A young woman is feeling especially frustrated with boomers, or at least one boomer in particular — her aunt who has a lot to say about her remote job.
According to the woman’s aunt, she must not be working nearly as hard as others since she works from home. However, the young woman was ready to shut down her absurd arguments.
The boomer told her niece she was not productive because she worked from home.
The woman vented her frustrations in the r/BoomersBeingFools subReddit. She revealed a conversation she had with her aunt that many remote workers can likely relate to.
The woman explained that while she was working, she received a text from her aunt asking her if she was home. “Yes, but I am working,” she responded.
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Unperturbed, her aunt asked if she wanted to get lunch and if she could swing by and pick up a few things.
The woman informed her aunt that she had meetings all day, to which she questioned if the young woman was aware that “some places are making people go back to the office.”
“It’s ridiculous,” she told her aunt of the back-to-office mandates. “What is the difference between sitting in an office and watching a Zoom Meeting or doing it at home? It just means I have to waste money and time driving to work.”
However, her aunt held a different and arguably outdated opinion, claiming that those who work from home “aren’t as productive” or “responsible.”
The woman immediately shut down her aunt’s ludicrous opinions. “I completely disagree with that,” she wrote. “If I am sitting in a meeting with 100+ people, I can actually have a say and put it in chat, whereas in a big conference room, you don’t get to do that.”
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“Not only that, managers can track productivity,” she continued. “It’s about the job being completed.”
She admitted that she can’t stand her aunt’s mindset, which she shares with many boomers. “When will boomers understand that sitting in an office [does not] equate to productivity?” the woman questioned.
Others online resonated with the woman’s feelings, working from home themselves.
“My boomer mother complains about it, too,” one Redditor wrote. “She doesn’t work. She just thinks people should be in offices. She was a schoolteacher, mind you, so she has no idea how tech companies operate, nor does she care.”
“Most people at my last office job spent at least half their working hours chatting, taking extended poops, getting coffee to fuel said poops, looking at lunch menus to decide what was for lunch, talking about lunch, calling home to yell at their kids, and otherwise not doing work,” another user commented. “Too many Boomers equate dressing up and being at the office with working.”
“They truly have zero concept of work from home,” a third commenter added. “I tried explaining to my Boomer mom that there’s literally nothing I can do in the office that I cannot do at home, and she thought that meant I had no work to do.
Contrary to what many boomers may believe, research has shown that working from home actually increases employee productivity.
Working remotely in the United States has been on the rise since the COVID-19 pandemic. A study conducted by Upwork predicts that 22% of the American workforce will work remotely in 2025.
Those who have never worked from home may believe that employees who do so are less productive, but research suggests otherwise. They may be able to work in their pajamas, with their pets in their lap, but they are still working nonetheless.
A study conducted by Stanford consisting of 16,000 employees who work from home discovered that their performance levels increased by 13%. The performance improvement was credited to a quieter environment where they could make more phone calls and take fewer scheduled breaks.
Additionally, 77% of remote workers demonstrate higher levels of productivity when they are working from home, with 30% completing more work in less time and 24% doing more work in the same amount of time, per a survey conducted by ConnectSolutions.
If anything, remote workers are more dedicated to their jobs than those who go into the office. Not to mention they are able to wake up and get right to it, instead of sitting in a long commute!
Unfortunately, until people work from home themselves, they will likely never understand that we work just as hard as they do. We don’t have all the free time in the world, as the woman’s aunt seemed to believe. We may get to work sprawled out on our couches in the comfort of our own homes, but that doesn’t negate the hard work we do.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.
