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SINGAPORE: After her third visit to the clinic for chest pains, which led her to be referred to a hospital’s accident and emergency department, Adriana (not her real name) decided that she had had enough. She quit her job. Her first two visits were for headaches from a lack of sleep and stress, and for gastric pains from skipping meals and taking painkillers. “My GP (general practitioner) said to me ‘nowadays, people either get COVID-19 and suffer, or they don’t and suffer while working’. “I even had to take a work call before going to the A&E because we were just really short-handed,” said Adriana, in her mid-20s, who declined to reveal her real name. Adriana, who works in the communications industry, was told after a series of tests that her chest pains were a symptom of anxiety and she had experienced a panic attack. Then, there’s 25-year-old Stella (not her real name) who also made the difficult decision to resign from her job in the food and beverage industry … [Read more...] about The Big Read: Working from home becomes a nightmare when lines are blurred and boundaries trampled

SYDNEY: The demand for online shopping has obviously increased since COVID-19 restrictions were put in place. But less obvious are the subtle psychological drivers behind our collective online shopping splurge. In fact, online shopping can relieve stress, provide entertainment and offers the reduced “pain” of paying online. In the last week of April, more than two million parcels a day were delivered across the Australia Post network. This is 90 per cent more than the same time last year. READ: Commentary: When economies reopen for business but families are reluctant to spend LISTEN: Repairing and recycling to reduce e-waste: A pipe dream? More recently, data based on a weekly sample - from May 11 to May 17 - of transactions revealed food delivery increased by 230 per cent, furniture and office goods purchases rose 140 per cent and alcohol and tobacco sales rose 45 per cent. Meanwhile, we’ve seen thousands of retail job losses, with Wesfarmers announcing plans on … [Read more...] about Commentary: Why we can’t resist splurging on online shopping