New normal: Difference between revisions

===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? 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. 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.