Sade was frank when talking about remote work and crossed boundaries. “You can go to the bathroom when you’re in the off

Working remotely has provided an opportunity for Black women to flourish outside of the expectations of professionalism, simply by nature of not being hypervisible and held to standards that weren’t designed for us. So this begs the question: How has remote work changed what it means to be professional for working Black women?,With overlapping crises of a global pandemic, unrelenting police violence, and general political turmoil, we are doing a much better job at giving each other — and more importantly, ourselves — more grace. “Often Black folk can’t mess up. We always need to be perfect. We can’t make a mistake, we’re representing the race,” Faison says. “Working remotely, everyone is trying to figure it out at the same time. People are more gracious with themselves and have taken some of that pressure off of themselves. Working remotely has given me more time to take care of myself,” Faison says.,Working remotely has provided an opportunity for Black women to flourish outside of the expectations of professionalism, simply by nature of not being hypervisible and held to standards that weren’t designed for us.,Celeste Faison, the director of campaigns at the National Domestic Workers Alliance, says that working from home has allowed her to be able to relax. “Going on Zoom and not having makeup on, or just having your hair in a ponytail… everybody has days where they’re like ‘there’s nowhere to go’.” Faison went on to say that the “tech startup look” is for White people. “Black folks and Black women aren’t given the privilege to be that relaxed in our clothing… there’s a pressure to always present your best self. It’s your Sunday best.”,Working from home, Black women are given flexibility when it comes to their appearance. From experimenting with different wigs and styles, to yes, wearing a bonnet during a Zoom call, not being in the office has given Black women newfound freedom. Through remote work, Black women can move away from the impossible standards that we have put on ourselves. And it’s not just in our physical appearance.,Changing these little things takes time because habits become ingrained in you from an early age. All you need is to make small changes, and over time, the compound effect will transform you.,Although powerful, reading is only one tiny sliver of self-improvement. There’s so much more that goes into it, like working towards a healthy body, changing jobs, creating a new hobby, or learning a new skill.,However, the Covid-19 pandemic has seen upward of 42% of American workers working from home. Contact with colleagues and bosses has been relegated to emails, Slack messages, and the dreaded Zoom meeting. Expectations of professionalism are no longer relegated to the office but remote work presents itself with many unique challenges. Should I put on a nice blouse before this staff meeting? Which Zoom background covers up my apartment the best? Am I smiling enough? Should I respond to this late-night email so my boss thinks I’m always available?,Sade, a 29-year-old therapist living in Virginia, initially loved working from home, primarily due to the physical comfort. While working with students, she normally had to wake up at 5 a.m. for her commute to work. But working from home has taught her some valuable lessons about the expectations she used to adhere to when it comes to both management and appearance: “I don’t need a certain level of management to do my job… I’m doing my job in my pajamas and I’m doing it to the level I would if I were in a suit.”,Changing these little things takes time because habits become ingrained in you from an early age. All you need is to make small changes, and over time, the compound effect will transform you.,I’ve long been a believer that professionalism is just a synonym for obedience. The less social capital you have, the more you are tethered to professionalism. It’s why Mark Zuckerberg can wear the same T-shirt to work while Black women are punished for wearing braids. The rules are different for different people depending on wealth, race, or class. Professionalism is often used as an amorphous term designed to uphold a single (read: White) standard. So, while it may seem objective to expect people to look, act and, work a particular way, enforcing these standards can be an undue burden on marginalized identities. For Black women, in particular, navigating the workplace is tough.,The underlying message behind improving yourself says you hold yourself in high regard, you expect more from yourself, and are excited about your life. How awesome is that? This is why you must never stop improving yourself.,However, it’s not all positive when it comes to the expectations around professionalism in the age of Covid-19 and remote work. Iné, a 22-year-old graduate student and nonprofit employee, laments the fact that her workspace and her home are now one and the same. “Boundaries have been impossible with everything being remote… I struggled, in the beginning, to figure out when I was going to cut myself off from looking at emails… I have to set boundaries with myself which I don’t know if I’ve mastered yet.” With Black women being expected to work twice as hard to be seen as competent as their peers, this blurring of boundaries can rear its head in the weirdest ways.,When you’re doing your best to become the best version, you’re prepping yourself to bask in the fullness of life. If you’re young, this means you’re creating a future you’ll be proud of in the coming decades. If you’re older, it means you get to enjoy a good quality of life today.,Pipelines are used in Ktor as an extension mechanism to plug functionality in at the right place. For example, a Ktor application defines five main phases: Setup, Monitoring, Features, Call and Fallback. The routing feature defines its own nested pipeline inside the application’s call phase.