I want to make a confession. In the last years - since 2019, at the very least - I have worn pajamas to work almost every day. This in no way changes the quality of my work product. It never has, and it never will. The days I’ve been in adult clothes due to an obligation that requires them - perhaps a contractor is coming over, or I have a pressing engagement that will run up against my battery of calls - have had the same level of production as the days I have sat in a t-shirt that says “I have never committed a crime” that’s covered in cat hair because my cat loves to sleep not so much
Also if you know any managers, much less executives, they literally spend all their time in meetings and not even in the collegial, collaborative professional office where we come up with spontaneous ideas at the watercooler and suddenly collaborate in person. It's like Zucc or Musk or Bezos where *they* want the proles in the office but *they* can work remotely from their yacht in the Mediterranean or their hotel suite at Davos because THEY are big shot business guys so can't be there in person...which is weird because don't we need their Vision and Leadership? HMM!
If I'm hearing you correctly, what you're saying is: if a company becomes so obsessed with worshipping at the altar of management culture dogma that they begin writing ridiculous mandatory work-from-an-office requirements into their employment contracts, we should begin referring to these stipulations as "Edith Cooper Temple Clauses".
We need 100 more writers just like you, with the same talent for precise language, same sense of outrage (and humor) and same plain disgust with outmoded ideas, to pull down the rotting edifice of "consensus" re: work from home that tired hacks like Gladwell et al are trying so hard to sustain.
I keep seeing the harping on the mythology of <i>the serendipity of talking to people not directly related to what you do; the exposure to a diversity of ideas and perspectives; the chance to look up and say, “I never thought about that.”</i>
IMO, if managers want colleagues to mix it up, those managers can easily and deliberately set up Zoom meetings between employees who don't work together and encourage them to talk about whatever they want -- which would probably be far more effective than just waiting for "serendipitous" talks to occur. None of this alchemy seems to require an office. But I suspect such Zoom meetings would be regarded as an unproductive waste of time, because I also suspect that these tales of serendipitous discussions are an urban legend. If any of the people writing about this have ever experienced an actual useful breakthrough as the result of a water cooler encounter with a random coworker, I'd seriously like to hear about it as part of their editorializing.
"His success has come from telling comfortable bedtime stories for the rich, helping them find confusing and complex ways to hide how their success - like Gladwell’s - came from privilege and luck."
What stories? I have not read his newer works, but Outliers was all about success coming from privilege and luck.
I think it is remarkably funny to suggest being in-person with a colleague is the only way to have a conversation resulting in “I never thought of it that way” as I have had conversations with precisely the same outcome with my coworkers in entirely remote settings.
I don't disagree with anything you've said. But if your argument is that people become successful not simply on merit but because they were in a place to leverage social relationships...isn't that an argument to be where the social relationships are?
Because if otherwise you're saying, "the system sucks and it needs to be changed!!" then the response is both "duh," and "don't hold your breath."
Ed I don't think this is an all or nothing thing - living in Australia the last couple of years we were subjected to draconian lockdowns which meant that our entire existence was spent in the home for months at a time, bar the odd trip to the supermarket or whatever. It felt like a merry-go-round you couldn't get off. You'd wake up, get the kids breakfast and off to daycare, then settle down to your desk at home for 8 hours (a day usually punctuated by useless meetings because it's much easier to pin someone down for half an hour and waste their time when its not face to face), pick the kids up, get them dinner and put them to bed and then it was 8 o'clock in the middle of winter, and you've been stuck inside all day. Chances are your computer is still on and some dipshit who has nothing better to do is sending you emails, so you think you should attend to them because you probably won't have time to in the morning for all the other dipshits sending you emails. Five days a week. For months on end.
For me, commuting a few days a week gives me space - it compartmentalises my day. My computer is in my bag at 4:30 and it doesn't go back on until the next day. I get out and about. I can listen to podcasts or read on the train - two things I can't do at home because something something small children who need constant attention. This makes me a better person and parent I think, because I don't feel like I am trapped inside my house without agency. I can take or leave sitting in the office with people - just yesterday we toured a new (empty) office space that we are sharing with another department and I asked "when do they start here", "oh they've been here for months" was the reply so clearly we will just be in a big empty space anyway. But I like getting a burger for lunch every now and again, or wandering around the CBD in the sunshine or whatever.
Anyway what I'm saying is I think there's a place for both - hybrid working will be my approach moving forward, for my mental health and productivity. For those who have the fortitude to work from home full time, and be surrounded by the same four walls, good luck to you, and for those who have no option or choose to work in an office or wherever full-time then I sympathise with you and understand that you probably think WFH acolytes are lucky, or bludgers, or a combination of both.
Also if you know any managers, much less executives, they literally spend all their time in meetings and not even in the collegial, collaborative professional office where we come up with spontaneous ideas at the watercooler and suddenly collaborate in person. It's like Zucc or Musk or Bezos where *they* want the proles in the office but *they* can work remotely from their yacht in the Mediterranean or their hotel suite at Davos because THEY are big shot business guys so can't be there in person...which is weird because don't we need their Vision and Leadership? HMM!
If I'm hearing you correctly, what you're saying is: if a company becomes so obsessed with worshipping at the altar of management culture dogma that they begin writing ridiculous mandatory work-from-an-office requirements into their employment contracts, we should begin referring to these stipulations as "Edith Cooper Temple Clauses".
Thank you Ed!
We need 100 more writers just like you, with the same talent for precise language, same sense of outrage (and humor) and same plain disgust with outmoded ideas, to pull down the rotting edifice of "consensus" re: work from home that tired hacks like Gladwell et al are trying so hard to sustain.
I keep seeing the harping on the mythology of <i>the serendipity of talking to people not directly related to what you do; the exposure to a diversity of ideas and perspectives; the chance to look up and say, “I never thought about that.”</i>
IMO, if managers want colleagues to mix it up, those managers can easily and deliberately set up Zoom meetings between employees who don't work together and encourage them to talk about whatever they want -- which would probably be far more effective than just waiting for "serendipitous" talks to occur. None of this alchemy seems to require an office. But I suspect such Zoom meetings would be regarded as an unproductive waste of time, because I also suspect that these tales of serendipitous discussions are an urban legend. If any of the people writing about this have ever experienced an actual useful breakthrough as the result of a water cooler encounter with a random coworker, I'd seriously like to hear about it as part of their editorializing.
Hey! Joel Osteen is the Joel Osteen of intellectual dullards.
"His success has come from telling comfortable bedtime stories for the rich, helping them find confusing and complex ways to hide how their success - like Gladwell’s - came from privilege and luck."
What stories? I have not read his newer works, but Outliers was all about success coming from privilege and luck.
i mean, quiet quitting is just this scene from office space come to life
https://youtu.be/_ChQK8j6so8
if you just want to do the minimum...
Wow. What an amazing read. Such velocity to each sentence. Myths eviscerated. Thanks mucho!
I think it is remarkably funny to suggest being in-person with a colleague is the only way to have a conversation resulting in “I never thought of it that way” as I have had conversations with precisely the same outcome with my coworkers in entirely remote settings.
"...burning what little time we have in this wretched universe"
lol
He ain't talkin' 'bout me though. I'm gonna live forever.
I don't disagree with anything you've said. But if your argument is that people become successful not simply on merit but because they were in a place to leverage social relationships...isn't that an argument to be where the social relationships are?
Because if otherwise you're saying, "the system sucks and it needs to be changed!!" then the response is both "duh," and "don't hold your breath."
Ed I don't think this is an all or nothing thing - living in Australia the last couple of years we were subjected to draconian lockdowns which meant that our entire existence was spent in the home for months at a time, bar the odd trip to the supermarket or whatever. It felt like a merry-go-round you couldn't get off. You'd wake up, get the kids breakfast and off to daycare, then settle down to your desk at home for 8 hours (a day usually punctuated by useless meetings because it's much easier to pin someone down for half an hour and waste their time when its not face to face), pick the kids up, get them dinner and put them to bed and then it was 8 o'clock in the middle of winter, and you've been stuck inside all day. Chances are your computer is still on and some dipshit who has nothing better to do is sending you emails, so you think you should attend to them because you probably won't have time to in the morning for all the other dipshits sending you emails. Five days a week. For months on end.
For me, commuting a few days a week gives me space - it compartmentalises my day. My computer is in my bag at 4:30 and it doesn't go back on until the next day. I get out and about. I can listen to podcasts or read on the train - two things I can't do at home because something something small children who need constant attention. This makes me a better person and parent I think, because I don't feel like I am trapped inside my house without agency. I can take or leave sitting in the office with people - just yesterday we toured a new (empty) office space that we are sharing with another department and I asked "when do they start here", "oh they've been here for months" was the reply so clearly we will just be in a big empty space anyway. But I like getting a burger for lunch every now and again, or wandering around the CBD in the sunshine or whatever.
Anyway what I'm saying is I think there's a place for both - hybrid working will be my approach moving forward, for my mental health and productivity. For those who have the fortitude to work from home full time, and be surrounded by the same four walls, good luck to you, and for those who have no option or choose to work in an office or wherever full-time then I sympathise with you and understand that you probably think WFH acolytes are lucky, or bludgers, or a combination of both.