and two boys of the same ages. “Let’s make an experiment of this and see what happens,” I proposed.
The kids all yawned, but my friend was up for it. These days to go topless, especially on urban beaches, you must visit properties that have an unspoken nudist tradition. One of these in Rome is the natural reserve beach at Capocotta, south of Ostia, but I felt a bit unsure revisiting those sands. In my memory, the Roman nudist beaches often equated to encounters with promiscuous strangers behind the dunes. I didn’t want to expose the kids, so, being that I am now a wise adult, I went ahead and picked a compromise. I found a nude-friendly beach on the banks of the Farfa River, in the rolling Sabina hills.
We piled into my friend’s car and drove out. The kids were all whining about the experiment. “We don’t want to see naked mums!” they complained. “Can’t you just lie and say you went to a nudist beach?”
We parked the car and walked across the medieval fairy-tale woods until we reached the path that ran along the river. All around us were huge trees and gigantic leaves. It had rained a lot recently and the vegetation had grown incredibly. We walked past the remains of a Roman road. The colors all around were bright green, the sky almost fluorescent blue. The kids got sidetracked by the presence of frogs. According to the indications, the beach was about a mile up the river. Halfway down the path, we bumped into a couple of young guys in fanny packs. I scanned them for signs of quintessential nudist attitude, but realized I actually had no idea what that was. I asked if we were headed in the right direction to go to “the beach”. They nodded and gave us a sly smile, which I immediately interpreted as a judgment about us as mothers, and more generally about our age, but I was ready to vindicate bare breasts against ageism.
We reached a small pebbled beach, secluded and bordered by a huge trunk that separated it from the path. A group of girls was there, sharing headphones and listening to music. To my dismay they were all wearing the tops and bottoms of their bikinis. One of them was in a full-piece bathing suit and shorts. “See, they are all wearing bathing suits. Please don’t be the weird mums who don’t.”
At this point, it was a matter of principle. My friend and I decided to take our bathing suits off completely, if only for a moment, and jumped into the river. The boys stayed on the beach with full clothes and shoes on, horrified. The girls went in behind us with their bathing suits. “Are you happy now? my son asked. “Did you prove your point?”
I didn’t really know what my point actually was. I think a part of me wanted to feel entitled to those long-gone decades of naturalism. Whether this was an instinct, or as Pasti said, “an act that was simply tied to the individual freedom of each woman”, it was hard to tell. At this point in history, the two things didn’t seem to cancel each other out—in fact, the opposite. Taking off a bathing suit, at least for my generation who never had to fight for it, had unexpectedly turned into a radical move and maybe I wanted to be part of the new discourse. Also, the chances of me going out in a fully sheer top were slim these days, but on the beach it was different. I would always fight for an authentic topless experience.
After our picnic on the river, we left determined to make our way—and without children—to the beaches of Capocotta. In truth, no part of me actually felt very subversive doing something I had been doing my whole life, but it still felt good. Once a free breast, always a free breast.
This article was originally published on British Vogue .
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Natasha Trethewey’s life in poetry and prose
A work of biography, an essay on literature and memory and the South, a prose poem full of lyrical dexterity, Trethewey’s latest book is like all of her others: a master study of the self.
If, as Zora Neale Hurston once argued, racial prejudice is a loss not for her but for those who embrace it, then one has to wonder how much the United States has forfeited on account of its perennial anti-Blackness. “Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry,” Hurston wrote. “It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.” Hurston’s “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” is sprinkled with wry aphorisms like this that slice through the layers of early-20th-century American racism. Riddled with anecdotes and Southern charm, it is also not only about Hurston celebrating her Blackness but turning the mirror back onto white Americans, who, she insists, miss a lot about themselves, too.
The house of being.
The art of showing Americans what they have missed and who they are—in particular by offering acute portraits of the South—sits at the center of Natasha Trethewey’s poetry and prose. Her accolades alone testify to her acumen. She is a griot, a former US poet laureate, and a Pulitzer Prize winner. But what has made her so vital to American literature is that she has cast back the image of a fragmented America to her readers not so much to affirm it as to offer a lament, much as Hurston did, for what has been lost—especially in the South.
This sense of hope and loss is fully displayed in her new book, The House of Being . Weaving together memoir and history, poetry and prose, intimate details from her life and more general observations about the South, the book is a testament to Trethewey’s command of language and her willingness to confront those difficult periods in her life that transformed her. A monologue, a work of biography, an essay on literature and memory, a prose poem full of lyrical dexterity, and a reflection on who she is in a society that has actively tried to partition people based on race, The House of Being is ultimately a study of maturation, of becoming an adult, and of how the early experiences of life can shape you for years to come.
Born in Gulfport, Mississippi, in 1966, Trethewey begins her story at the beginning—with her parents’ marriage. Her Black mother, Gwendolyn Ann Turnbough, was from Gulfport; her white father, Eric Trethewey, was from Canada. In 1967, an interracial couple, Richard and Mildred Loving, brought a Supreme Court case against Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law, hoping that their marital union could be recognized—and to the surprise of many Americans, they won. But Turnbough and Trethewey had married two years earlier, and the poem “Miscegenation,” which their daughter republishes in The House of Being , captures what was at stake:
In 1965 my parents broke two laws of Mississippi; they went to Ohio to marry, returned to Mississippi.
Trethewey’s subsequent birth, while not illegal in its own right, also posed a provocation to the Southern social order: For if her parents’ marriage was deemed illegitimate in the eyes of the State of Mississippi, so was young Natasha. White people in Mississippi would stare at her parents with detestation, and some would call her “mongrel” and “half-breed.” To overcome their animosity, young Trethewey turned to literature: “I learned then from the experience of Odysseus… that it would take cleverness to outpace whatever obstacles stood before me.” The twists and turns of language captivated her. The sinewy words of her mother and grandmother speaking African American vernacular sparked an unending interest in how humans express themselves. At the same time, she thought she could see how society’s racial hierarchies mapped onto the languages spoken around her.
Trethewey’s first home was an intergenerational amalgamation that included her parents and grandmother. Slightly outside Gulfport’s city limits, the family house was in a community once known as Griswold, land settled by formerly enslaved African Americans after the Civil War. It was in this vicinity that Trethewey and her parents were exposed to the fungibility of a semi-rural landscape: red-wing blackbirds soaring through the sky, cows grazing near her backyard, or even the “cracked shell on an old turtle.”
After her parents divorced, Natasha and her mother moved to Atlanta so that her mother could begin graduate school. While her memories of her father during these years were idyllic, those of her stepfather were different. He physically abused her mother, which Natasha only found out about years later—but even then, she sensed something was wrong, and in the years to come she would be haunted by it. As she writes in her poem “What Is Evidence,”
Not the fleeting bruises she’d cover with make-up, a dark patch as if imprint of a scope she’d pressed her eye too close to, looking for a way out
The worst, however, was still to come: In 1985, her stepfather murdered her mother. These moments of sorrow reappear and add to her unrelenting desire to write about her past.
From these early experiences in a South slowly shedding its Jim Crow past, the young Trethewey became an adult—and a writer. She not only understood “the sanctity of books” but felt at home through the concealments of metaphor and the ambiguities of language. In other words, she also became a poet.
Trethewey studied English literature at the University of Georgia and earned an MFA at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. While her educational course might sound conventional for a contemporary writer, as one probes deeper into her story in The House of Being , one begins to see how unusual her literary education was. Along with her early exposure to her mother and grandmother’s way of speaking, she also had a poet in the family: her father. As a child, Trethewey recalls, her father would read stories to her that “must have taken root in my psyche, establishing early on the pattern to which my own journey would conform.”
The experiences of her mother in the South also contributed to Trethewey’s interest in writing and her skills as a poet. Her mother, she recalls in The House of Being , was always “showing me how to signify, how to use received forms to challenge the dominant cultural narrative of our native geography.”
Flannery O’Connor once wrote: “Where you came from is gone. Where you thought you were going to never was there. And where you are is no good unless you can get away from it.” For Trethewey, the dislocation of her early years led her to find a home in the written word. Poetry became a way to create regions for herself; it was also a way to examine the cyclical anguish, the loss, the trauma, and the hopes of living in a region and a country more generally that was legally and then structurally defined by the experience of race.
Over the years, Trethewey became a memoirist and poet determined to render meaning out of these facts of her life. In her collection Thrall , she probed the afterlife of captivity. In Native Guard , she mourned her mother’s death and considered the Southern world they shared. Lines in her poetry tend to jostle between life and history, relationships and regions, the experience of race and the making of it. The death of her mother would in particular come to haunt her, and she turned to prose to make sense of that, as well. In Memorial Drive , her 2020 memoir, she told the story of her mother’s life and death. A study of her relationship with her mother, the book was also a study of her mother’s relationships, of the moments of domestic bliss and the harrowing ones of domestic violence—about race-making in America and how Black women become vulnerable to abuse. “If I was with my father, I measured the polite responses from white people, the way they addressed him as ‘Sir’ or ‘Mister.’ Whereas my mother would be called ‘Gal,’ never ‘Miss’ or ‘Ma’am,’ as I had been taught was proper.” The polarizing experiences of her parents were part of an accruement of observations about the linguistic practice of racial identity—how people are read or made.
In The House of Being , Trethewey revisits many of these early memories, but from a different angle: She is primarily interested in telling the story of her native region, the South. “The ‘Solid South,’” she writes, “was a society based on the myths of innate racial difference, a hierarchy based on notions of supremacy, the language used to articulate that thinking was rooted in the unique experience of white southerners.” As with her mother’s story, so, too, with the story of the South: It has haunted her ever since she was a young person pushing against the Confederate realities and fictions that persisted in the region—whether through Jim Crow laws or groups like the Daughters of the Confederacy or the monuments memorializing the glory of Southern Civil War generals.
In The House of Being , Trethewey seeks to break through these myths and tell a different story about the South. “I am reminded again of the moment in Black Boy when Richard Wright declares he wants to be a writer,” she writes, “and what it means to have someone with a kind of dominion over you try to diminish you by telling you what you cannot do or be.” Like Wright, and much like Hurston before him, Trethewey wants to show what has been lost by telling only one story about the South, and what might be gained by telling another.
Trethewey does this in several bold and original ways. Literalizing her interest in her home region, she considers how the design of Southern homes was influenced by African and Afro-Caribbean architecture. Her grandmother’s shotgun house conveys a story not just about the period it was made in, but also a much longer history. “The long-house format,” she notes, “is a legacy of West African architecture, brought to America by both free and enslaved peoples who arrived in New Orleans from Haiti, after the Revolution in 1804.”
Trethewey also describes the darker side of the American South during the height of the civil rights movement. One of her first memories of “domestic terrorism” occurred at a young age, well before she congealed every incident that happened during the 1960s. After the African American church adjacent to her grandmother’s house led a voter registration drive in Gulfport, an unknown person (most likely white) burned a cross on the plot of land that bordered the church and her grandmother’s house. This racially coded act of hatred was frightening and had a clear message in terms of the violence it conveyed, but it was also ambiguous: It left Trethewey retroactively wondering whether it was motivated by the voter drive or by her interracial household. Such ghosts stalk The House of Being , rambling through its corridors and stairways. Memories, Trethewey reminds us, raise questions that do not always have answers. The South is a place that is simultaneously welcoming and inimical, a home to millions and yet also a hostile land.
James D. Zirin
Books & the Arts / Benjamin Kunkel
Books & the Arts / Samuel Moyn
Feature / Katie Rose Quandt
At times, I wondered if The House of Being needed a more cohesive narrative arc—a clear beginning, middle, and end. The text is often elliptical, circling back on memories and skipping ahead to new and unfamiliar territory. Often it invokes previous books and poems that Trethewey has written, as well as pasts that some of us may need to be more familiar with. This can be invigorating but also frustrating. Yet for Trethewey, the labyrinthine nature of the book is intended to match form with content: Her desire is not to offer a clean and linear narrative. Instead, she wants to tell a story about the South that is full of messiness and confusion. “Writing,” Trethewey notes near the end of the book, “is a way of creating order out of chaos, of taking charge of one’s own story, being the sovereign of the self by pushing back against received knowledge and guarding the sanctity of the dwelling place of the imagination.”
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Edna Bonhomme, a historian of science and writer based in Berlin, Germany, is the author of the forthcoming A History of the World in Six Plagues . She is a contributing writer for Frieze magazine.
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The Covid-19 pandemic sparked what economist Nicholas Bloom calls the " working-from-home economy .". While some workers may have had flexibility to work remotely before the pandemic, this ...
The concept of Work From Home (WFH) has been a significant paradigm shift in the modern corporate world. It is a flexible working arrangement that allows employees to perform their tasks from their homes, leveraging technology and digital platforms. This essay delves into the intricacies of WFH, its advantages, drawbacks, and the future ...
Working from home is a privilege. Working from home for employees should be a perk. In our Ctrip experiment, home-based workers increased their productivity by 13 percent. So on average were being highly productive. But there is always the fear that one or two employees may abuse the system.
1. Improved Work-Life Balance: One of the most significant benefits of working from home is the potential for an improved work-life balance. Remote work allows employees to better integrate their professional responsibilities with personal life, leading to reduced commuting time and greater flexibility in managing their schedules. 2.
Pro: More Time to Spend With Family. Office workers must kiss their loved ones goodbye each morning when heading off to work. In contrast, virtual employees can work down the hall from a work-from ...
The phenomenon of working from home (WFH) is linked to a variety of megatrends that companies have confronted over many years. These include demographic change, leading to shortages of skilled workers in many regions and professions; the individualisation of needs and lifestyles as a result of changing values; and most particularly, the digitalisation of the world of work (Schmoll and Süß ...
Studies of productivity in work-from-home arrangements are all over the map. Some papers have linked remote work with productivity declines of between 8 and 19 percent, while others find drops of ...
Building on the McKinsey Global Institute's body of work on automation, AI, and the future of work, we extend our models to consider where work is performed. 1 Our analysis finds that the potential for remote work is highly concentrated among highly skilled, highly educated workers in a handful of industries, occupations, and geographies.
The reason working from home is so nightmarish for many managers and executives is that a great deal of modern business has been built on the substrate of in-person work. As a society, we tend to ...
Abstract. Global pandemic COVID-19 has left many workers being unable to travel to work in order to limit the transmission of the virus. In fast-paced urban areas, both companies and workers are ...
Besides, working from home guarantees better work-life balance since workers are more flexible in deciding when to open and close their work. In addition, workers operating remotely save more finance and spend less. Overall, employees working from home are likely to be more productive and experience higher growth than those performing their ...
You have a lot of flexibility with most telecommuting jobs. For instance, many work-from-home positions are unaffected by normal business hours, making it easier to attend to life events like medical appointments. Work-from-home roles can be a huge benefit for parents who work unconventional schedules to accommodate their families.
250 Words Essay on Working From Home The Evolution of Work Culture. The advent of technology has revolutionized work culture, with remote work or 'working from home' emerging as a viable alternative to traditional office-based jobs. This shift is not merely a temporary response to global crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, but a long-term ...
Explore the pros and cons of working from home in this thought-provoking advantages and disadvantages of work from home essay. Discover the advantages of flexibility and increased productivity, alongside the challenges of isolation and blurred work-life boundaries. Gain valuable insights into the work-from-home phenomenon and make informed decisions about your own professional journey.
9 benefits of working from home. If these advantages spark excitement or "I could get used to that" thoughts, WFH may be a good fit for you. But keep your circumstances in mind—remote work isn't ideal for everyone. 1. You get greater flexibility in your schedule and your day-to-day life is easier to manage.
May 21, 2021. The retreat to eccentric near-home workplaces has been a common experience during the pandemic, and we've learned that performing useful cognitive work is a fragile endeavor, one ...
Find the metric that's most useful to your work or team so priorities are clear. Be on time. Do not overwork, you are already on the job 24/7. Be positive. WFH employees enjoy higher company loyalty, job satisfaction, and morale because they are better positioned to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Be honest.
Be flexible with meeting times, particularly recurring meetings. It can be tricky to accommodate time zones across the world, but by keeping everyone's schedules in mind, each employee will feel valued. Be deliberate and clear on expectations so employees—both remote and in-house—know how, where, and when communication occurs.
Here are 10 employee benefits of working from home. Efficient - According to studies people who work from home show signs of effective, and efficient working. Improved productivity is gained by working in a comfortable and friendly environment. In addition, people who work from home offices are not distracted by their surroundings, which allows ...
Both work from home and work from office has its own advantages and disadvantages. If you wish to cut-down the commute time and increase productivity, then work from home is better. However, if you focus on better collabaration then working from office is better. Hence work from home vs work from office has its own set of pros and cons.
In my opinion, the benefits of working from home can surely surpass offset the drawbacks due to the following reasons: various reasons. The first sentence is not accurate. It implies that people did not work from home in the past; however, throughout history, many people did work from home, for example, the classical novelists and artists.
So, working from home have its advantages in that you can spend time with kids as well while working or on small breaks. 3. Impact on mental and physical fitness: Working from home impacts your health positively. You will get good and proper time to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Working from home is a convenient method for the professional to work in their home. According to this pandemic situation, professionals need a remote job. As we review the work culture as a 9 to 5 job. How difficult and complex, in rushing to the office in traffic and the climatic condition such as the rainy season.
Natasha Trethewey's Life in Poetry and Prose Natasha Trethewey's Life in Poetry and Prose . A work of biography, an essay on literature and memory and the South, a prose poem full of lyrical ...
In December 2012, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student boarded a bus in New Delhi a little after 9 p.m., expecting it would take her home. Instead, she was gang-raped and assaulted so viciously ...
In 1856, Victorian stonemasons won a world-first fight, demanding they work no more than eight hours a day. But these days, Australians are putting in "extreme and excessive" working hours ...
Indeed, I felt the same way. My relationship with toplessness was part of a very democratic cultural status quo. If every woman on the beaches of the Mediterranean—from the sexy girls tanning on ...
A work of biography, an essay on literature and memory and the South, a prose poem full of lyrical dexterity, Trethewey's latest book is like all of her others: a master study of the self.
Sir Keir Starmer has backed more working from home after No 10 warned that a "culture of presenteeism" is bad for productivity. The Prime Minister's spokesman suggested plans to introduce a ...
The doctor's death has sparked a nation-wide conversation on violence against women in India The rape and murder of a trainee doctor in India's Kolkata city earlier this month has sparked ...