‘When the Daily Commute Stops’: A Long-Distance Commuter’s Reflections on Commuting and Telecommuting across the COVID-19 Pandemic

Clive Trusson, Gwen K-W Chen and John Bridger
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Clive Trusson: Loughborough University, UK
Gwen K-W Chen: Nottingham Trent University, UK
John Bridger: Engineering Design Specialist

Work, Employment & Society, 2024, vol. 38, issue 1, 279-290

Abstract: This article foregrounds the working experience of a knowledge worker in the United Kingdom across three years (2019–2022) that included periods of ‘lockdown’ and other social restrictions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Across seven separate interview extracts, it offers a longitudinal narrative on the lived experience of substituting a workday comprising a long-distance commute by car to work ‘standard’ hours for an extended workday telecommuting from home. Over time the worker paradoxically recognises that telecommuting entails added pressures of work intensification, extensification and greater domestic responsibility but this is preferable to returning to a long-distance dissatisfying commute. The reflexive narrative reveals how he embraces the pressures of telecommuting through job crafting to re-identify as an autonomous professional and more engaged care-giving parent. The article contributes to the literature on hybrid/flexible forms of work organisation emerging from the pandemic by indicating the importance of micro-level considerations and implications for gender equality.

Keywords: commuting; COVID-19; digital technologies; discontinuity; fatherhood; gender roles; hybrid working; knowledge work; telecommuting; work from home (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:woemps:v:38:y:2024:i:1:p:279-290

DOI: 10.1177/09500170231188660

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