Remotework-Why I am a hard no…

I had a front seat to the dismantling of any human interaction having 5 children with the advent of the smart phone. I saw first-hand the retreating into the device and lack of communication and interaction to the world around them. You know the scene. All heads bowed down in subservient to the screen in front of them. Often answering questions and not even looking up.

I was raised free range and maybe a bit too much free range. When I spoke of my childhood in the city it was as if they thought I was from another planet.

“You did what” I began to feel sorry for my children who would not know how interesting life can be with eyes wide open and curious and unafraid to address any stranger. The city was one big playground and full of interesting people from all walks of life.  

I came up with an idea to try to draw them into a life that could be so much more fulfilling. My wife and I had a tradition of Shopping on the day after thanksgiving on Michigan Avenue and spending the night downtown at the Drake.  This would culminate in a Friday night dinner and a movie on Saturday. This stretched out my favorite holiday to a 4-day event.  The inspiration for this was one remarkable night we were standing at the northwest corner of Pearson and Michigan Ave.

We walked out of the store on the corner, and I stopped in my tracks.  It had begun to lightly snow, and the canopy of lights just came on at dusk at the old water tower. The carriage driver was petting his horse on Pearson  and moved to help a passenger on his next ride. Time stood still for a moment and there was this scene that was unfolding in front of me that brought such joy as to the immediate beauty of this city that I stopped and watched for as long as I could…….

My wife had begun to pull away and I grabbed her hand and pulled her back. I pointed to the scene, and she saw what I was seeing.  She smiled and we watched in silence before being moved on by the wave of pedestrians crossing the street.

I felt sorry for anyone that did not get a chance to slow down and see this.

That’s when I decided that we would from that moment on bring all of the Children with us and try to get them to engage with the city that helped raise me.  In order to motivate them to join I had to create a game and competition and bribe them with a very expensive dinner. Here were the rules of engagement and contest.

1. Best photo contest. Use of their beloved screen for artistic purposes…

2. Find a location take a photo and win 50.00.  An example would be find the address zero zero.

3. Third and best…..  Find someone that speaks Portuguese and have them call me and win 50.00. The language did not matter. It was the effort of trying to find someone and engaging a stranger.

This worked and moments were created, and lessons learned. Three of my Children live in the city now and I watch them with the confidence you need to interact and navigate life and more important than this, have an interesting life.

In short, we were remote before covid. So many of our existing societal issues have an exponentially better chance at resolution by direct human contact not less.