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Over thirty years, employers have systematically dismantled almost all the peripheral value office life gives workers. They have treated them as regrettable externalities that should not, except by accident, accrue to the worker. Things a junior clerk might have expected in 1990 like an office, privacy, [[travel and entertainment]] budget, an assistant, an internal mail service, a typing pool, proofreaders — ''all'' of these have gone. Even the [[IT department|hardware]] the firm brought in to replace it has been taken away again: now the workers must [[bring your own device|bring their own]]. | Over thirty years, employers have systematically dismantled almost all the peripheral value office life gives workers. They have treated them as regrettable externalities that should not, except by accident, accrue to the worker. Things a junior clerk might have expected in 1990 like an office, privacy, [[travel and entertainment]] budget, an assistant, an internal mail service, a typing pool, proofreaders — ''all'' of these have gone. Even the [[IT department|hardware]] the firm brought in to replace it has been taken away again: now the workers must [[bring your own device|bring their own]]. | ||
They were withdrawn piecemeal in a generational, insidious, erosion of the paltry joys office life once offered. Meanwhile, like frogs in a warming pot, respected professionals turned | They were withdrawn piecemeal in a generational, insidious, erosion of the paltry joys office life once offered. Meanwhile, like frogs in a warming pot, respected professionals were turned, over 30 years, into battery hens. But, suddenly, the battery hens have had a taste of ''la dolce vita'' — albeit spread across their own dining-room table — and many of them won’t want to give that up. | ||
Take, for example, office space. The young clerk had first to ''share'' her office, then give it up it for a cubicle, then an un-barricaded desk in a row. Nowadays she has a soft commitment that, as long as at least the projected number of coworkers are sick or on holiday, there ''should'' be a spare terminal she can log into, but she must wipe clean and sanitise it in compliance with the [[clear desk policy]], before leaving for the day. And these workers are the lucky ones: they haven’t — ''yet'' — been jettisoned in favour of the [[proverbial school-leaver from Bucharest]]. | Take, for example, office space. The young clerk had first to ''share'' her office, then give it up it for a cubicle, then an un-barricaded desk in a row. Nowadays she has a soft commitment that, as long as at least the projected number of coworkers are sick or on holiday, there ''should'' be a spare terminal she can log into, but she must wipe clean and sanitise it in compliance with the [[clear desk policy]], before leaving for the day. And these workers are the lucky ones: they haven’t — ''yet'' — been jettisoned in favour of the [[proverbial school-leaver from Bucharest]]. | ||
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And since we have ''seen'' that possibility, and not just seen it but proven effortlessly, over a sustained period, that it makes us more productive — I mean, who would have ''thought''? — is it any wonder that the thought of slogging, on our own dollar back into a drab central location only to sit at telescreens like Tomorrow People and participate in ''exactly the same Skype calls that we could do from home'', only with a larger screen, better coffee and a guitar handy for those lengthy mutable spells — really doesn’t appeal? | And since we have ''seen'' that possibility, and not just seen it but proven effortlessly, over a sustained period, that it makes us more productive — I mean, who would have ''thought''? — is it any wonder that the thought of slogging, on our own dollar back into a drab central location only to sit at telescreens like Tomorrow People and participate in ''exactly the same Skype calls that we could do from home'', only with a larger screen, better coffee and a guitar handy for those lengthy mutable spells — really doesn’t appeal? | ||
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