Projected Reality: The Future of Remote Work, Learning, Life

by Mark Thomas

Staff Writer

EMBRACING CHANGE: AND THE TECHNOLOGICAL TOMORROW

“The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings.” (Kakuzo Okakura)

Your afternoon in Cairo was interminable and a challenge to your endurance. Two hours at the Mogamma el Tahir being grilled on your proposal then another two walking the dam in Aswan with the project engineers, the President’s finance minister and your favourite, the ever-adversarial Egyptian minister of infrastructure Mahmoud Sharaf.

The questions were an onslaught. And odd too. They were the same questions about the fabrication of the axial and radial centrifugal pumps you answered earlier at the meeting in Shanghai.

Questions you’ll undoubtedly be asked to elaborate on in 15 minutes with your partners in Vancouver. Was it political? Was awarding the sizeable fabrication contract to a Chinese firm a misstep? Something, as project lead you should have anticipated?

You’re a design engineer. Not a politician.

And you can imagine how you’d respond if one of the junior designers with a similar quandary chose ill-advisedly to share that naïve sentiment with you.

DIGITAL EXPLORERS: KNOWING NO BOUNDARIES

Standing at your desk in your London home with your PR (Projected Reality) headset down around your neck getting a stretch – you’re considering what you’ll share of the meeting with Toni and the other partners. Whether this is something you should have thought of when sending the specs out to bid.

Image by StockCake

You glance over at your wife – sitting comfortably in her garden sanctuary. Her headset on with her eyes closed. Deep focus. Hard to imagine how she manages that nutty wasteland at -51 C.

Even Projected into an outpost in Antarctica analysing ice cores all day would drive you to a beach for your breaks. Especially with your v2.3 programmed for full immersion. Feeling the warmth – soaking in the sun and breathing the tropical air before heading back.

Just the thought and you’re already looking forward to recess – going somewhere warm – even for a half hour. Maybe after your meeting before you venture back into the forbidden zone to pull Lucy and Joy from afterschool Karate.

With minutes before you’re due in the main conference room in Vancouver, you take a moment to review your notes. But you’re still stuck on that one comment by Minister Sharaf. That he wanted to meet you in person.

In person. With a client… Huh!

Now with your headset on, you find the destination menu and select Vancouver_Office_MainCon. Waiting for it to load, you issue a replay command and pull up his expression before he terminated his projection - returning him to his home in Alexandria. There’s something he wanted to tell you. Something he was uncomfortable about sharing while in Projected Reality.

Crazy, this business. Reading people for what they’re trying to say but unable to say – concerned about privacy – with not just every word, but every expression recorded - and available.

Privacy. Hard to imagine the weird world that must have been. Harder to imagine those who fought the battle thinking they stood a chance in hell of winning it.

ADAPTING TO YOUR DIGITAL LIFE: INSIDE THE MATRIX

“Technology is changing the way people work facilitating 24/7 collaboration with colleagues who are dispersed across time zones, countries and continents.” (Michael Dell)

“Working from home is like working inside the Matrix. Endless, dimensionless and not even Morpheus can ‘tell’ you what it is.” (Mark Thomas)

Image Courtesy of Warner Bros

Human beings are an adaptive lot. Two hundred years ago the depiction of a conference call would have been fantasy. A hundred years back, a Skype meeting with executives staring at each other in laptop screens or students attending online classes would have been seen as imaginative science fiction.

And yet many, even during the age of teleconferencing and remote work, saw inestimable value in the face-to-face meeting or attending class from a seat in a bricks and mortar school. Swearing by it. Looking critically at the videoconference or the distance learning platform.

Ironically, it was precisely that assessment, and of course the economic forecast that enticed big tech to advance videoconferencing to the world of Projected Reality. A Science-Fiction trope once; projecting yourself holographically to remote destinations. Work, a meeting – a vacation spot. A rebel base on Tatooine. It was an obvious answer.

Part of the pitch was that it addressed the psychological and even more the sociological issues. The ill-effects of isolation. The potential developmental deficiencies. Social skills. Interpersonal relationships.

But even now there are critics claiming the PR night out with friends at the cinema or theatre or the kids with their Projected afterschool play dates are a weak substitute. That there’s something to be learned from having to confront an uncomfortable or even confrontational situation - lost when you can simply terminate your projection.

And of course, there are the alarmist claims we’ve fostered a culture of house-bound agoraphobics who often spend entire weeks – in many cases months or years inside never leaving the safe confines of their homes.

STEPPING OUTSIDE: FOR A BETTER LOOK INSIDE

“What lies behind us, and what lies before us, are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

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For you, someone cursed with seeing both sides of any issue, you admit your complacency. Be the sunshine, you’ve often said. And your family, your wife and kids are safe – seemingly happy, normal, whatever that means, and you’re not about to jump up and down worrying about something that does not appear broken.

The kids get out… now and then. You and Kim attended her agency’s Christmas party back in… “wait…! You went projected to that one!” That’s right. She didn’t want to meet her supervisor. Or team, or didn’t have clothes that fit, or… something.

But there was the housewarming party at her sister Nell’s. You definitely went to that. Three blocks away. Hard to imagine you went PR to… “Hold on. Did we?!”

“Christ!” You take a hand to your head thinking with only minutes before you’ll initiate and join the already-in-progress meeting in Vancouver. “That was over a year ago.”

You reach for your keyboard to write yourself a note. A reminder to check the building automation system’s activity log when you get back. To check the last time you or anyone in the house did go outside.

And to add those things to the weekly Smart Fridge reorder menu the kids keep bugging you about. Frozen fruit juicy pops and Chicken Nuggy-bites. Microwaveable waffles. “God!”

LOSING TOUCH: WHEN THE DAYS BECOME COPY AND PASTE

“The days blur together when you live more on the inside than outside.” (Fredrik Backman)

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You had no idea! None! And how you were this oblivious is unthinkable. People have said the hardest part of working from home is pretending you’re not still in your pyjamas. Well, isn’t that special. Especially since you, and your family have been doing just that for 18 months.

But how? What about parent-teacher conferences and doctor’s appointments? Dentists and haircuts. Forget the car maintenance. It’s been relaxing in the garage – gleefully unused for a year and a half.

It was in the conference room in Vancouver, after discussing the Aswan dam project, that you had time to sit and think – begin replaying the last year plus in voluntary captivity. Even Latia, projected in from Reykjavik saw how distracted you were in the meeting.

It was sweet of her to sit with you for a bit – and even join you in Nassau for your 30-minute stroll watching the sunset before heading back to London.

Now at the dining table, in your pyjamas, staring down into your home automation system’s report, you’re spellbound. Disturbed, actually. But also impressed, in a way. Not in you so much, but in our ever adaptive, accommodating and thoroughly creatively capitalistic world.

Last 13 March, it appears, you found a dentist who does Projected Reality home visits – sends you the self-cleaning devices [custom fit for each family member] and any other material from Amazon. She even sent you a device to fill a small cavity. Amazing! Outstanding you pulled it off!

Food is ordered from the Smart Fridge. With little tweaks here and there should you ever have guests over which you obviously don’t. Home barber kits. Clothes, specifically pyjamas and sweats, online. God! You even took the kids [Projected] to the Louvre in Paris and the Pergamon in Berlin. THREE TIMES!!

Latia, while walking the sands in the Bahamas, trying to assuage your incipient panic attack, delineated the many benefits of remote working, home learning and the whole Projected Reality home environment. The greater flexibility and autonomy to manage schedules and personal life. The improved work-life balance. The cozy work environment free from distractions.

Then mention the lack of commute times and time with your family. She said, hell, with your job, you’d be in airports and hotels most of the week. Or on the road in traffic trying to get to the airports and hotels.

But something really weird has happened.

THE CRITICALITY: OF ASSESSING AND REASSESSING PRIORITIES

“If you’re always racing to the next moment, what happens to the one you’re in.” (Nanette Matthews)

Image by StockCake

Looking up from the report; you glance at your wife – diligently scanning environmental studies from her work in Antarctica while finishing her meal. And the kids, rampaging through their pasta with their eyes buried in tablets going over their newest Karate moves – their class, in Tokyo, apparently, minutes away.

What’s happened here? Do we spend any time together? Or even talk?! Are we possibly working or actively engaged in extracurriculars constantly? Have our routines – this routine, overruled or short-circuited our long-term memory encoding? Have we fallen into some weird, futuristic, dystopian…? “Uh, oh.” You reach for your phone to check your notification. “Wait!”

“Shoot! Shoot-shoot-shoot!” You close out the home’s BAS report, stand, grab your plate and head for the kitchen – completely unnoticed.

You’re going to have to put this whole remote family work-learn-from-home dystopian isolation stuff on hold for an hour. At least.

You’ll dig into and solve this burgeoning apocalyptic situation, assuming it is one, once you’re back from Shanghai – now that you received the go-ahead from Toni to let SuzhoTEK fabricate the pumps for the Egyptians – with the caveat that they build it at their plant in Egypt.

Whew! Looking suddenly on the bright side, with noticeably less anxiety, if it weren’t for PR tech you’d be packing a bag, while making flight and hotel reservations – checking weather, traffic, looking for your passport… Jesus. Talk about stress.

RECOVERING THE BALANCE: BALANCE IS KEY (WEEKS LATER)

“Balancing is not something you find; it’s something you create.” (Jana Kingsford)

“You must unlearn what you have learned.” (Yoda)

Image Courtesy of Columbia Pictures

It hasn’t been easy pulling things, your life – your family back into some semblance of balance. When Mr Miyagi in The Karate Kid told Daniel: “Better learn balance. Balance is key. Balance good, karate good. Everything good.” He wasn’t talking about Karate.

He was making a strong, philosophical claim that to live a full, meaningful life with your priorities sorted, you need to step back from time-to-time. Look at things – evaluate and reassess your routines.

Your work and family and everything you do that you turn into habits so you can devote brain power to other ‘more important’ things and gain perspective – and a clearer image of the balancing act you’ve either enacted or fallen into.

And consider whether it’s ideal, healthy – needs an adjustment or even an overhaul. As Carl Jung said: “Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakes.”

We are creatures who embrace habits. And there are reasons for that. God help us out of the chaos that would be life planning every step. Every decision and every direction. When and what you’ll eat. Every necessary and incidental task to get you through each day.

Talk about a path to mental burnout.

FOREVER THE PROCESS: OF ADAPTATION AND READAPTATION

“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.” (Carl Jung)

Image by StockCake

Now at the park across from your house you’ve been told they put it in last year when they took away the old school, you’re on the bench with your wife eating sushi from the corner market, also new, watching Lucy and Joy doing something masterfully creative with mud.

It wasn’t easy getting the kids out. Reintroducing them to actual, in-person socialising. Interacting and playing with other kids. Overcoming the initial anxiety and awkwardness, which you felt the first time the couple from 4th street joined you. And shared their almond croissants and wine while you talked and watched your kids play.

Life. Routines. You’d fallen into a regimen that was convenient, active and you would even venture to say progressive. But you’d also lost something. You’d forgotten to find the balance between what was easy and what was important.

You still have your careers that include Projected work from home. But in the Fall the kids will be in a bricks and mortar school – and they’ll be taking Karate lessons at the dojo over on 15th where you’ll pick them up afterwards and maybe take them out for sandwiches. Then ice cream.

“And maybe you’ll be up to joining us.” You turn to Kim who looks shy - uncomfortable.  Even projected you can see the disquiet in her eyes.

“You wouldn’t be embarrassed? To be seen with a woman the size of a house?”

You shake your head and smile. “No. And I’m looking forward like crazy to when you’re ready…” You turn your eyes back to watch the girls. “…ready to drop the silly projection. The digital you with the perfect clothes and perfect body, and join us the way you are. Because… this is it. Grocery store sushi and watching our girls get filthy, maybe even scraped up a bit… nothing compares.”

After a few moments – realising what you’ve been missing over the last 18 months when you thought everything was even better than fine, you turn… and she’s gone. Just like that.

And you turn more – and look at your house… and smile big… when you see the front door open.

Mark Thomas (TE Mark)

StorytellingScience