Yesterday much of the city was closed for the 3rd day in a row because of this past weekend’s ice storm. Schools were cancelled or doing remote education. The main roads seemed to be clear of ice but the side roads were hit and miss. Because the temps started in the low teens, many remained schools closed due to the potential for black ice.
It’s interesting to watch this from my perspective. When I was going to school in the 1970s & 80s and later when my step kids were in school in the 1990s things were much different. First, we lived in Pittsburgh which is in the Western PA snow belt. It was common for us to have the streets covered with ice, snow and slush for weeks at a time.
There weren’t options for remote work or school. Because PA law mandated students have a minimum of 180 days of school schools were reluctant to call off for snow days. They did have a few floating snow days into each year’s schedule. Usually these were saved for blizzard like conditions when we would get anywhere from 12″-36″ of snow and the roads were impassable.
We never closed due to cold temperatures, rainstorms, heat waves or any other extreme weather conditions. If we had a particularly heavy snowfall year that required more snow days than available, make-up days were scheduled during spring holiday breaks and then tacked on to the end of the year.
During snow days, many parents still had to go to work. Some took the kids with them or had family babysit. Many of us kids were latchkey kids so we stayed home alone without supervision. It was fine.
Here’s what I noticed during the past 3 days in my suburban neighborhood in Raleigh:
- There were many people out walking dogs throughout the day.
- Kids were outside sledding, playing and definitely not doing remote schoolwork.
- There were so many families out for leisurely strolls it reminder me of Christmas and Thanksgiving, when visiting relatives fill the sidewalks and parks.
In other words – it wasn’t all remote learning and working from home.
Having worked from home for about 1/3 of my career, I’m familiar with the advantages of its flexibility. Still, it took many years before I took full advantage off it. Instead, I tended to work more. I would use my lunch break to walk the dog or run an errand but otherwise was often working from the early morning into the late evening hours.
That’s just how I am. (Stupid sometimes, obviously).
Later in my career, when I was managing teams of remote employees I realized that many people took too much advantage of working from home. I knew of some people who worked 2 different jobs simultaneously- receiving 2 full-time paychecks while giving neither employer full time work. More common were people who pretended to be working full-time but instead spent significant amounts of work hours taking care of their kids, running errands or otherwise being focused on non-work activities.
I’m not making a value judgment here. In hindsight, I wish I would have worked less myself. It didn’t feel “right” to me at the time. Also, since I was in sales I was constantly striving to hit or exceed my quota so just taking it easy was never a consideration for me. I needed the money.
I actually think having fewer school days, WFH options and flexible working hours is hugely beneficial for students and workers. It’s one of the reasons I stayed in sales. I like being autonomous and in charge of my day. It was much preferred to punching a timecard and spending time at school/work doing “make work”.
In any of the best companies I worked for, managing employees via mandatory attendance, minimal time off, time cards and “time management” were a waste of time. The great employees always worked harder, longer and with more passion. The mediocre ones met the “time criteria” but rarely made a significant impact. The bad employees gamed the system. I’ll bet the same thing happens today too.
Implementing strict behavioral controls may provide some managers (and schools) with an illusion of control and maximizing employe productivity.
I don’t believe that is true.