Bling, bling. “What was THAT?” my mom said. It was a lazy afternoon, and we were watching three giraffes drinking water out of the watering hole about 100 feet in front of us. We were separated from them by the electrical fence that keeps elephants out at night, but it doesn’t do anything against the vervet monkeys that swoop in from the trees and steal the orange juice from the kitchen in the mornings. “I just got an email from Hans. It’s just work stuff,” said my dad.
My dad was working; that wasn’t a surprise. What was a surprise was that he was able to pick up a 3G connection about 30 miles outside of Dixie, South Africa. Dixie is about three hours by car from the nearest city. Dixie doesn’t have electricity. It doesn’t have running water, it doesn’t have a grocery store. It has a preschool, a storefront for passing tourists that’s open sometimes and a town elder. Goats roam the area, giant cooking pits are in front of every house, and floors are made of dirt. If you have windows on your house, you’re living big. And to get to the safari camp where we were, you have to go right through the heart of Dixie on the long, straight, dirt road, dodging cows and the occasional springbok along the way.
Staying connected is a wonderful thing. It enables you to keep up to date with news and Facebook from all corners of the earth, but it enables you to stay connected to work 24/7 also. A component of globalization means people need to stay connected and be available at all hours of the day and night to work. Another component is that employees need to be able to work flexible hours, which is part of what work-life balance tries to promote (The Economist, 2006). In fact, IBM reported that about 40 percent of its workforce works from home during flex hours (The Economist, 2006). This allows employees to complete personal obligations while also getting their work done. So in one sense, being able to stay connected from the most remote places on earth really is fantastic. But is it really necessary? When you take a holiday, shouldn’t you enjoy it, rather than worry about your email going off continually?
I think disconnecting is part of what makes holidays so relaxing. No work stress, no wondering if so-and-so got your email before you left and has responded, no fretting over emails that come across and feeling obligated to respond. Rather, your time away from work should be spent enjoying the company of who you’re with and experiencing something new. That’s why you take time off to begin with, right? To get away?
But it’s getting harder and harder to do that. I used to not mind my regular four-hour flights to our North American office in New Jersey because it meant I got to read my book, nap and enjoy the peace and quiet. Now with Wi-Fi on almost every American Airlines plane that flies to Newark, I spend those four hours typing away on my laptop and staying in touch. Lufthansa is about to make that an even bigger reality: the German airline has started offering Wi-Fi on trans-Atlantic flights (www.lufthansa.com). FlyNet, what Lufthansa is calling the service, is available on north Atlantic routes to start out but plans to have the service available south of the equator as well. This service is being very well received, and almost 20 percent of the airline’s long haul fleet is now equipped with the technology (www.lufthansa.com).
Despite my reluctance to stay plugged in all the time, I think it is the reality we have reached. The first ever phone call was made from Mt. Everest not too long ago, and Wi-Fi connectivity seems to be everywhere.
That afternoon in South Africa, my dad chose not to respond to his email; instead he enjoyed the giraffes and eventual wildebeest that came trudging through the field. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t find him catching up with the rest of the world after dinner that night. I guess when you’ve got to do work or be in touch with the rest of the world, being connected isn’t such a bad thing after all.
References:
Accessing the internet at cruising altitude. Retrieved June 2, 2012 from http://konzern.lufthansa.com/en/themen/net.html.
Anonymous (2006). Special report: life beyond pay – work/life balance: The Economist, 379 (8482) p. 84.
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