Stikkord: Work from home

Back to 2020 – The Year Everything Shifted
When the world shut down in 2020, many able-bodied people experienced working from home for the first time.
During this time, they discovered what disabled people had been saying for decades:

• working from home reduces energy use
• commuting should not be a moral work requirement
• the choice of flexibility creates healthier days, and happier people
• the concept of productivity is not tied to litteral office-work

Since then, the years that followed has left even more people permanently changed. Long Covid rose globally, and chronic illnesses increased. It was as if – over night, millions of people were suddenly living in bodies they couldn’t recognise; bodies that behaved vastly different than they did before.

So, when the world suddenly decided it was «time to get back to the office»
many newly disabled people were unable to do so.
Suddenly, remote work was not just a convenient option. For many it became a lifeline. And for a moment, for many of us who were already disabled pre-covid, it looked like the future work-marked would finally include us.

But then comes the real question – the one I’ve been asking myself more and more lately; was remote work ever built with disabled people in mind?
Or was it just built for the able-bodied people who temporarily needed it?

The Promise of Remote Work
Remote work holds enormous potential for disabled people:

• fewer sensory triggers
• more control over energy and environment
• the ability to rest, stretch and manage a variety of sympoms
• no inaccesible public transit
• flexibility around medical appointments
• lower social pressure
  
  For many of us, remote work felt like the beginning of a revolution. A moment when the world caught up to the reality disabled people had lived in all along.
  But as we all should know by now, potential is not the same as design,
  – and accessibility is not the same as inclusion.
  While remote work it has the potential to be extremelty liberating – it is often designed and illustrated as the digital version of jobs, with the same structural barriers as before.
  
  Thus, many disabled people report; stricter scedules, despite the word «flexible» being featured in job descriptions. Others experience «zoom-fatigue», especially for those of us with neurological or sensory disabilities. Furthermore, while it varies between countries – some employers have expected constant availability, and several organizations lacks clear accomodation policies.
  Many disabled workers with cognitive or physical needs – have also experienced the lack of adaptable digital tools – which makes remote work difficult, if said tools are nessesarry to be able to work in the first place.
  Others have also experienced a pressure to keep their cameras on, despite it being unessesarry for the work they do.
  And lastly, many employees experienced a form of isolation without proper support – infrastructure, which can take a toll on anyone .

Truth be told, remote work only seems inclusive, when the people designing it assumes everyone doing it is able-bodied.
And so the hopeful dream quickly becomes another exhausting reality check.

My Own Experience: A Disabled Worker in a Digital World
As a disabled individual, I can during good weeks work up to 40% – if I’m careful.
I have creative skills, practical experience and education
– as well as a genuine desire to contribute something meaningful.
Remote work should, tecnically speaking be the perfect sollution for someone like me; someone who are perfectly able to work by themselves – but also unable/ unnalowed to take rushtime public-transit or drive a car.

Yet, in the past few years, none of these things have helped me, because I don’t know the right people, and I don’t have the energy to go out and fakely befriend them either. Thus, I’ve applied for job after job, with no luck.
Instead, I’ve faced descrimination on interviews, emails, and sometimes even face-to-face. Is this illegal? – yes. Is this common – even more yes.

And I am far from being alone in this!

Employers seem to love the idea of remote work – until the employee is disabled. Then suddenly, it’s a problem.
It’s almost like remote work is framed as a benefit for busy, high-performing professionals who dreams of flexibility.

But in reality, the concept of remote work has been a basic accomodation practice disableed people have needed for decades.
So, I decided to shift my energy elsewhere. I write. I create. I’ve made my own practice of ‘remote-work’ that is built around my own needs, and my own scedule.
Thus, I’m able to productively use my energy during the hours I have
– and it has made me much happier for it!

Where did remote work go wrong?

«Remote work should not be a privilige.
For disabled people, it’s accessibility – and accessibility is a human right».
– Alice Wong, disability activist & founder of Disability Visibility

The current work model fails disabled people in many ways:

1. it assumes productivity looks the same for everyone…
   Some of us work best in 2-hour bursts.
   Some need mid-day rest
   Some need to handle medical routine in between tasks.
   ¨¨¨~Productivity should be measured by output, not through hours glued to a screen.
   
2. It wasn’t built with energy limitations in mind.
   Fatigue is not the same as laziness.
   Executive dysfunction is not disinterest.
   ~Disability is not something you «manage around»- it’s a reality shaped by body, biology and boundaries.
   
3. It excludes disabled voices by design.
   Companies build remote work systems without consulting the people who need – and rely on them the most.
   ~Thus, the systems becomes an echo of the office – not an improvement of it.

What remote work could become – if we chose to listen

While I’ve painted quite a muddy picture, I still believe that remote work could become revolutionary. But for that to happen, businesses – and the world at large needs to be willing to listen, and to do the nessessary work, for all people.

In my mind this is a future where:

• meeting default to asynchronous communication
• scedules adapt to body rhytms
• employers understand energy budgeting
• disabled workers help design digital tools
• output matters more than presence
• camera – off culture is normalized
• accessibility is built – in, not added later.

Final Reflection: A task for my readers
This week, I want you to explore your own relationship to «work».
Ask yourself:

• What does productivity actually mean for my body?
• what daily rhytms supports my health, my body, and my mind?
• if remote work felt freeing – how so?
• What would a truly inclusive workday/ week look like for me?

Write down your answers, let yourself dream a little.
Because the current systems may not be built for all of us,
but that does not mean that we cannot imagine.
After all, if we imagine enough, we might be able to create new systems ourself, and ask for something better.

– Silje