
Flexibility gives way to workday "dead zone"
CBSN
It's common for employees' productivity to ebb and flow over the course of a workday. These days, when their energy wanes, workers are shifting gears to take care of personal chores during standard business hours.
"It's kind of a holdover from the height of the pandemic era. You think about the flexibility many of us enjoyed when we were working in fully remote environments — you'd step away maybe to get started on dinner, or you'd get in your workout, maybe pick up your kids," Wall Street Journal reporter Callum Borchers told CBS News.
Remote and hybrid work models give workers flexibility that full-time, in-office work doesn't allow. Workers are clinging to the freedom and added control they gained over their schedules at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. In some cases, though, their workdays now extend past dinnertime.

Barry Morphew, a longtime suspect in his wife's disappearance and murder, was arrested in Arizona on June 20, 2025, two days after he was indicted on a first-degree murder charge in the case of his wife Suzanne Morphew's death. This was the second time Barry Morphew has been arrested and charged in her death. The initial charges were dismissed without prejudice, meaning authorities reserved the right to charge him again.