Working from home during pandemic: hidden sex, disability, and discrimination claims

The world at large is learning how to work from home and do so efficiently. But for some, the struggle to maintain productive full-time employment from home is harder than for others. While you may think it’s a personal problem for the employee to resolve, thanks to a lesser-known discrimination theory, the headaches could soon belong to the employer.

Weighing working parents’ productivity

Imagine the following schedule:

• 8:00-8:05 a.m: Make coffee.
• 8:05-8:20: Make breakfast for the kids. While cooking, tell Siri to read and draft responses to work e-mails.
• 8:20-8:25: Correct Siri dictation errors.
• 8:25-8:50: Begin typing work memo. Every four minutes, remind Child No. 1 not to sleep through Zoom class. Four sentences of memo completed.
• 8:50-9:45: Teach long division to child who slept through related Zoom class.
• 9:45-9:50: Reheat cold, unsipped coffee.
• 9:50-11:00: Return to work memo. First page now complete.
• 11:00-11:15: Realize Child No. 2 has been too quiet. Search for ensuing destruction.
• And so on.

As significant portions of the workforce have transitioned to long-term work-from-home arrangements, the morning depicted above isn’t a matter of imagination. It is a daily reality.