Telly Troubles: How a Remote Work‑Circumvented My Life

Telly Troubles: How a Remote Work‑Circumvented My Life

When I left the office in a hurry for a Zoom meeting, I felt the familiar blend of dread and relief that comes with opening the door to my flat. “One more… coffee. One more… email.” But little did I know that the day’s most sinister obstacle was already in the living‑room, lying at the foot of my couch in a sleek, black rectangle that held a license more powerful than my laptop: the remote control.

1. The Remote’s Rebellion

The first time it refused to respond, I was convinced it was simply swollen after a long night of binge‑watching my favourite drama. “You must be tired, you little‑toned thing,” I sighed, flicking at it like a disgruntled hamster. The remote, however, had decided that my life could no longer be governed by punch‑pointers on a screen. It wanted to be the boss, and it had a plan.

After a brief stint of answering “Wrong Channel?” I discovered the remote had been sneakily jammed into the sock drawer for the last two weeks. I meant to replace its battery, but discovered it had a travel case, a small set of rubber gears, and a tiny brass plate labelled “Remote Control: World Domination, 2019.”

2. Remote Work Meets Remote Control

Syncing my work laptop with my home Wi‑Fi felt like a triumph of productivity. I was proud of my ability to swipe from the kitchen to the living‑room without missing a beat. Spoiler: the remote control was less cooperative. One hour into a client call, the screen plunged into a kaleidoscope of canal adverts, and my bewildered manager asked if that was my colleague joining from a ‘channel’ that did not exist. “Is it a new platform?” I dared not answer.

The remote had spoofed my video call as a “TV weather intermission”, complete with a pleasant, yet audio‑nonsense forecast: “It’s likely to rain on Wednesday. Monitor your coffee mug for temperature changes.” Not to be outdone by my own self‑made coffee mug, the remote had become a conference call “brain‑wave” generator.

If your remote can predict the weather, imagine what it can do for your workload. I found myself swiping the buttons as if they were Flutter buttons on an app I’d never programmed myself. “It’s not a call, Shaun. It’s a sitcom!” The remote’s unpredictability extended even to my lunch schedule. I would taste the sandwich, but a mis‑tap caused it to switch the programme to a cooking show. I spent fifteen minutes swearing at the toaster that it was “hard‑to‑control.”

3. The Great Accidental PTO Slush

One winter, I was halfway through a Monday morning spreadsheet when the remote blasted 70‑degree heatwave commentary. “The TV is hotter than your spreadsheet, mate.” It had clicked an unnoticed UI that effectively put my laptop in “holiday mode”: all my windows froze. The remote’s glitchy updates had temporarily turned my laptop into a “power‑saving” device, until a restart—both my action and the remote’s—commissioned a ‘lunch‑break’ in the middle of a fully scheduled meeting.

My boss, God help him, now sends me a calendar invite for ‘Holiday Request.’ I could say that’s how remote work circumvents my life: in this case, the remote literally schedules me a day‑off, with a 15‑minute power‑nap, and a 30‑minute “swipe to stop the prank” flurry of button mashing from my living‑room adversary.

If anyone wondered why the stock market was spiking (it wasn’t: I confused the ticker with the channel list), it was because I physically stared at the wall‑mounted “Flicka” remote, as if it held the keys to not just controlling the TV but controlling wall‑clock etc.

4. The Telly‑treadmill of Life

It became clear that the remote decides to dictate a schedule that crisply aligns with the tenets of British humour: understated seriousness, a dash of sarcasm, and a goo‑gooloo of genuine lunacy. Every late‑night coffee is brewed in anticipation of whatever the remote decides our next spectacle will be, while I keep my lamps at a sane brightness level—otherwise, the remote will think it’s another rave and spin the light as well.

The ultimate irony? My remote control has been the one that has consistently circumscribed my work hours, out‑fencing the ‘remote worker’s reliance on the office’s set business culture. And when I just needed a day off, it was that tiny box, in black or beige, that could say "No, the work is on, you must keep going." The remote, the literal remote, has turned my office into a living‑room—there was no better way to modernise a job, after all; if you can negotiate a remote coworker to shift work schedules without visiting the office, that is what remote work is about!

5. Conclusion

My remote work comes with its own version of a “remote” that can literally circumvent my life. If anything, I have come to appreciate that “remote” means two-layers: the distance from the office and the tiny box that determines whose favourite action is happening on our living‑room TV. The next time you’re dealing with a client on a Zoom call, just remember: somewhere, on your couch, a remote device is planning the next big break. Cat‑cattish temptation aside, there’s a whole comedy clock spinning: the only thing that’s guaranteed is that I’ll be multitasking with most of my life on “channel 0’Teller”.

I staff now have a plan: keep the remote in a glass display case when not in use, and perhaps, just perhaps, install a “Dont‑Disturb, You’re Working On The Wall‑Clock” function. After all, we Brits like to keep things humorous—especially if the remote threatens to show us a golf match instead of a meeting transcript. That’s the real challenge of remote work in the age of remote control: to survive one more day where my couch is the boss, my tea is a sidekick, and my spreadsheets are the lost cause—unless, of course, I finally learn to swipe deliberately.