e-Misery

Iclearly recall the moment in the early nineties that my then-colleagues and I each received a hand-delivered memo from our employer, outlining in stark terms that employees would punished if we were found using a new online tool “on company time”, while they were paying us to work.

That tool, as funny as it may seem in hindsight, was email.

Back then, long before the words “social media” existed, the fear was that we’d all spend countless hours chit-chatting with one another while staring at our screens, thereby making it harder for our taskmasters to spot us socializing, rather than grinding away productively.

Even 30 years ago, I hated email. And with every year, I grew to resent it more. As an “art kid”, the idea of trading the creative mess of the architect’s studio—full of models, drawings and creative detritus-cum-inspiration—for an array of pristine monitors and keyboards seemed nonsensical. Nonetheless, the inevitable digitization of our work lives not only made it difficult to tell the difference between us and a bank, it made a lie out of the word “studio” itself.

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