“He’s not here right now, can I take a message?”
It used to take work to stay connected to people when you were away from your desk, or your home.
Now it takes work to stay disconnected while you’re in the bathroom, on “vacation,” or in the car.
It was a choice then and it’s a choice now.
The choices have just changed.
It seems to me that the problem is less about the choice, and now about the expectations.
Before smartphones there was no expectation that you’d be available, and if you were, you’d have gone the “extra mile.”
Because technology has made it so easy to stay connected and be “always on,” you are expected to be reachable, there is no “extra mile.” There is only disappointment where there was one free time, quiet time, and quality time.
At some point, someone worked past 5pm to get the edge. So someone else stayed at work past 6pm, then someone else until 7pm. And so on..
At some point someone started working on weekends, so others did the same.
And then there’s people who choose to, or had to, work on holidays.
The extra mile is getting shorter and shorter and soon enough we’ll be out of extra miles and all the midnight oil will have been burned . Maybe then, when we all have nothing left of our personal lives to give, we’ll all decide what’s really important and reset our collective expectations.