Is Remote Work Actually Easier Than A 9-5? 

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my one year of remote work, it’s that people don’t really respect my work. Whenever I tell someone I work from home, their first instinct is to downplay my job, talking about “it’s so easy, I am so lucky, and that I am enjoying.”

At first, I took this as a compliment. After all, who wants to be told that they’re suffering? But now I no longer find it nice to hear, as it reads like a dismissal of my work, the energy I put into it, and a way to subtly condescend to me.

The reality is this isn’t limited to me. In fact, everyone who does remote work has heard this in different formats, all designed to put you down. So here are the facts:

My friends and family don’t rate or see my job as work simply because I’m not waking up at 5 am (which I am, mind you) to iron my corporate wear, pack lunch, and head into Lagos traffic, just to rinse and repeat for five days.

Which is why my mother thinks it’s fine to call me in the middle of my Monday morning sync meeting to warm stew or run an errand. After all, I’m not in the office but at home.

Did I forget to add that I am the de facto babysitter because I’m always home?

Imagine the disrespect. I am tired of repeatedly explaining to people around me that I’m busy. Do you think I am glued to my laptop because I like the sound of the clacking? I can promise you, I do not enjoy murmuring to myself while I work across three devices because I am bored.

The disrespect we remote workers face in our Nigerian households is actually quite crazy and out of hand. They assume we have it easy, feet kicked up, reclining in bed, with money just rolling our way. Meanwhile, the “real workers” are stuck in traffic, suffering through their commutes.

Is spending hours in traffic the only way to measure a person’s busyness? Is traffic a measure of work? Is wearing corporate clothes the best way to signify that you are busy?

Laugh during a meeting, and your mom’s head will pop in at the door. “I thought you were busy,” she’ll say with a scowl on her face, as if the laughter confirmed her deepest darkest suspicions: I’m actually unemployed.

I’m starting to think that there’s this fantasy in their minds where I, the remote worker, wake up somewhere around 9 or 10 am, log into my email, write one or two messages, light a candle, do my yoga, eat breakfast and watch a show, work out, reply to another email, then wait for my salary to enter my account.

Yeah. Lmao to that. I wish.

In reality, I’m working before I even open my eyes. You know that split second you get when you wake up but haven’t opened your eyes? Yeah, I’m already working even then, thinking of my tasks. By the time I roll out of bed, my Google Chat and Slack spaces have started buzzing. I’ve gotten about six emails, I’ve been mentioned in different threads, and I probably have a scheduled meeting coming my way in a few hours.

But no, because I’m not fighting my way through traffic on Yaba Road, my life must be easy.

In a traditional 9–5, as the name implies, you work from 9 to 5, meaning at 5, you stop. You clock out. You switch from work-you to the real you. Sure, yes, sometimes you may have to stay at work late, your boss may demand you work overtime, and sometimes, your work even stretches to the weekend. I’m not dismissing that or trying to downplay the realities of traditional 9-5 jobs. Everyone has seen that TikTok of the guy who enters a million buses (and a boat) to get to work.

But again, as I mentioned above, a boundary still exists between you and your work. Once you are done and leave the office, you do leave your work behind. You get to mentally and physically disengage from it.

That doesn’t exist remotely.

The most important con to note is that with remote work, there’s no clocking out. You don’t end work at a specific time, nor can you escape it. Sure, some job descriptions will tell you they operate on the same 9–5 time constraints, but they’re lying to you. You’re with your laptop 24/7 because there’s always something you need to take care of, and there’s always something that needs your urgent attention.

Your home is the office. You can’t run. You can’t hide. Neither can you pause. You’re always on. You lose all sense of time and self because you’re too attached to work, and your mind is on the next KPI to hit as you go about your personal life.

This is literally why they pay you a data allowance.

You are always online. Always reachable. Always responsive. That’s why you get messages every minute, emails every hour, and “can we jump on a quick call?” huddles. After all, you’re working from home. What else do you have going on that keeps you from being available 24/7?

Which is why work times run so late. I’ve had messages demanding I work on things at 1 am. And I was expected to reply promptly. You work online, which means there are no time restrictions on your duties, unlike a 9-5, where things like personal safety have to be considered.

You’re constantly on, fixing and making last-minute adjustments, irrespective of whether you were meant to have clocked out hours ago. Especially if you work across borders with international companies, where the time differences don’t match up with ours, or if you have multiple remote jobs.

You’re cooked.

Adding to your already long list of problems at work, your family members will now make things worse. If you live with your family, you definitely understand how hard and draining it is to survive alongside them while trying to build your career.

Your mom is calling you to change diapers or do house chores while your boss is tagging you in several threads, complaining about your quality of work.

There’s a reason why several remote workers move out of their family homes. Family dynamics are already quite complicated on their own, but when you mix in your stress with the fact that you work from home and are always around, it makes for a very volatile combination. If you worked a 9-5, at least you wouldn’t be stuck in the house all the time. You would only be in on weekends, and the interactions would be a whole lot different.

Not to mention the challenges like electricity and network that many of us struggle with at home.  I personally come from a large family, and the only place that’s sane enough for me to work is my room. That has zero network. At work, my boss already knows that I can’t go twenty minutes without dropping off or saying every twenty minutes, “I can’t hear you, please come again.”

When it comes to electricity, as a Nigerian, it goes without saying that remote workers are going through it. With limited access to electricity, let alone a good network, it’s always a battle to stay sane. At least, for 9-5ers, if your place of work cannot provide electricity or a good network, that’s on them. Not you. It’s practically a free day for you when that happens, since these resources are meant to be provided by the company.

But remotely, it’s all on you. No one asked you not to have 24/7 electricity at home, or not to get a generator or go to a workstation to charge, two things that cost money when you add it all up. By the time you shell out money for fuel five times a week, or go to a work station five times, you’re just about ready to give up on the entire concept of life. Especially if you work for a global company or people overseas, who simply cannot understand what it’s like living in a country where 24-hour electricity is a fantasy. Sure, they may be sympathetic the first few times, but after a while, it gets old, and your constant (but true) complaints start to sound like excuses.

And then while you’re trying to stay sane amid the chaos, someone in your house is nagging at you for “pressing the phone too much.”

Staring at a screen for well over 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, is hard.

I don’t have a word for the fatigue exactly, but it’s brutal. I’m only 20, yet I’ve lost any and all zeal for pressing my phone.

Working remotely siphons your energy for digital tools. After working on my laptop and phone for over 50 hours a week, my idea of a fun time is being locked in a room without technology. The back-to-back messaging, meetings, and virtual activity is tiring and overstimulating. And you can never escape.

Even when you want to use your phone and laptop for personal reasons or to amuse yourself, it’s never the same because you’ve lost the attraction and appeal of being on it.

And if you’re like me and you work in media, even doomscrolling loses its appeal because whatever content you consume, you’re filing away for how you can use it for work.

You end every day overstimulated because of the sheer amount of information you have to process. And the tiredness never goes away. All it does is grow.

The health issues you develop from remote work, especially as a Nigerian woman, are beyond real. Physically, mentally, emotionally, it’s tough.

Physically, your body changes in ways you can’t predict. You either develop eye problems from staring at the screen too long (on that note, if you can afford it, please invest in blue-light glasses), chronic back pain from all the hunching over your desk, or considerable weight fluctuation because your physical activity has reduced since you spend most of your day staring at your screens.

Mentally, you’re also in the pits. Your sleep schedule gets ruined, affecting all other aspects of your life. Your days are fitful, you barely have time to socialise, and you lose the zeal for doing anything other than work, as all your time is spent indoors, and you are unhappy.

Working a 9-5 is hard. Working remotely also is, and comparing the two has to end. Both are different styles and approaches to work that you cannot judge solely on pros and cons, and trying to do so invalidates the experiences of everyone involved.

We’re both equally trying our best to survive in a country that seems to be against us, and comparing or contrasting does nothing to help anyone. I am not wasting my time or pretending when I say I am busy as a remote worker, and my experience also needs to be taken seriously, as does a 9-to-5er.

Continue reading: Disclosing Income To Your Family and Friends: Yes Or No?