Remote work has turned into ‘remote presence’ and I’m exhausted by the performance of it

I swear some companies didn’t really adopt remote work; they just moved the office into Slack and my calendar.

I like my job and I love not commuting. I’m organized and I do fine with independent work. But the creeping expectation that I have to constantly prove I’m working is wearing me down.

It started small: cameras on by default, a ‘quick sync’ that somehow becomes a 45-minute meeting, people tagging you in a thread that should have been an email, then pinging you five minutes later. Now if you’re not visibly typing, reacting, or in a meeting, you get treated like you’re suspicious.

The hypocrisy stings. Managers will say ‘we trust you’ and ‘we hired adults,’ then roll out policies that basically require a running commentary on your entire day. I’m not a Twitch streamer. I don’t want to narrate my brain to justify my paycheck.

Yes, I mute notifications and block focus time. I try to set boundaries. But the culture still punishes it. If I take two hours for deep work, I come back to a pile of anxious messages because everyone else was live-chatting decisions that should have been documented.

So I end up doing the actual work after hours so I can spend daylight hours being available, agreeable, and responsive. Remote work was supposed to give me my life back, not make me feel like I’m on stage in my own house.

Anyone else feeling this shift lately?