Composite narrative of Casey
| Composite narrative: Casey | Researcher interpretation |
|---|---|
| I feel like the unhurried, unorganized and spontaneous conversations – like those taking place when getting coffee before face-to-face meetings – are the ones that really move things forward. It does feel like our meetings are efficient as they focus strictly on the point but at the expense of social interaction and our sense of community. There is no room for social chitchat or small talk in online meetings. Often it feels like we are all so busy and thinking “let’s just get it over with and move on to the next topic” but I think we should pay attention to social interaction | First, Casey’s narrative reflects the double-edged nature of the seeming increase in work efficiency. Casey feels that the important, social dimension of interaction is brushed over in accelerated hybrid work settings |
| I’m annoyed when unurgent phone calls interrupt my working, for instance if I’m using machinery and need to shut it down to answer the phone – especially if the matter is something that could have been an email. Interruptions also come from other sources, most often through instant messages which I receive a lot. On Monday, for example, when I worked on the computer, the instant messages interrupted my work repeatedly. The overload caused by the push notifications is just awful which is why I have started to sometimes disable those. Oh, and how peaceful it is to work in another room if I forget my phone on recharge at my desk. The rhythm of working – and life altogether – is just so hectic nowadays! | Casey also experiences the increasing pace and simultaneity of tasks and interactions as burdensome. These experiences highlight the technology-intensive nature of hybrid work. Acceleration and related negative experiences are attributed to the technologies as the increase of speed materializes in calls, notifications and other types of technology-mediated interruptions |
| I’m tired of learning new tools as I struggle with the ones we have already. I’m not very skilled as on some apps, with every push of a button I have to think what’s going to happen. That’s not efficient use of worktime | Casey also admits that part of the negative experience stems from their own lack of technological competence. This lack of competence transforms into perceived lack of temporal autonomy as time use becomes less efficient |
| We don’t really have rules for technology-mediated communication, and this creates challenges. There is overlap as the very same matters are discussed on email, Teams and other channels. Because of this, searching for information takes unnecessary amounts of time. The lack of shared practices includes the maintenance of work–life boundaries as well. I’d like to separate worktime from leisure very strictly, but some people have other practices. Last night I received a message from a colleague to my private phone, which annoyed me. I guess now that the technologies enable connectivity 24/7, everyone has to care for their work–life boundaries themselves, but this shouldn’t be the case | From Casey’s perspective, the key challenge, however, seems to be collective as the organizational practices are not currently supporting decelerating. Connectivity seems to fill every temporal slot in one’s life, during and after workhours. Moreover, employees are given too much individual responsibility in managing connectivity |
| Our days are often filled with Teams-meetings and the breaks between those are brief or non-existent. This is tiresome and makes concentrating difficult. It seems that other people at NRC aren’t happy with the situation either as there is quite a lot of space given for collective complaining such as “oh how awful this meetings situation has become”. At the same time, though, that is how we normalize the situation. But people shouldn’t be left alone with this. There should be training on time management, and the rules should be set together | Casey continues describing NRC’s temporally unsustainable meeting practices and demands organizational support. In effect, Casey would like to see explicit, organizationally determined temporal structures that provide a clear and shared basis for temporal autonomy in hybrid work |
| There is an organization-level initiative for meetings-free Friday at NRC. It hasn’t fully worked as sometimes we just have to meet on a Friday if that is the only time everyone is available, but I think this is an excellent direction and it gives people authority to decide for themselves and decline meetings | NRC had already taken action to encourage employees to disconnect and manage their time use. Casey is hopeful because NRC has heard employee wishes, although the initiative of restricting meetings has not been fully successful |
| Technologies are constantly developing, and NRC is implementing new tools very often. In many of our work practices I’d say the technology has pretty much led the way, and it’d be useful – as a work community – to think what would happen if we didn’t have it, if we really had to slow down. At the very least we should pay careful attention to the effects these technological implementations have in the long run, because the real problems likely become apparent only after a long time | Casey’s narrative concludes with worrisome future speculations. One last time, Casey demands organizational attention to the challenges of acceleration, especially with regard to the autonomy of workers. Casey finds that technologies should not define the ways of working but the organization and its members should take the responsibility for defining temporally sustainable collaboration practices |
| Composite narrative: Casey | Researcher interpretation |
|---|---|
| I feel like the unhurried, unorganized and spontaneous conversations – like those taking place when getting coffee before face-to-face meetings – are the ones that really move things forward. It does feel like our meetings are efficient as they focus strictly on the point but at the expense of social interaction and our sense of community. There is no room for social chitchat or small talk in online meetings. Often it feels like we are all so busy and thinking “let’s just get it over with and move on to the next topic” but I think we should pay attention to social interaction | First, Casey’s narrative reflects the double-edged nature of the seeming increase in work efficiency. Casey feels that the important, social dimension of interaction is brushed over in accelerated hybrid work settings |
| I’m annoyed when unurgent phone calls interrupt my working, for instance if I’m using machinery and need to shut it down to answer the phone – especially if the matter is something that could have been an email. Interruptions also come from other sources, most often through instant messages which I receive a lot. On Monday, for example, when I worked on the computer, the instant messages interrupted my work repeatedly. The overload caused by the push notifications is just awful which is why I have started to sometimes disable those. Oh, and how peaceful it is to work in another room if I forget my phone on recharge at my desk. The rhythm of working – and life altogether – is just so hectic nowadays! | Casey also experiences the increasing pace and simultaneity of tasks and interactions as burdensome. These experiences highlight the technology-intensive nature of hybrid work. Acceleration and related negative experiences are attributed to the technologies as the increase of speed materializes in calls, notifications and other types of technology-mediated interruptions |
| I’m tired of learning new tools as I struggle with the ones we have already. I’m not very skilled as on some apps, with every push of a button I have to think what’s going to happen. That’s not efficient use of worktime | Casey also admits that part of the negative experience stems from their own lack of technological competence. This lack of competence transforms into perceived lack of temporal autonomy as time use becomes less efficient |
| We don’t really have rules for technology-mediated communication, and this creates challenges. There is overlap as the very same matters are discussed on email, Teams and other channels. Because of this, searching for information takes unnecessary amounts of time. The lack of shared practices includes the maintenance of work–life boundaries as well. I’d like to separate worktime from leisure very strictly, but some people have other practices. Last night I received a message from a colleague to my private phone, which annoyed me. I guess now that the technologies enable connectivity 24/7, everyone has to care for their work–life boundaries themselves, but this shouldn’t be the case | From Casey’s perspective, the key challenge, however, seems to be collective as the organizational practices are not currently supporting decelerating. Connectivity seems to fill every temporal slot in one’s life, during and after workhours. Moreover, employees are given too much individual responsibility in managing connectivity |
| Our days are often filled with Teams-meetings and the breaks between those are brief or non-existent. This is tiresome and makes concentrating difficult. It seems that other people at NRC aren’t happy with the situation either as there is quite a lot of space given for collective complaining such as “oh how awful this meetings situation has become”. At the same time, though, that is how we normalize the situation. But people shouldn’t be left alone with this. There should be training on time management, and the rules should be set together | Casey continues describing NRC’s temporally unsustainable meeting practices and demands organizational support. In effect, Casey would like to see explicit, organizationally determined temporal structures that provide a clear and shared basis for temporal autonomy in hybrid work |
| There is an organization-level initiative for meetings-free Friday at NRC. It hasn’t fully worked as sometimes we just have to meet on a Friday if that is the only time everyone is available, but I think this is an excellent direction and it gives people authority to decide for themselves and decline meetings | NRC had already taken action to encourage employees to disconnect and manage their time use. Casey is hopeful because NRC has heard employee wishes, although the initiative of restricting meetings has not been fully successful |
| Technologies are constantly developing, and NRC is implementing new tools very often. In many of our work practices I’d say the technology has pretty much led the way, and it’d be useful – as a work community – to think what would happen if we didn’t have it, if we really had to slow down. At the very least we should pay careful attention to the effects these technological implementations have in the long run, because the real problems likely become apparent only after a long time | Casey’s narrative concludes with worrisome future speculations. One last time, Casey demands organizational attention to the challenges of acceleration, especially with regard to the autonomy of workers. Casey finds that technologies should not define the ways of working but the organization and its members should take the responsibility for defining temporally sustainable collaboration practices |
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