The Haunting: How Algorithms Engineer Your Constant Availability

Your boss isn't watching you right now—but your body thinks they might be. This episode explores anticipatory stress, the booming "bossware" surveillance industry now monitoring 61% of US workers, and why knowing work could arrive at any moment causes more damage than actual work. We examine the global legal battle for a right to disconnect, from EU protections to US loopholes, and ask whether law can protect you from a curse that follows you home. 00:00:00 - Anticipatory Stress and the Science of Always-On 00:02:15 - The Bossware Industry: 550+ Products for Digital Surveillance 00:07:27 - The Curse Mark: Permission Without Protection 00:09:03 - Does Anyone Have This Figured Out? 00:12:23 - The United States Response 00:13:53 - Legal Right to Disconnect: Where It Works and Where It Doesn't 00:15:24 - The Future: Emotional AI and Screen Content Monitoring --- Sources & further reading: • Liuba Belkin, William Becker, Samantha Conroy — "Exhausted But Unable to Disconnect: The Impact of Email-Related Organizational Expectations on Work-Family Balance": https://source.colostate.edu/anticipatory-stress-of-after-hours-email-exhausting-employees/ • European Parliament — "Right to Disconnect" legislative train: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-a-europe-fit-for-the-digital-age/file-al-legislative-proposal-to-the-commission-on-the-right-to-disconnect • Equitable Growth — "Estimating the prevalence of automated management and surveillance technologies at work": https://equitablegrowth.org/research-paper/estimating-the-prevalence-of-automated-management-and-surveillance-technologies-at-work-and-their-impact-on-workers-well-being/ • Mayer Brown — "France: The Right to Disconnect Q&A" (March 2025): https://www.mayerbrown.com/en/insights/publications/2025/03/france-the-right-to-disconnect-qa • DLA Piper — "A look at global employee disconnect laws for US counsel": https://knowledge.dlapiper.com/dlapiperknowledge/globalemploymentlatestdevelopments/2024/global-employee-disconnect-laws-for-US-counsel • Baker McKenzie — "Australia: The Right to Disconnect" (September 2025): https://www.bakermckenzie.com/en/insight/publications/alerts/2025/09/australia-the-right-to-disconnect-has-it-really-changed-the-way-we-work • NPR — "Work, Life Balance: VW Agrees To Switch Off After-Hours Email" (December 2011): https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/12/23/144200222/work-life-balance-vw-agrees-to-switch-off-after-hours-email • The Verge / reported via Slashdot — "Amazon's Algorithm Automatically Fires Inefficient Warehouse Workers" (April 2019): https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/19/04/27/0455256/amazons-algorithm-automatically-fires-inefficient-warehouse-workers • The Register — "Amazon's algorithmic management of warehouse workers slated" (March 2025): https://www.theregister.com/software/2025/03/18/amazons-algorithmic-management-of-warehouse-workers-slated/1064445 • High5Test — "Employee Monitoring Statistics in the U.S. (2024-2025)": https://high5test.com/employee-monitoring-statistics/ • European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) — "Implications of algorithmic management for work" (2025): https://a.storyblok.com/f/279033/x/f107664d4a/wpef25083-literature-review-implications-of-algorithmic-management.pdf • European Parliament Research Service — "Algorithmic management study" (2025): https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2025/774670/EPRS_STU(2025)774670_EN.pdf • Cambier et al. — "Work e‐mail after hours and off‐job duration and their association with psychological detachment, actigraphic sleep, and saliva cortisol" (Journal of Sleep Research, 2021): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8626826/ • …and 5 more in the episode research notes This podcast episode was fully generated by AI — research, script, voices, and production. Built with Claude, Piper TTS, and automated pipeline tooling.