it’s the last shift, from voracious consumer to impassioned producer, that is most able to address the challenges of an increasingly fragmented working life. This shift is fundamentally about the way you choose to live your working life and your preparedness to make bold choices, to confront the consequences of these choices and to exercise free will. Looking back to Jill’s story, did she really have to take the call at 7.00 in the morning or 10.00 that evening? Did she really have to eat lunch at her desk on her own? Did she really have to look at hundreds of emails? These are decisions that many of the forces that will shape your working future will make ever more attractive. It will also make Jill’s way of working increasingly the norm. In a global, technologically enhanced and joined-up world, there is always something you can do – whatever the time, and wherever you are. And these issues of choices and priorities become ever more poignant when you consider that Jill, like many others in 2025, will be expected to be working into her 70s. Like you, what Jill faces is a long marathon – not a short sprint.
It is clear that crafting a working life through the choices you make will become increasingly important in the coming decades. When I think about my own working life, I did not have to make any really tough choices back in 1990; emerging technology and nascent globalisation had created a world that was a lot less frantic. If you are to address the ‘creeping normalcy’ of fragmentation, then it will require seeing it for what it is – constant pressure with no boundaries to protect you. In this third future-proofed shift – towards a deeper, more profound way of constructing a working life – we will address these issues. It is actively making wise choices, clearly understanding the consequences, and facing up to the sorts of dilemmas that Jill faces, that will be ever more crucial. Without this there will be no boundaries to protect people like Jill, and indeed to protect you from the ever-growing demands of a joined-up world.
Chapter 3
Isolation: The Genesis Of Loneliness
Rohan’s story
As we leave Jill and her increasingly fragmented life, let’s move across the world to the centre of Mumbai where, later that morning, Rohan, an Indian brain surgeon, comes online. Though skilled and masterful, Rohan experiences the dark side of the future every day of his life. Here is how.
As he wakes in the morning he moves into his home office, where he is preparing for the day’s work. You might expect a doctor like Rohan to spend much of his time at a hospital, working with colleagues and meeting patients. However, like many specialists in 2025, Rohan spends much of his time working from his home office. Within an hour of waking he has accessed the technology of the Cloud to download some of the most advanced visualisation technology that he needs for the day, and takes out a subscription for three hours of use.
By 11.00 a.m. he is ready to begin surgery. Today he is leading a team of surgeons in China who are performing a particularly tricky operation. That is why earlier in the week they had contacted Rohan to provide expertise for the operation. A young woman has internal bleeding from her brain and needs to be operated on to stop the bleeding. Rohan activates his telepresence unit, and within seconds can see clearly the other members of the team and the young woman patient who is already anaesthetised and ready for surgery. As his colleagues begin to open the skull, Rohan directs the holographic representation attached to the on-site camera to show him clearly the site of the bleeding. He then activates the robotic instruments and begins to gently manipulate the brain tissue. As Rohan leads the team, he speaks in his native Hindi language, which is automatically converted to the Cantonese of the rest of the team. This instantaneous translation technology, introduced in 2020, has made the learning of specialist languages redundant, save for those who speak languages as a hobby.
For the next half hour the team work skilfully to move to the site of the bleeding. It is a relatively shallow bleed so that stopping the blood flow can be done quickly. Within an hour the flow has been stemmed and the Chinese surgeons have begun to reconstruct the portion of the skull that was removed. The surgery seems to have been a success, so it is with a good heart that Rohan sits down for lunch in the bright dining room of his apartment.
By 2.00 Rohan is ready to join the second team he will be working with that afternoon. As the afternoon begins, he connects to the team from Chile which has come online to ask his advice about a particularly difficult case they are treating. They are due to operate on a young man with a brain tumour the following day. Over the next couple of hours Rohan again uses holographic representation – this time of the young man’s brain – to decide the best strategy for the operation. It takes over three hours of deep conversation and visualisation of the tumour to decide the strategy, but by 6.00 p.m. the team feels prepared and agrees to the timing for tomorrow’s surgery.
It is just time for Rohan to have a quick supper before he hooks up with colleagues at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London to talk about a young boy who has been brought in this week with a suspected brain tumour. Rohan specialises in the treatment of the young, so he is pleased to be able to share his advice and good wishes for the surgery. While he will not be involved with this one, he will observe the surgery in order to give feedback to one of the junior team members.
So by 11.00 p.m. Rohan is ready for bed. He has a busy day tomorrow with a follow-up to the young man from Chile and the observation of the London surgery. It has been a busy week for Rohan, and as he thinks back he realises that he has rarely left his apartment.
Amon’s Story
Amon in Cairo rarely leaves his apartment either that week. He is an independent freelancer, who works on complex IT projects. As soon as he wakes, the first action he takes is to check in with his virtual agent. He knows that every minute of the day his virtual agent is scanning the world for work that may suit Amon. It uses an exact profile of Amon’s current skills and knowledge base to find the project match. It also knows something about his working preferences – when he likes to work and the sort of client with whom he wants to work.
This morning the virtual agent has presented a range of possibilities for Amon. A drinks outfit in Brazil wants a program written for their customer care team, and needs it within three days. Another possibility has come through from a Malaysian entrepreneur with whom he has worked before. He wants a particularly complex piece of software written and is prepared to pay Amon 2000 Euros for it. He also spends the next hour taking a look at two open bids for work that his virtual agent has brought him. Amon knows that he will have to respond within the next two days if he wants to enter the competition for the work.
Over the following hour he works out how long the project will take him and comes to a decision about the lowest price for which he is prepared to work. By mid-morning he has decided to go with the drinks company in Brazil. By late morning he has begun the programming and over the next six hours he works in the virtual office of the project, dropping a note to others he is working with, and chatting to a fellow programmer. By 5.00 p.m. he is ready to attend a conference call with all the project team. By now he is at full steam and so decides that if he works into the evening he can probably get this finished. Before he finishes that evening Amon updates his personal profile, adding the recent work he completed for the Brazilian client.
Amon is a neo-nomad, picking up programming work from people he has never met, working with teams whose names he does not know, for companies far, far away.
Both Rohan and Amon have interesting working lives. Both are engaged with work tasks they enjoy and which stretch their competencies. They have found work they love and which they see as hobbies to be enjoyed, focused on and relished.
But do you notice what’s missing from their working lives? Neither Rohan nor Amon spends time during much of their working day with real people. Yes, they interact with people all day – Rohan with his fellow surgeons in China and Amon with the Brazilian team. However, what they are interacting with is cognitive assistants, avatars, holographs and video presence. Neither of them frequently encounters warm flesh and blood in their daily lives. Amon’s closest ‘friend’ is his virtual agent – and that’s a computer.
They are not alone. By 2025 we face the possibility that much of the fabric of our working lives is denuded of face-to-face relationships. It could well be, of course, that these virtual relationships become as rejuvenating