Yesterday I put out my first piece for The Atlantic, what I’d call a general summary of why I believe that those in power are truly afraid of letting everybody go remote. The response has mostly been positive, because most people realize that if you can do your work on the computer at work, you can do your work on the computer at home. Nevertheless, the critiques - as usual - have been vague in their analysis, claiming that it’s “anecdotal evidence” to speak to this problem in the manner I have, which many, many people agree with me about, that seems to register with a multitude of experiences across a multitude of industries.
My company moved to online only and honestly my only complaint is that they're essentially pushing the cost of office space onto their employees without paying us more to add extra dedicated space to work in. I can't afford to rent an apartment with an extra room so I'm stuck working in my living room. Management's response is "well why don't you go live somewhere else?" but I 1) like where I live 2) have friends and family here and 3) they 'adjust' your salary down when you move to a less expensive area, so I lose either way. My ideal would be to have an office where I could go work without the pressure to go every day.
Your Atlantic article crystalized many thoughts I've had in my 30+ year corporate career: S/he who is at the office the most and and TELLS everyone about the long hours/stress/skipped family events is seen as the most valuable employee. Miss your kid's recital? You are a true team player.
Today's execs did all that, which helped them get to where they are now. So the idea that other people might not value being known as someone who puts in stupidly-long hours or might prefer to spend time with their families vs coworkers is hard for them to get their heads around.
You had me going only your vibe until you started to throw in racist, sexist, biased view on white people sharing a view because of their reproductive organs or skin color.
Your article in The Atlantic brought me here. Agree on all points, and I think another possibility as to why so many executives and middle managers are opposed to remote work is that they simply do not know who many of their employees are, nor what they do, and leadership may not have the interest in putting in the effort to figure any of that out.
Instead, they have traditionally relied on seeing butts in seats as a measure of productivity, a point which you alluded to when you mentioned snide remarks about people leaving at 6pm. I have been at a lunch where an executive praised a newly-hired middle manager solely on the basis of that person showing up to the office 15 minutes early every day, and had nothing else to say about the person. I also know this executive had no other grasp of this manager's competencies.
The only compelling argument I've heard against 100% remote work, a point which is not applicable to my own situation but made by some of my colleagues whom I admire and respect, is that they don't want to spend this much time with their spouses and children. It's also possible some executives feel the same way, but don't want to publicly and very specifically state that they'd prefer a little less time at home with their spouses and instead have a little more face time with their attractive twenty-something executive assistants.
. poor tooling for those who don't produce simple documents as their work product;
. no serious consideration of hiring (getting the next job is a bigger problem if your competition is global; finding candidates is harder the more chaff you have to wade through -- same story
. harder to mentor new workers remotely
. if employees *want* remote work, it's value goes down
. hard to imagine physical proximity not counting for promotion / raises (framed in the negative as "bullshit kissing up" but that's over simplistic)
All in all, I imagine capitalism grinding remote work into something permitted for no-benefits workers. Remote becomes the new gig work...
My company moved to online only and honestly my only complaint is that they're essentially pushing the cost of office space onto their employees without paying us more to add extra dedicated space to work in. I can't afford to rent an apartment with an extra room so I'm stuck working in my living room. Management's response is "well why don't you go live somewhere else?" but I 1) like where I live 2) have friends and family here and 3) they 'adjust' your salary down when you move to a less expensive area, so I lose either way. My ideal would be to have an office where I could go work without the pressure to go every day.
The sunk cost fallacy has to play into it some too, right? “We spent all this money building an office! Of course it has to be worth it.”
Your Atlantic article crystalized many thoughts I've had in my 30+ year corporate career: S/he who is at the office the most and and TELLS everyone about the long hours/stress/skipped family events is seen as the most valuable employee. Miss your kid's recital? You are a true team player.
Today's execs did all that, which helped them get to where they are now. So the idea that other people might not value being known as someone who puts in stupidly-long hours or might prefer to spend time with their families vs coworkers is hard for them to get their heads around.
You had me going only your vibe until you started to throw in racist, sexist, biased view on white people sharing a view because of their reproductive organs or skin color.
Your article in The Atlantic brought me here. Agree on all points, and I think another possibility as to why so many executives and middle managers are opposed to remote work is that they simply do not know who many of their employees are, nor what they do, and leadership may not have the interest in putting in the effort to figure any of that out.
Instead, they have traditionally relied on seeing butts in seats as a measure of productivity, a point which you alluded to when you mentioned snide remarks about people leaving at 6pm. I have been at a lunch where an executive praised a newly-hired middle manager solely on the basis of that person showing up to the office 15 minutes early every day, and had nothing else to say about the person. I also know this executive had no other grasp of this manager's competencies.
The only compelling argument I've heard against 100% remote work, a point which is not applicable to my own situation but made by some of my colleagues whom I admire and respect, is that they don't want to spend this much time with their spouses and children. It's also possible some executives feel the same way, but don't want to publicly and very specifically state that they'd prefer a little less time at home with their spouses and instead have a little more face time with their attractive twenty-something executive assistants.
Lots of interesting thoughts here.
Primary limitations:
. poor tooling for those who don't produce simple documents as their work product;
. no serious consideration of hiring (getting the next job is a bigger problem if your competition is global; finding candidates is harder the more chaff you have to wade through -- same story
. harder to mentor new workers remotely
. if employees *want* remote work, it's value goes down
. hard to imagine physical proximity not counting for promotion / raises (framed in the negative as "bullshit kissing up" but that's over simplistic)
All in all, I imagine capitalism grinding remote work into something permitted for no-benefits workers. Remote becomes the new gig work...