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| {{a|devil|}}The ''reductio ad absurdam'' — sorry, my mistake: I mean ''logical conclusion'' — of [[middle management]]’s generational headlong stampede towards [[outsourcing]] all those messy externalities that are a by-product of needing human beings to carry out your business objectives. | | {{freeessay|design|bring your own premises|{{image|Home office|jpg|The [[JC]]’s [[home office]] yesterday}}}} |
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| There was a time where employment in the professions afforded status in society, and one had the accoutrements to match: an office with a mahogany desk, an Elephant’s foot umbrella stand in the corner, a minute secretary, an executive model Dictaphone, and so on.
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| As management [[dogma]] has systematically eroded these privileges in the name of cost reduction, the poor professional has been denuded of her status. Increasingly, she has been expected to supply her ''own'' accoutrements: do-it-yourself typing; [[bring your own device]] — and the same time that once commodious office became communal, then lost its door, then its walls, diminished to a dedicated space along a row, and most recently has become a conditional promise of a sanitised space at a [[telescreen]] somewhere in the building, assuming enough people are out sick or on holiday.
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| While these progressions undoubtedly looked magnificent on that PowerPoint presentation to the [[steerco]], living them out in person has been less edifying. Something important might have been lost among the winking green [[RAG status]] signals on the workstream update [[dashboard]]. But — the [[pragmatist’s prayer]],<ref>[[Pragmatist’s prayer|Andrew Dice Clay]] version.</ref> and all that.
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| But then, from ''nowhere'', [[Coronavirus]] bounced us all into a step further: now employees don’t get an office ''at all'', but have to ''supply their own''.
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| As as aside, pity the poor, perma-prepared cub scouts from the [[business continuity management]] team — who have been waiting for literally decades for just such a catastrophe to spring into action and finally reveal their worth, but whom [[coronavirus]] largely snookered. Just when you need it, that sprawling warehouse near Luton Airport was no more suitable for operations than the premises in EC4!
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| Instead, employees were sent ''home''. By and large, and to their great surprise, they found this an agreeable development. Suddenly the privacy, the space, the peace & quiet, the Elephant’s foot and the mahogany desk were back from nowhere.
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| The question now: is there any going back?
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| {{sa}}
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| *[[The new normal]]
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