Body Doubling at Work, now that's NASTY!

Apparently it's trending in work-at-home related searches ATM: the practice of

where two people occupy the same digital space while working in different locations... this may take the form of just constantly being on zoom all the work-long day.

If you do a search for this, there is a suspiciously positive discourse surrounding the concept... with more than one sponsored site where people can sign up to find a body double, it's billed as helping ADHD minds (note how there's no longer any real stigma against this) and also about enhancing productivity.

You get the feeling that this is workers seeking this for themselves, at least from the first page of searches - the feeling is that people are feeling distracted working at home and want help to be more productive....

OK I get the advantages....

I mean I am terrible at focussing on work at home, and so rather than working 4 hours straight I will pad that out over 6 or 7 and do little tasks between.

I can see why it might be better to have a more painful 4 hours and then free up the rest of my time after.

And if one is doing this to cut one's working hours, then great. However I can't see it working like this for employees - work will expand to fill your time, if you complete tasks 1-5 quicker, your employer will just give you further tasks!

The above at least is voluntary, which obvs is fine, if it's for you, sign up!

The downsides..?

This is basically surveillance, peer surveillance, and now the genie is out of the bottle I can see this being imposed on some employees.

It's kind of like being invigilated. I can't imagine it's very relaxing!

I'd much rather just be left alone with the 30 minute daily team check in, ideally less than that!

Final thoughts....

Would you have to do a virtual lunch with them too?

No, this just sounds awful!

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