Taking your work to bed?

There's no need to fear your best beloved will end up in someone else's arms if you make enough effort to cross the waves and Skype every night.

There's no need to fear your best beloved will end up in someone else's arms if you make enough effort to cross the waves and Skype every night.

Published Nov 30, 2012

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London - If you have ever bickered about your partner bringing their work home, be warned. Next thing you know, they’ll be bringing it to bed.

Growing numbers of us are checking our emails and browsing the internet without dragging ourselves out from under the covers – with one in three admitting they or their spouse now work from between the sheets.

The trend has spawned demand for gadgets that make plugging away from our pillow even more comfortable, from stands and cushions to beds with power sockets.

For just £10 (about R150), duvet workers can buy a portable foldaway laptop tray from Artis that fits on or around a bed, while £17 gets a hospital-style tray designed for laptop and mouse.

American firm Reverie sells a wifi-enabled bed that boasts power sockets and can be adjusted using an iPhone, while another US manufacturer, Kluft, has launched a 7ft by 7ft bed advertised as “a gathering place, a workplace, a comfort zone for a couple”.

A survey of 1,000 respondents by IT events firm Infosecurity Europe found 35 percent admitted they or their spouses took work to bed, with five percent of those claiming they did so for an average of two hours a day. In New York, another poll found eight out of ten young professionals regularly work from their bed.

Duvet worker Tim Howard, 37, said: “I check and send emails before I go to sleep and when I wake up. I try not to spend too much time on it, but when you work with people all around the world it is difficult to avoid.”

But Paula Hall, a relationship counsellor from Relate, warned: “It encroaches on couple time. You spend less together although you are in the same physical space and it can get in the way of intimacy. Couples need to establish where the boundaries for work are before it becomes a problem.” - Daily Mail

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