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Caroline Mimbs Nyce headshot

Senior associate editor

What does it mean to stay home from work if you work out of your living room? Then: Quit lying to yourself.

When Home Is Work ​​​​​​

A person works on their laptop in bed.

(Sean Gallup / Getty)

Every Thanksgiving, I, like so many other people, will journey from my office to my family dining table. This Thanksgiving, that journey will be about 10 feet.

For a smaller-than-you-might-think, privileged class (as of August, just 13.4 percent of employed Americans), the pandemic means home is still work, and work is still home. This holiday week, people will take time off, only to, functionally speaking, remain in their office.

The effects of this blurring of work and play are once again following us into the holiday season. As a culture, we are still adjusting to what the large-scale merging of work and play really means.

  • Work from home is challenging when you need time off. “Companies would be smart to reconsider standard working hours, and to apply parameters rigidly,” Ed Zitron argues.

  • The home is the future of travel. Call it a “workcation” (honestly, or not). Our staff writer Derek Thompson caught up with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky to discuss what the company’s recent uptick in longer stays suggests about the convergence of work and vacation.