Remote work gave them a reprieve from racism. They don't want to go back
As LeRon Barton weighed his options, he realized what he had to do.
If he took a pay cut of $5,000, he could have a fully remote tech job that would let him roam the country and give him the flexibility he craved. Or he could keep his salary and stay at his current job — a network engineer position based at a San Francisco hospital that required occasional site visits and kept him tethered to the region.
Patients at the hospital sometimes gave him funny looks when he came to check their room's Wi-Fi, recalled Barton, who is Black, and staff members questioned his competence. Working remotely during the pandemic showed him a whole different lifestyle: no commute, more time with his family and a break from the onslaught of microaggressions and other racist behavior he'd had to endure.
Barton chose the pay cut.
"You're totally out of the rigamarole," said Barton, who is now a writer and technical project manager at a Southern California tech company. "And just the quality of life has improved drastically."
It's a sentiment expressed
