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Forget about tea and coffee: what is this? ''Butlins''? Even paper cups have disappeared from kitchens; chocolate biscuits have disappeared from meeting rooms which, themselves, slowly vanished as our working spaces were systematically compressed. | Forget about tea and coffee: what is this? ''Butlins''? Even paper cups have disappeared from kitchens; chocolate biscuits have disappeared from meeting rooms which, themselves, slowly vanished as our working spaces were systematically compressed. | ||
Long before COVID, that is to say, the office had lost most of its appeal. Yet, 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]], interchangeable items of capital. In this way | Long before COVID, that is to say, the office had lost most of its appeal. Yet, 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]], interchangeable items of capital. In this way did ''personnel'' become ''plant''. | ||
Now all this would be fair enough for work that really ''could'' be [[operationalise]]d. That’s the way it’s gone since the plough: separate dull mechanical tasks, better done by a machine, from interesting and valuable needing judgment and emotional intelligence, to be done by the [[meatware]]. | Now all this would be fair enough for work that really ''could'' be [[operationalise]]d. That’s the way it’s gone since the plough: separate dull mechanical tasks, better done by a machine, from interesting and valuable needing judgment and emotional intelligence, to be done by the [[meatware]]. | ||
“Bring your own premises” is just the logical next step. We already bring our own devices. Just as BYOD was an unexpected blessing, so is “BYOP”: we can roll back the years. We can trade a sterilised rectangle of desk-space for our own office, as grandiose or grubby as we like, with photos of departed pets, printouts of those faxed Larson cartoons and whale music on the Sonos if we want, and the [[Chief Operating Officer]] need not care a row of buttons, and can’t do a thing about it, even if he does. | “Bring your own premises” is just the logical next step. We already bring our own devices. Just as BYOD was an unexpected blessing, so is “BYOP”: we can roll back the years. ''Nineteen ninety is back''. We can trade a sterilised rectangle of desk-space for our own office, as grandiose or grubby as we like, with photos of departed pets, printouts of those faxed Larson cartoons and whale music on the Sonos if we want, and the [[Chief Operating Officer]] need not care a row of buttons, and can’t do a thing about it, even if he does. | ||
And now we have seen that possibility — not just seen it, but demonstrated over a sustained period that we can make it work: we are more productive that way, is it any wonder that slogging each day into a drab warehouse to sit at a telescreen, only participate in exactly the same Zoom calls we’ve been doing from home, only with crappier coffee and no guitar for those lengthy spells on mute — really doesn’t appeal? | And now we have seen that possibility — not just seen it, but demonstrated over a sustained period that we can make it work: we are more productive that way, is it any wonder that slogging each day into a drab warehouse to sit at a telescreen, only participate in exactly the same Zoom calls we’ve been doing from home, only with crappier coffee and no guitar for those lengthy spells on mute — really doesn’t appeal? | ||