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The promise of telecommuting tech was one of the biggest pump-fakes that workers have ever seen. Everyone was going to be able to work from anywhere—sad offices with pallid fluorescent lighting be damned!

Obviously, that didn’t really come until the pandemic, and in a lot of ways telecommuting chained workers to their offices even more by making sure that their work was always present, in their computers and in their cellphones. Something needs to get done late? It’s not waiting until you get back into the office. Your boss is going to email/Slack/text you tonight to do it. 

Portugal is done with all of that. Its parliament approved legislation on Friday making it illegal for managers to contact their staff outside of working hours. Now, if your boss tries to contact you late, they can be fined, unless it’s an emergency situation. The only catch is that you have to go into the office every two months to check in with your supervisors and fellow employees.

And if you have a kid, you don’t even need your boss’ permission for any of this. You can just work from home without getting them to sign off. 

The legislation was drafted by Portugal’s socialist-led government in the hopes of regaining the work-life balance that has escaped many remote workers during the pandemic. Which is why, as I write this in the middle of my once-every-two-months weekend shift, I’ve also got a tab open for flights to Lisbon. Wish me a boa viagem, will you?

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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