Time theft wears no mask. It announces itself in meeting invites that colonize lunch hours, in documents that arrive Friday afternoon demanding Monday morning responses, in the expectation that “working from home” means working all hours. Unlike other workplace violations that hide in shadows and whispers, temporal abuse operates in broad daylight. It even celebrates itself as “dedication” and “commitment.”

We’ve built a world where being “always on” is a virtue and boundaries are weakness. It’s no surprise when we place “life” and “work” on opposite sides of the same scale, as if they should carry equal weight. The promise that technology would liberate us from drudgery has instead created a peculiar form of servitude: we carry our offices in our pockets, our workdays bleed into nights, our weekends become mere pauses between emails and meetings.

the architecture of temporal violation

In the contemporary workplace, power often expresses itself through time. The executive who schedules meetings at 6pm demonstrates dominance not through explicit commands but through the assumption that others’ time is theirs to command. The manager who sends “urgent” requests on Friday evenings exercises a subtle violence, creating weekend anxiety that masquerades as professional communication.

This isn’t new (after all, isn’t a work contract a trade between time and salary?), but technology has amplified it beyond recognition. Where once leaving the office meant leaving work, now our devices ensure perpetual availability. The binary language of ones and zeros that promised objectivity and control has instead created new forms of subjugation. We’ve become addicted to speed and quantity, mistaking information for knowledge, response time for competence.

The pandemic didn’t liberate us from these patterns; it intensified them. “You’re already at home” became the rationale for meetings without breaks, for extended hours, for the complete dissolution of boundaries. I’ve heard from friends and clients who work more hours now than they ever did in offices, trapped in a peculiar paradox where physical freedom led to temporal imprisonment.

the pause button paradox: externalizing internal conflicts

The ability to pause and resume reality reveals something profound about our changed relationship with time and problem-solving. Today I witness my children arguing over who will press “pause” when one needs to use the bathroom during cartoons. This scenario differs dramatically from when such control wasn’t possible.

In my childhood, I have no memory of making such demands. Not from resignation, but from necessity: we developed patience and the understanding that the world doesn’t exist for our convenience. ¹ When technical limitations forced us to choose between missing part of a show and addressing physical needs, we learned to weigh priorities internally. Was immediate relief more important than seeing the entire episode? This internal negotiation built what psychologists call “delay of gratification,” the capacity to tolerate temporary discomfort for future benefit.

Now, because technology can solve this conflict externally, the burden of choice has been eliminated. What we gain in convenience we lose in the practice of self-reflection and internal conflict resolution. We begin to expect immediate satisfaction of desires at the cost of patience, temperance, and fortitude. This technological solution to a temporal problem exemplifies how external fixes can atrophy internal capacities.

The same dynamic appears in workplaces where every inefficiency must be immediately optimized, every delay eliminated. We’ve lost tolerance for the natural rhythms that once forced us to develop internal resources. In our relentless pursuit of frictionless experience, we’ve inadvertently created friction-intolerant humans. I believe this may be one reason for our growing polarization of thought and ideas, which may well be a primary source of other forms of polarization, including political.

the deeper prison: beyond office walls

Since 2020, the themes of “return to office,” “remote work,” and “hybrid work” have filled countless headlines. Like a television series (soap operas having gone out of fashion), the debate shifts weekly. One moment defending that “home is where we work well”; the next suspecting or accusing those who prefer not to work in the office of laziness. Organizations find themselves caught between the fear of losing people and efforts to lure them back to expensive “offices of the future.”

But we’re having the wrong conversation. Consider this scenario: a couple who’ve lived together long enough to accumulate a vast collection of shared experiences feel distant and decide to make more effort to connect. One partner buys roses as a gesture of closeness. At the door, flowers hidden behind their back, they ring the bell instead of using their key. When the door opens, they reveal the roses, only to watch surprise transform into sadness, expectation into disappointment.

“What’s that face?” asks the flower-bearer.

“This is more proof you don’t listen to me,” comes the reply.

“How so? We agreed to do more to get closer. I know you love flowers, so I bought roses like I haven’t in years.”

“Yes, I love flowers, but I hate red roses.” ²

This is parallel communication: two people discussing the same topic with apparently aligned intentions but different understandings, feelings, and conclusions. The return-to-office debate suffers from the same dynamic. On the surface, it appears to be a dispute between “control” and “freedom.” But something deeper lurks beneath.

The need for control collides with the desire for freedom, recalling Michel Foucault’s “docile bodies,” his concept of how institutions shape individuals into compliant, productive subjects through subtle forms of discipline and surveillance. Today’s workplace seeks docile minds more than bodies, though bodies must still be present for those endless, sequential meetings that demand physical presence despite emotional distance. It’s a form of control over bodies and minds, mediated by technology, even when that’s not the conscious intention.

The panopticon and factory floors found their corporate equivalents in cubicles, then open-plan offices, and now these “offices of the future,” designed for “chance encounters and creative collaborative environments” (euphemisms at best). Research by Ethan Bernstein and Stephen Turban published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (2018) found that open offices actually decreased face-to-face interaction by 70%, contradicting their stated purpose. ³

Even at home, we’re imprisoned by technology, as Byung-Chul Han warns in his books and John Berger notes in “Meanwhile.”

liquid time: when nothing is permanent

Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman gave us the concept of “liquid modernity,” a world where solid forms dissolve into fluid arrangements that never quite solidify. This liquidity reveals itself starkly in how work patterns mirror relationship patterns. Harvard research by Alexandra Killewald shows that men without full-time employment are 33% more likely to divorce within a year. ⁴ The principle of “no long term” that governs flexible work arrangements inevitably seeps into personal life.

Consider the shift: where previous generations built careers and marriages as permanent structures, younger workers navigate portfolios of gigs while maintaining what researchers call “relationship fluidity.” The same Millennials who change jobs every 2.8 years approach relationships with similar adaptability. ⁵ This isn’t moral failure but rational adaptation. When institutions prove unreliable, why invest in permanence?

The marshmallow test, that famous experiment supposedly proving that self-control predicts success, tells a different story under scrutiny. The key replication was Watts, Duncan & Quan (2018) in Psychological Science, which showed that when researchers controlled for family background, home environment, and cognitive ability, the predictive power of delayed gratification nearly disappeared. Children who grab the marshmallow aren’t failing at self-control; they’re responding rationally to environments where promises rarely materialize.

the generational paradox

Generation Z presents a fascinating contradiction that illuminates our temporal crisis. They demand work-life boundaries more fiercely than any previous generation. Research suggests 73% expect flexible arrangements, and 32% rank balance as their top priority. ⁶ Yet they simultaneously maintain near-constant digital connectivity, spending hours daily on social platforms.

This isn’t hypocrisy but what researchers term “strategic disconnection.” These digital natives distinguish between voluntary social connectivity, which they control, and imposed professional availability, which they increasingly reject. They’ve developed sophisticated strategies of what danah boyd calls “social steganography”: hiding in plain sight within digital systems while maintaining autonomous zones. ⁷

Yet this resistance occurs within a troubling vacuum. When using a narrow definition of humanities (English, history, philosophy, foreign languages), only 4% of college graduates in 2020 majored in these disciplines, down by a quarter in just a decade. ⁸ Without exposure to philosophical frameworks, to thinkers who’ve grappled with time, meaning, and human flourishing, their resistance remains intuitive rather than articulated. They lack what German sociologist Hartmut Rosa calls “conceptual sovereignty”: the ability to name and understand the forces shaping their experience.

When we can’t articulate why constant availability feels violent, we’re reduced to lifestyle solutions rather than structural critique. The digital wellness industry profits from selling individual solutions to systemic problems. We download meditation apps while the conditions creating our stress remain untouched. ⁹

the tech paradox: creating what they reject

Evidence that we know little about the future of work lies in the obvious contradiction within major technology organizations. While they enable remote work by creating the tools used globally for this purpose, these same organizations (Google, Meta, Amazon) are calling their people back to offices with considerable force. ¹⁰

This paradox reveals something essential: even those who profit from remote work technologies don’t trust them to maintain what they truly value—control. The most severe prison is metaphysical in nature, lying between our feelings and ideas. It’s the worst kind of prison, not because it’s invisible. In fact, it’s become too evident to ignore that we’re “in crisis.” Climate crisis, financial crisis, war crises, humanitarian crises. Despite our supposed advances, we find ourselves in a peculiar position: materially better off yet existentially impoverished.

class and the currency of time

Not all time is valued equally. The salaried professional’s temporal violations come wrapped in flexibility rhetoric: “manage your own schedule” means being available whenever needed. Their time becomes elastic, expected to stretch infinitely around work demands. Meanwhile, the hourly worker faces algorithmic scheduling that fragments their days into “optimized” segments, making it impossible to plan life beyond the next shift notification.

This disparity reveals time as currency in the purest sense. Those with power hoard it, spending others’ time freely while guarding their own. A CEO’s “quick call” that disrupts an employee’s evening carries different weight than the reverse would, if the reverse were even imaginable. Time flows upward in organizations, extracted from those below to fuel the productivity of those above.

Consider how we still evaluate work through temporal quantity rather than quality. The employee who leaves “on time” faces subtle judgment, while the one who stays late receives praise, regardless of actual output. We’ve internalized a Protestant work ethic so thoroughly that we mistake suffering for virtue, presence for productivity. ¹¹

Rosa’s theory of “social acceleration” helps explain why. We’re living in what he calls a “shrinking present,” where the pace of change means past experience no longer reliably guides future action. This creates perpetual urgency, a sense that we must constantly adapt or be left behind. No wonder younger workers grab their marshmallows; in an accelerating world, “later” becomes increasingly uncertain.

the missing philosophy

Without humanities education (those supposedly “useless” disciplines that teach us to think about thinking), we lack frameworks for understanding our predicament. The Frankfurt School scholars warned about instrumental rationality consuming human values. Philosophers like Han write about the “burnout society” where we become our own exploiters. But who reads them now?

This philosophical illiteracy has consequences. As I’ve explored in writing about emotional bureaucrats, we’ve internalized administrative logic into our most intimate experiences. We process emotions, optimize relationships, manage our inner lives like corporate departments. The same logic colonizes our time, turning every moment into a potential productivity gain. ¹²

Rosa’s concept of “resonance” (moments of genuine connection that resist acceleration) offers an alternative. But experiencing resonance requires what’s increasingly rare: unstructured time, contemplative attention, the willingness to be “unproductive.” These aren’t individual failings but systemic impossibilities when every moment must justify itself through output.

reclaiming temporal sovereignty

What would it mean to assert a right to temporal dignity? First, we must recognize that time is not merely a resource to be optimized but a fundamental dimension of human experience. When someone colonizes our time without consent, they violate something essential about our humanity.

This isn’t about laziness or avoiding responsibility. It’s about recognizing that sustainable work requires rhythm, that creativity demands fallow periods, that humans need boundaries to flourish. The most innovative companies already understand this, creating policies that protect time rather than extract it. But policy alone isn’t enough; we need cultural transformation.

We must question the assumption that availability equals dedication. The employee who maintains boundaries might contribute more sustainably than the one who burns out in a blaze of overtime. We need to value depth over speed, quality over quantity, wisdom over mere information processing. ¹³

practical resistance

Reclaiming temporal dignity starts with small acts of resistance. The email that waits until Monday. The meeting declined because it serves no clear purpose. The phone that stays off during dinner. These aren’t just personal choices; they’re political acts that assert time’s value beyond productivity.

Organizations serious about human sustainability must examine their temporal cultures. Do meetings respect people’s time? Are deadlines real or artificial urgency? Does the culture reward presence or results? These questions reveal whether an organization truly values its people or merely their output. ¹⁴

We need new language for discussing time in the workplace. Just as we’ve developed vocabulary for other forms of workplace respect, we need ways to articulate temporal violations. When someone schedules a meeting during lunch without asking, that’s temporal presumption. When work messages arrive at midnight, that’s temporal intrusion. Naming these patterns is the first step toward changing them.

The research on “strategic disconnection” offers hope. Younger workers aren’t just complaining; they’re developing sophisticated approaches to temporal sovereignty. They’re creating what researchers call “micro-resistances”: small assertions of autonomy within connected systems. We can learn from their strategies while providing the philosophical frameworks they lack.

the revolution will be temporal

The movement for temporal dignity won’t look like traditional labor organizing, though it shares similar goals. It emerges in quiet refusals, in boundaries maintained despite pressure, in the recognition that our time is not infinitely elastic. It appears when companies discover that respecting time actually improves outcomes, that rested workers create better solutions than exhausted ones.

This isn’t just about individual well-being. A society that respects temporal dignity creates space for the conversations, relationships, and contemplation that make life meaningful. When we’re always working, we’re never fully human. When we’re always available, we’re never truly present. ¹⁵

The connection between liquid work and liquid relationships reveals something profound: time is the medium through which we build meaning. Without temporal stability (not rigid permanence but reliable rhythms), we cannot develop the patient virtues that relationships require. We cannot engage in the deep thinking that complex problems demand. We cannot cultivate the wisdom that comes from sustained attention.

beyond the productivity trap

The binary language of our age wants to reduce time to quantities: hours worked, messages sent, tasks completed. But time is also quality: the depth of attention, the richness of experience, the possibility for genuine thought. Reclaiming temporal dignity means asserting that our time has value beyond its productive output.

This connects to larger questions about human flourishing in an accelerating world. When philosopher Kate Soper writes about “alternative hedonism” (finding pleasure in slowness, in having enough rather than always more), she’s describing temporal wealth. Not having unlimited time, but having sovereignty over the time we have.

Without exposure to different ways of thinking about time, meaning, and value, we’re trapped in single-dimensional frameworks. We need what the Greeks called kairos (the right or opportune moment), not just chronos, sequential clock time. We need philosophy not as academic exercise but as practical wisdom for navigating temporal complexity.

asking the right questions

The world of work is broken and is breaking our lives. Nobody is right, we’re all wrong. We all need to change: people, organizations, and institutions. To discover what we need to change at all levels, we must ask the right questions and pay attention to what truly matters. ¹⁶

Is “to return or not to return to the office?” really the question that matters most? Or are we, like the couple with the roses, having parallel conversations about surface issues while deeper wounds fester? The temporal violations we experience, whether in offices or homes, point to something more fundamental than location. They reveal a system that views human time as an extractable resource rather than the medium of life itself.

conclusion: time as a human right

The theft of time stands among the defining violences of our age. Not dramatic theft, but the slow bleeding of minutes and hours through presumed availability, through cultures that mistake busyness for importance, through systems that optimize everything except human flourishing.

The right to temporal dignity is fundamentally about recognizing time as intrinsic to human experience rather than a commodity to be extracted. It’s about creating cultures where rest is not weakness, where boundaries are not selfishness, where the quality of time matters as much as its quantity.

This transformation requires more than individual resistance, though that’s where it starts. It demands that we reimagine work itself, questioning assumptions so deep we barely recognize them. Why should dedication mean constant availability? Why should success require temporal sacrifice? Why have we accepted that technology should accelerate rather than ease our relationship with time?

The research on generational differences offers both warning and hope. The warning: without philosophical frameworks, resistance remains shallow, easily co-opted into wellness products rather than structural change. The hope: younger workers intuitively grasp what previous generations accepted, that temporal sovereignty is non-negotiable for human dignity.

The answers won’t come quickly. Like all meaningful change, the movement for temporal dignity will unfold slowly, in conversations and conflicts, in small victories and necessary failures. In a world obsessed with speed, slowing down becomes resistance—insisting that our time belongs first to ourselves, that its value cannot be reduced to productive output.

Time theft wears no mask because we’ve been taught not to see it as theft. Changing that perception is the first step toward a world where temporal dignity is not a luxury but a right, where the promise of technology finally serves human flourishing rather than extracting from it. The revolution will be temporal, or there will be no revolution at all.