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A semi-structured interview in which Speaker 1 asks the questions and Speaker 2 describes combining fully remote work with caring for a parent at home. It covers daily routines, keeping caring private at work, support at work, and life at home.

Participant context

Speaker 2 works as a payroll coordinator for a logistics company, fully remote since 2021, and lives with their mother, who had a stroke about three years ago and needs help with meals, medication and getting to appointments. A brother takes the mother every other Saturday.

Key themes

• Work blocks and care blocks: the day is split into protected blocks, and care time is marked busy in the work calendar without saying what it is (Speaker 2).
• Invisibility as protection: Speaker 2 keeps caring private at work after a colleague 'just stopped getting the interesting projects'; remote work is what makes that possible.
• Performing availability: in the first year, emails at eleven at night and keeping the status dot green; Speaker 2 still keeps it green.
• Structural relief: core hours from ten to three, and the brother taking the mother every other Saturday.
• Constant vigilance and tiredness: listening out for the mother during meetings, running on empty by Thursday, a wrong file sent to the bank.
• Not becoming 'a carer on paper': support at work exists but Speaker 2 has not used or read about it.
• Concealment on both sides at home: the mother waits until calls end to ask for help.

Verbatim quotes

• Speaker 2: I don't want my manager to see 'mum's physio' in my calendar. It's nobody's business, and I don't want it to be the first thing they think of when they think of me.
• Speaker 2: Remote work is what makes it possible to be invisible about it.
• Speaker 2: I felt like I had to prove I was working. I kept the chat app open all the time so the little dot stayed green.
• Speaker 2: I never fully switch off. I'm always half in the other room.
• Speaker 2: if I use it, then it's official, then I'm a carer on paper. Right now I'm just someone who works from home.
• Speaker 2: She's protecting my work, the same way I'm protecting her privacy at work.
• Speaker 2: It makes it possible. That's not the same as easy.

Emerging codes

• care blocks — "work blocks and care blocks"
• concealing care at work — "It's nobody's business"
• visibility as risk — "she just stopped getting the interesting projects"
• performing availability — "so the little dot stayed green"
• core hours as relief — "That was a big relief"
• constant vigilance — "I never fully switch off"
• tiredness and mistakes — "I make small mistakes when I'm tired"
• avoiding the carer label — "then I'm a carer on paper"
• mutual protection — "She's protecting my work"
• possible, not easy — "That's not the same as easy"

Contradictions and tensions

• Speaker 2 says "nobody was actually checking" the status dot, and also "But I still keep it green, to be honest."
• Remote work "makes it possible", yet "Some days I'd honestly prefer to go to an office".
• About the mother and working from home: "She loves it, and she hates it."

Unanswered or unclear

• What would change by being "a carer on paper": Speaker 2 says "I don't know exactly what. Maybe nothing."
• Whether there is a carers' leave policy: Speaker 2 has not read the handbook properly.
• What happened after the request to move afternoon meetings, beyond being told it is difficult because of the time difference.

Follow-up questions

• What do you think being 'a carer on paper' would change at work?
• Has anything changed after the summer, when your brother's schedule was meant to be clearer?
• Have your afternoon meetings moved at all since you asked?
• Does keeping the status dot green still feel necessary? What would happen if it went yellow?