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-{{a|devil|
+{{a|work|
-[[File:Battery hen.jpg|450px|thumb|center|[[Legal eagle]]s in their eyrie, yesterday.]]
+{{image|Battery hen|jpg|[[Legal eagle]]s in their eyrie, yesterday.}}}}In our [[Coronavirus|time of cholera]] we’ve heard much about what is, or isn’t, the “new normal” and how institutional employers might be “pivoting”  from the unexpected marvel of compulsory remote working they were bounced into by [[COVID]], back to their usual resting disposition of outright distrust, under which staff must present themselves on premises to be over-watched, [[internal audit|audited]], monitored, measured and assessed for [[Redundancies|periodic thinning]].
-}}
-In these neurotic, bossy times we hear a lot about what is, or isn’t, the “new normal” and how employers — especially big institutional ones — might be “pivoting” back from the unexpected marvel of compulsory remote working — which let’s not forget, they were bounced into, to get out of a [[COVID]] jam — to their more usual stentorian disposition, in which they insist their staff must present at the office where they can be properly over-watched, audited, monitored, measured and assessed for periodic thinning.
-But surely, [[the new normal]] is ''precisely'' the thing for which our friends in [[human resources]] have been carelessly wishing for thirty years. It is only the logical conclusion of the generational push, in the name of cost reduction, to deprecate the experience of office work for the employee.
+The institutional disposition has thus settled: ''calm the hell down, everyone''. We’ve ''got'' this. There’s nothing to see: this is ''not'' a new normal. ''Old'' normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.
-===The ship has sailed===
+''Do not adjust your mindset.''
-Simply put, office working in 2020 is ''nothing'' like it was in 1990. If you want to talk sagely about the “going back to the ''old'' normal”, well sorry, chump: that ship has ''long since'' sailed.
-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]].
+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? Isn’t it the logical conclusion of a 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.
-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.
+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.<ref>That is, where they can be persuaded not to dispense with professional staff at all: the temptation to [[Outsourcing|outsource]] meaningful work altogether to itinerant, gig-working [[school-leavers from Bucharest]] is one that many [[middle manager]]s cannot resist.</ref>
-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]].
+So, things a graduate 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.
-They have instead, in the meantime, steadfastly kept up ''their'' own end of the bargain, unalloyed.
+To be sure, that office might have been a coffin-sized, mouse-infested internal filing cupboard, but it was, marginally, ''private''. But, some time in the late ’90s, she had to share it, then give it up it for a cubicle, the give that up for an un-barricaded desk in a row.
-===Home working as the next logical step===
+Nowadays, she has a soft commitment that, as long as the projected number of co-workers 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 before leaving for the day in compliance with the [[clear desk policy]], and as long as she [[bring your own device|brings something to log in ''with'']]: even the [[IT department|hardware]] has been taken away, now, because it’s too expensive.
-In many ways, “bring your own premises” is really just the logical next step. This is probably where the COO wanted to take things anyway. In any case, COVID has let the genie out of the bottle: just as we found [[BYOD]] an unexpected blessing<ref>''Some'' sort of subsidy for the cost we bore on the firm’s behalf might have been nice, of course.</ref> BYOOP offers us so much more: we trade a sterilised rectangle of desk-space for our office however we like it. We can have an oak-panelled study, portraits of departed pets and whale music in the background if we fancy it, and no [[chief operating officer]] need care a row of buttons.
-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?
+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 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]].
+“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?
+{{sa}}
+*[[Bring your own premises]]
+*[[Coronavirus]]
+*[[Operationalisation]]
 {{ref}}