标题: Working Life From BC to AD 工作生活新纪元 [打印本页] 作者: David 时间: 2020-9-29 09:53 标题: Working Life From BC to AD 工作生活新纪元 回帖下载音频及双语文本：
Working Life From BC to AD 工作生活新纪元
From BC to AD, working life has entered a new era.
从疫情前到居家后，工作生活进入新纪元。
January and February seem like an ancient era-the BC (before coronavints) to the new AD (after domestication).
一月和二月仿佛是一个古老的纪元——公元前（冠状病毒前）到新的公元（居家后）。
The current, rapid shift to AD was enabled by preconditions. First, broadband services are today quick enough to allow for document downloads and videoconferencing. Second, advanced economies revolve around services, not manufacturing.
Not only that, it has made remote work seem both normal and acceptable. In the past employees who stayed home had to overcome the suspicion that they were bunking off. Now those who insist on being at the office sound self-important.
Yet although offices will not disappear, it is hard to imagine that working life will return to BC ways. For more than a century workers have stuffed themselves onto crowded trains and buses, or endured traffic jams, to get into the office, and back, five days a week. For the past two months they have not had to commute, and will have enjoyed the hiatus.
Employers, for their part, have maintained expensive digs in city centres because they needed to gather staff in one place. The rent is only part of the cost; there is the cleaning, lighting, printers, catering and security on top. When you work at home, you pay for your own utilities and food.
Another aspect of the AD era may be the disappearance of the five-day working week. Even before the pandemic many workers became used to taking phone calls or answering emails at the weekend. In the AD era the barrier between home and working life, a useful way of relieving stress, will be even harder to sustain.
Looking further out, the AD era may bring other changes. Some may decide to live in small towns where housing costs are lower, since they have no need to commute. Men will have fewer excuses to skip cleaning or child care if they are not disappearing to the office. In a sense, this is a return to normal: until the 19th century most people worked at or close to their homes. But social historians may still regard 2020 as the start of a new age.