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The ‘admin night’ TikTok trend and the infiltration of work into private lives
A new hack under way in the US may be quietly legitimising an unhealthy work culture.
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Many participants have praised "admin nights" as a way to make mundane tasks feel less boring while boosting social time.
PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO
Stephen Mihm
The first images that come to mind when you hear “admin night” might be of a fun evening out for office support staff, but the trend is significantly less entertaining. As one primer on the practice put it, it is a “great productivity hack”. Instead of happy hour, friends gather for a night of doing their taxes, answering e-mails and otherwise catching up on work.
Many participants have praised the events as a way to make mundane tasks feel less boring while boosting social time. That may be true, but this hack is also the latest expression of America’s unhealthy relationship with work and its complicated discomfort with leisure. Remember the invention of “workations” – the deliberate combination of work and vacation time?
