They can take our livelihoods, but they can never take our remote-working freedom!
The powers-that-be want to return to pre-Covid working arrangements. Perhaps they should have long ago made those arrangements more amenable to others
Since I launched this Substack newsletter in mid-January, two of my weekly missives have gone viral. (Or at least ‘gone viral’ in the context of how many people typically read these musings.)
The first was a reflection on workplace ageism, which I suspect struck a nerve with people on the wrong side of 40.
The second was a think piece arguing that many of those who’d shimmied up the greasy pole were “protesting so much about flexible working arrangements precisely because they sense on some level that they will increasingly be surplus to requirements in a world where workers are judged on their output rather than their politicking abilities”.
I haven’t resiled from that position. Despite the overwhelming response to my first foray into the work-from-home (WFH) debate, I hadn’t planned on revisiting the topic. But given recent events, my hand has been forced.
So, here we go again…
Recent events
Curiously, despite my magisterial intervention in it in early June, the remote-working debate hasn’t been resolved. As time has passed, the pro-return-to-the-office camp has grown ever more frustrated, strident and menacing.
Here are some developments that have caught my eye recently:
· When an employee asked Mark Zuckerberg if the more flexible working arrangements put in place during the pandemic would be maintained, Zuckerberg replied, “Given my tone in the rest of the [staff townhall] Q&A, you can probably imagine what my reaction to this is”.
To provide some background on that tone, Zuckerberg had earlier mused, “Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here. And part of my hope by raising expectations and having more aggressive goals, and just kind of turning up the heat a little bit, is that I think some of you might just say that this place isn’t for you. And that self-selection is okay with me.”
· In a Substack newsletter published on August 6, Mumbrella founder Tim Burrowes reported that the Chief Marketing Officer of Guzman y Gomez told an advertising conference, “I really admire smart, ambitious people. So for me, in senior leadership, if the first question is ‘Can I work from home?,’ you’re probably out the door. I respect anyone who wants flexible working and whatever, it’s just more I need you on a journey with me at the moment and if that’s your priority, you’re probably not the right fit.”
Burrowes argued the Mexican-food spruiker was simply, “Saying the quiet thing out loud. Most industry bosses you speak to, whether in agencies, media sales or marketing teams want their staff back in the office. They believe having people there in person builds culture, and it’s how you develop junior team members.”
· In a Financial Times article entitled ‘Disengaged, indifferent, deluded? Why young workers have an image problem’, an incredulous Pilita Clark related the following examples of outrages perpetrated by early-career employees: “There was the flummoxed investor who had told junior staff they should be in the office when clients visited, only to have those staff say: thanks for the feedback, but I would rather keep working from home… A consultant told me of a younger colleague who refused to travel abroad to client meetings anymore, insisting they could be done online.”
(Despite being roughly the same vintage as Ms Clark, it’s not obvious to me what is so objectionable about the actions of these “coddled, disengaged and indifferent 20-something employees”. I presume the underlings of the ‘flummoxed investor’ weren’t meeting with the clients in question and were meant to commute to their workplace so they could serve as useful props (“Look at all these bright young things eagerly beavering away on your behalf, Mr Client!”). Also, if I had a “younger colleague” who wanted to conduct client meetings via video conference rather than pissing large amounts of their billable hours and the company’s money up against the wall on unnecessary international travel, I’d be putting them forward for promotion rather than slagging them off.)
· In, I assume, an effort to pander to those corporate heavy hitters who pay him obscene amounts of money to speak at their conferences and plug their wares, Malcolm Gladwell tried to convince the junior ranks to return to their places of work immediately during a recent appearance on the Diary of a CEO podcast. Granted, Gladwell hasn’t had to show up to an office for over two decades and is on record waxing lyrical about the joys of working remotely, but I guess this is one of those, ‘Do as I say, not as I do,’ situations.
Gladwell told his interlocutor, “As we face the battle that all organisations are facing now in getting people back into the office, it’s really hard to explain this core psychological truth, which is we want you to have a feeling of belonging and to feel necessary… If we don’t feel like we’re part of something important, what’s the point? If it’s just a paycheck, then it’s like what have you reduced your life to?”
So, to summarise, if you don’t see the point of getting dressed up and commuting into an office five days a week – just like your father and his father before him did – to complete tasks that can just as effectively be completed from your home you’re not smart, ambitious, goal-orientated, a team player, or interested in learning from your colleagues and you unquestionably are coddled, deluded, selfish, solipsistic, immature, lazy and a total buzzkill.
Most tragically of all, you’re ultimately cheating yourself. After all, it’s not like you work for something as tawdry and insignificant as a pay cheque. No, spending 40 hours a week sitting in your grim cubicle in the vicinity of all those other overworked, underpaid, unappreciated, quietly despairing, eminently disposable wage slaves provides you with a life-affirming feeling of belonging and purpose!
What are you going to do if you don’t spend most of your waking hours in the office?! Fritter away your precious time building stronger relationships with family members, friends and neighbours? Pursue your passion projects? Get involved with your community?
Why don’t you go back to North Korea, you degenerate Communist.
Are return-to-the-office blowhards the new Men’s Rights Activists?
As a man of a certain life stage, I’m well acquainted with a particular type of middle-aged male. For the purposes of this article, let’s call him Jack. Jack has been married to his wife, Jill, for years. Sure, his marriage isn’t perfect, but whose is? Jack doesn’t cheat on his wife. He doesn’t drink, gamble or watch porn excessively. He loves his kids (most of the time) and he provides well for his family. As he sees it, Jack has played by the rules and dutifully fulfilled his responsibilities.
One day, seemingly out of the blue, Jill tells Jack she’s filing for divorce. Jack’s world immediately starts falling apart.
At this juncture, Jack has two options:
Option One: Jack can accept his world has changed forever and adjust to his new circumstances as gracefully as possible. He can come to understand that while he believed his marital relationship was good enough, his spouse had long felt it was not nearly good enough.
If Jack is especially wise, he might even reflect on whether he could have done more to ensure his now ex-wife felt respected and appreciated. He may even resolve to learn from his past mistakes so as to make any future relationships more of a win-win proposition.
Option Two: Jack becomes frustrated and embittered. He starts boring friends with interminable diatribes about how a steady diet of Sex and the City, Bridgerton, Fifty Shades of Grey, Pretty Woman, Twilight, The Notebook and Bridget Jones Dairy has caused women to have delusional expectations about real-world relationships.
Jack begins clicking on those ‘Meet Asian Women’ ads that have started appearing in his Gmail inbox and social media feeds. He imagines how much better his life would be if only the government could arrange for hundreds of thousands of attractive ladies with traditional values to be imported from South-East Asia every year. What a richly deserved comeuppance that would be to all those entitled Western women who’ve been ignoring his Tinder messages!
Jack starts to spend his evenings on manosphere sites ranting about the sad fate awaiting all those endlessly indulged twentysomething females once they “hit the wall” and get a taste of what life is like for those of modest Sexual Market Value (SMV).
Jack is not doing himself any favours, however cathartic he may find venting his rage. Rightly or wrongly, hardly anybody sympathises with Jack or believes his arguments have much validity. Jack dare not acknowledge it to himself or anyone else, but he is repeatedly smashing his head against a brick wall.
It’s hard to find complaisant help nowadays
To be fair, plenty of C-suiters have opted for the corporate equivalent of Option One. With labour markets the tightest they’ve been in half a century, and a step change in digital transformation now bedded down, they’ve accepted that the pre-pandemic Ancien Régime will not be reconstituting itself, however much they might yearn for that to happen.
If they are especially wise, C-suiters might even have thought about why their underlings are so much more reluctant to return to the workplace than they are. Maybe, just maybe, they have belatedly come to understand spending time at the office is a lot more fun for those who have a short commute and a corner office and who get to give orders and be feted by young and attractive members of the opposite sex than it is for those who have to schlep into the CBD from the cheaper suburbs, endure the hell of an open-plan layout, take orders, and pretend to admire and respect aged individuals who, in any other context, they wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire.
But pick up a business newspaper or attend an industry conference and you’ll be sure to encounter at least one Option Two windbag. Devoid of self-awareness, they’ll loudly lament the ingratitude of all those hirelings they have done so much for. Like Jack, they realise they are currently, ahem, impotent. But they long for the day when, thanks to a deep recession or a turbo-charged migration program, or ideally both, their jumped-up junior staffers will get their just deserts and discover what it’s like trying to demand flexible working arrangements with the unemployment rate in double digits.
Like Old Mate Jack, they may be waiting some time to see what they perceive as justice prevail.