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| [[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]]. |
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| In our [[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 disposition of outright distrust, in which staff must present themselves at on premises, where they can be properly over-watched, [[internal audit|audited]], monitored, measured and assessed for periodic thinning. | |
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| Tech start-up hysteria notwithstanding, 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. ''Do not adjust your mindset.''
| | 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. |
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| ''Au contraire''. | | ''Do not adjust your mindset.'' |
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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? 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. |
| 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. | |
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| 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. | | 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> |
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| 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. Well — as long as she brings something to log in with, at any rate: even the [[IT department|hardware]] brought in to replace those erstwhile assistants has been taken away because it’s too expensive: 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. | | 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. |
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| ''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''.
| | 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. |
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| Now all this would be fine for work that really could be [[operationalise]]d: the history of technology, since the plough, has been the separation of work into simple mechanical tasks better done by a machine from complex ones that can only be done by the [[meatware]]. But, as we know, for professional work, that separation is far easier said than done. As long as it has not been done — [[Operationalisation|and it hasn’t]]<ref>The clue is that you still need people to do it. Work generally suitable for machines should be done by, well, machines, not [[school-leaver from Bucharest|itinerant school-leavers from Bucharest]].</ref> — you run significant [[tail risk]] pulling your punches with staff whose expertise you might really need without warning one day in the yanwning, unknowable future.
| | 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. |
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| 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.
| | 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. |
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| | 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''. |
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| ===Home working as the next logical step===
| | 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]]. |
| In many ways, “[[bring your own premises]]” is really just the logical next step. We may have been going there anyway. In any case, COVID has let the genie out of the bottle: just as we found [[BYOD]] an unexpected blessing, “[[BYOP]]” offers us so much more: we trade a sterilised rectangle of desk-space for our own office, as grandiose or grubby as we like. We can keep photos of our departed pets, printouts of those faxed Larson cartoons and whale music in the background 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.
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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 happier and more productive — I mean, who would have ''thought''? — is it any wonder the thought of slogging, on our own dollar, back into a drab central location to sit at a telescreen and participate in ''exactly the same Skype calls that we could do from home'', only with a crappier screen, worse coffee and no guitar for those lengthy mutable spells — really doesn’t appeal? | | “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. |
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| | 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? |
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