I had never heard of this chic term until my internship began in April. ‘The new world of work’ is its equivalent in English, which sounds even fancier. With this new concept of workplace, as my supervisor said, ‘you can work several days at home’. In the first two months I adapted so well to it that I even went to the office once a week for the regular appointment with my supervisor, who actually attended the meeting at home via the Skype-like internal software. I had been enjoying such freedom until the advent of June, when I realized I was badly behind on my schedule. The suddenly stirred-up unrest urged me to go back to work in the office. But the old fashioned way didn’t make any me better off. Firsty, the commute saps my time and energy. Theoretically it takes at least two hours per day, but all kinds of unexpected conditions on the way could easily extend it to 3 hours. Along with many people who say ‘my commute is killing’, I can’t agree more. Secondly, according to the new world of work, there’s just no fixed workplace in the office. The so-called headquarter is only a meeting place. The meeting rooms are therefore always full while the office room is usually empty. In the office I’ve seldom talked to anyone except my supervisor in the computer. The bright side, however, is that I do have fewer distractions as I’m kind of trapped in the middle of nowhere and the laptop of the company can’t display Chinese, which immensely restricted my social activity online. Moreover, it’s an ideal place to practice my Dutch as all the documents they have are in Dutch and people only talk in Dutch to me, if they would like to talk. Anyway it’s a valuable experience as I believe the new world of work will be the future. More of us will face this change. But in the remaining two months of my internship, I prefer to continue my commute. Because I think I’m not yet disciplined enough to get things done and done well at home.
Vid of the Week: What if everyone was a civil servant? In the new world of work, this 9-to-5 mindset might go extinct.