The "pleasure" of Smart Working
29 July 2024
It seems like a lifetime ago, yet the first lockdown due to COVID-19 dates back to March 2020.
I have always thought that the pandemic, the emergency and the lockdown taught us at least two fundamental concepts:
we are all equal and should be united,
we have long passed the beginning of the new millennium and should have understood that for certain jobs it is not necessary to go to the office.
Looking closely, however, it seems that both concepts went in one ear and out the other.
We encouraged ourselves by saying that from home we could do everything. Then, not even a year passed and companies started pulling back, forcing employees to return each seated at their own desk.
I have always understood this attitude as a kind of management insecurity that, not being able to properly manage the workforce, prefers to have all employees in sight. As if their presence in the office legitimized the salary. As in: "Even if you are not productive, at least you are not at home doing nothing".
Years ago, well before the pandemic, I was working remotely for a Sicilian company on a Slovenian client project. I only saw my Sicilian colleagues during a pleasure trip I wanted to take to Messina. Despite this, we always worked well.
In fact, maybe we even worked "better".
That's why, when I decided to found illegal studio, I promised myself it would be a "full-remote native" company. A company born full-remote and wanting to try to continue like this, so full-remote that it does not even have a physical headquarters.
Sure, it is a challenge. We are still small and for now it seems to be working. My hope is that it can continue to work for a long time, to face the challenges ahead with the smile and the desire to do that has distinguished us so far.
