“We’re seeing this great resignation,” says Charlie Warzel, the author of the Galaxy Brain newsletter and co-author of the forthcoming book Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from Home. Data from the Office for National Statistics shows that many people are not returning to their pre-pandemic jobs, or if they are, they are requesting to work from home, clawing back all those hours previously lost to commuting. One recent survey found that more than 56% of unemployed people were not actively looking for a new job. The UK and the US are currently in the grip of a workforce crisis. “But I wish we were taught to place as high a value on our time as we do on our bank accounts – because how you spend your hours and your days is how you spend your life.”Īnd the pandemic has created a new cohort of time millionaires. “Wealth can bring comfort and security in its wake,” says Roy. “Or more accurately, the work he thinks I’m doing.”įirst named by the writer Nilanjana Roy in a 2016 column in the Financial Times, time millionaires measure their worth not in terms of financial capital, but according to the seconds, minutes and hours they claw back from employment for leisure and recreation. “I could not be happier.” He is practically singing.Īnd his boss? “My boss is happy with the work I’m doing,” he says. We are here for a good time.” And for now, Gavin is living the good life. Gavin’s job is an unfortunate expediency that facilitates his enjoyment of the one thing that does matter to him in life: his time. “I don’t see any value or purpose in work. “I work to pay my bills and keep a roof over my head,” he says.

In religious terms – well, few gods would smile on such indolence.

In moral terms, he is to be despised there are antonyms for the word “grafter”, and none of them are good. In economic terms, he is a unit of negative output. One might reasonably describe Gavin (not his real name) as a deadbeat.

To stop his laptop from going into sleep mode – lest his employers check it for activity – Gavin played a 10-hour YouTube video of a black screen. He would start at 8.30am and clock off about 11am. When the pandemic began, Gavin, now working as a software engineer, realised, to his inexhaustible joy, that he could get away with doing less work than he had ever dreamed of, from the comfort of his home. He would take an hour for breakfast, and two for lunch. His best-ever job was as a civil servant. When he worked in a pub, he would sneak out of the building and go to another pub nearby, for a pint. When he worked in a call centre, he would mute the phone, rather than answer it. I n every job he has ever had, Gavin has shirked.

Half life black screen