Ponto de Vista

#WFH #gyaan Going through my old folders, I found a column I wrote for Mid-Day back in 2013 about working from home. It’s dated but still more or less holds, so I decided to post it. The text is too long for LinkedIn so I was finally motivated to put it on my very neglected web site:

CC: pexels-huy-phan-316220-11382772

Hed: The case for working at home

Byline: Chhavi Sachdev

Words:  600

Subhed: It’s not about being Zen, it’s about discipline.

By pulling the flush on working from home at Yahoo!, last week Marissa Mayer sparked quite the debate online and off. On twitter, most of the people on my timeline were outraged (but, of course!) Everyone was for working from home.

But when a leading Indian daily published an op/ed positing that only a rare breed with ‘a Zen approach’ could possibly hope to accomplish anything at home, I was incensed (erm, clearly, I don’t have this Zen approach). Does it really take a personality type? I think not. What it does take is discipline and a few good habits.

I belong to a tribe of people who bristle at the implication that working from home means you’re goofing off. The truth – my truth – is that I’m much more productive at home without the constant interruptions that constitute ‘work culture’ here – and anywhere in the world.

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Binoy Kumar Sur makes papier maché masks for dance theatre troupes and religious parades mostly. There was a time when business was better, now it’s dwindling. He inherited this shop in Shankhari Bazaar, old Dhaka, from his father. It’s more than 80 years old. It takes him about 5 days to make 10 leopard masks, but the Kali goddesses take at least double that much time. He was most gracious to us, perhaps happy to have an interested audience.  (more…)

As part of a solutions story for the BBC World Service, I visited a factory where an incredible scheme has been rolled out to give workers the benefits of health insurance as an add-on to their monthly grocery shopping. Over the course of two days we talked to workers in the ready-made garment export industry and saw for ourselves that the conditions were really good. In 2013 a garment factory collapse killed more than 1,000 people and since then, (more…)