Coronavirus: What Has Happened to Us, People?

Today, some 50 to 80 percent of those who are now working remotely say that they prefer to stay at home even after the pandemic is over. Even in the less developed digital economies, such as that in Bulgaria, the figures are similar. The common platforms, video connection, access to all kinds of archives and programs actually makes our labor more productive. We save hours of being strangled in traffic jams, relax on a sofa in pajamas with our favorite cat in the lap while our bosses save money on office rent.

However, any progress has its price. Remote working contributes to growing inequality between people. Some have all kinds of conveniences at home, others do not, some families have a separate room for each member and can afford moving to a comfortable summer house, others can find isolation only in a wardrobe. There is an emerging will for universal and free access to the Internet and if the quarantine persists, probably there will also emerge new policies in this sphere.

So far, though, workers shoulder the main burden of the digital migration. I do not know how matters stand with the Bulgarian school teachers, but we, at the universities started working remotely without any help from the institution, it did not pay neither for internet subscriptions, nor for new PCs. Some may say that these are trifles but these trifles are too many.

Close things proved to be so far away

The new remote work sets a new trend - it may blur the distinction between work and leisure time. Well, you are at your colleagues' disposal practically around the clock. To the difference in Internet skills, which some of us had luck to acquire before the pandemic, one more purely psychological difference will be added that remote work...