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 ===Be careful what you wish for===
-But is not [[the new normal]] ''precisely'' the thing for which [[chief operating officer]]s the world over have been wishing, carelessly, for thirty years? Is it not the logical conclusion of management’s generation-long push, in the name of [[cost reduction]], to deprecate the office-working experience?
+But is not [[the new normal]] ''precisely'' the thing for which [[chief operating officer]]s the world over have been wishing, carelessly, for thirty years? Is it not the logical conclusion of management’s generation-long push, in the name of [[cost reduction]], to deprecate the office-working experience? For the “new normal” was here long before the bats went crazy in Wuhan. If you want to talk sagely about the “going back to the ''old'' normal”, well sorry, chump: that ship has long since sailed.
-Over that time employers have systematically dismantled many “peripheral benefits” of office life, treating them as regrettable externalities that should not avoidably accrue to their staff. So, things a junior clerk might have expected in 1990 — an office, status, privacy, a [[travel and entertainment]] budget, an assistant, an internal mail service, a typing pool, proofreaders — these fripperies have gone. Even the [[IT department|hardware]] brought in to replace them has been taken away again because it’s a bit of a money sink: the BlackBerry has gone: now staff must [[bring your own device|bring their own]]. Tea, coffee — even paper cups have disappeared from kitchens; chocolate biscuits have disappeared from meeting rooms which, themselves, are slowly vanishing as we compress our working spaces.
-Like frogs in a warming pot, we have tolerated the piecemeal withdrawal of emoluments: thousands of cuts in a long-term doctrinaire erosion of paltry joys. But the professions changed over that period:  they were transformed into fungible, replaceable items of capital. In this way are ''personnel'' becoming ''plant''.
+Over that time employers have systematically dismantled many “peripheral benefits” of office life, treating them as regrettable externalities that should not avoidably accrue to their staff. That is, where they can be persuaded not to dispense with professional staff at all. The temptation to outsource meaningful work altogether to an itinerant, gig-working [[school-leaver from Bucharest]] is one that many [[middle manager]]s cannot resist.
-The office lost its lustre. The young clerk of 1990 had her own office. It might have been a coffin-sized, mouse-infested internal filing cupboard, but it was in some way private. As the decade progressed she had to share it, 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 somewhere in the department she can log into, as long as she wipes it down and removes her belongings it in compliance with the [[clear desk policy]], before leaving for the day.
+So, things a junior clerk might have expected in 1990 — an office, status, privacy, a [[travel and entertainment]] budget, an assistant, an internal mail service, a typing pool, proofreaders — these fripperies have gone. The graduate clerk once had her own office — it might have been a coffin-sized, mouse-infested internal filing cupboard, but it was at least, marginally ''private''. Then she had to share it, 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 somewhere in the department she can log into, as long as she wipes it down and removes her belongings it in compliance with the [[clear desk policy]], before leaving for the day. As long as she brings something to log in with: even the [[IT department|hardware]] brought in to replace those erstwhile assistants has been taken away because it’s too expensive: the BlackBerry has gone: now she must [[bring your own device|bring their own]]. Tea, coffee — even paper cups have disappeared from kitchens; chocolate biscuits have disappeared from meeting rooms which, themselves, are slowly vanishing as we compress our working spaces.
-And she is one of the lucky ones: at least she’s ''got'' a job that hasn’t — ''yet'' — been [[Outsourcing|outsourced]], [[playbook]]ed and assigned to a gig-working [[school-leaver from Bucharest]].
+''The office has, long since, lost its appeal''. Like frogs in a warming pot, we have tolerated the piecemeal withdrawal of emoluments: thousands of cuts in a long-term doctrinaire erosion of paltry joys. But the professions changed over that period:  they were transformed into fungible, replaceable items of capital. In this way are ''personnel'' becoming ''plant''.
-For the [[employment contract]] is a two-sided affair, and the consideration the employee asks for her work product is ''more than'' mere money — a subtlety that eludes those whose abiding focus is in the cost, and not the value, of the firm’s resources. Besides money, professional employment bestows status, facility, and eminence. It offers ''progression''. There is a deal, that is to say, and while institutions have been reneging on it for thirty years. In the meantime, she has steadfastly kept up ''her'' own end of the bargain, unalloyed. Expanded, even: she must now be available at any time, in any place, on her own device and at her own expense.
+Now all this would be fine for work that really could be operationalised: the history of technology, since the plough, has been the separation of simple tasks better done by a machine from complex ones that can only be done by the meatware. But, as we have argued elsewhere, for professional work, that separation is far easier said than done. As long as it has not been done — and it hasn’t — you run significant [[tail risk]] pulling your punches with staff whose expertise you might really need without warning at some point down the track.
-The “new normal” was here long before the bats went crazy in Wuhan. If you want to talk sagely about the “going back to the ''old'' normal”, well sorry, chump: that ship has long since sailed.
+For the [[employment contract]] is a two-sided affair, and the [[consideration]] the employee asks for her “work product” is ''more than mere [[money]]'' — a subtlety that eludes those whose abiding focus is in the cost, and not the value, of the firm’s resources. Besides money, professional employment bestows status, facility, and eminence — what {{author|Daniel Pink}} would summarise as “[[Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us - Book Review|autonomy, mastery, and purpose]]”. It is hard to see any of these in a disinfected formica desk and a keyboard, or a permanent diet of [[Skype]]-conducted [[opco]]s, [[steerco]]s, stakeholder check-ins and semi-annual [[compliance]] attestations.
 ===Home working as the next logical step===