Talk:The future of office work: Difference between revisions

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====Summary====
COVID has given us a vision of an adjacent possibility: a diffused, networked virtual working world where we no longer need to slog into a centralised “in person” office space. Is this the future of work, or an aberration?
COVID has given us a vision of an adjacent possibility: a diffused, networked virtual working world where we no longer need to slog into a centralised “in person” office space. Is this the future of work, or an aberration?


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===Working in your jim-jams===
===Working in your jim-jams===
I have, throughout this piece, mischievously referred to home workers on the kitchen table, in their jim-jams, eating ice-cream from the tub in a onesie on the sofa whilst dialed into the all hands stakeholders conference call and generally insinuating that remote workers might be, well, ''phoning it in''.  
throughout this piece I have, mischievously, referred to remote staff working “from the kitchen table”, “in their jim-jams”, or “eating ice-cream from the tub in a onesie, on the sofa while dialled into the stakeholder weekly check-in call” and generally insinuating that remote workers might be, well, ''phoning it in''.  


This provokes outrage among some,l. I freely admit it is intended to.  
This may provoke indignance. I freely admit it is meant to.  


“It is just wrong for you to imply that people who work from home necessarily take it easy. Some people have family commitments and personal circumstances being their control which mean they have to work from home. And look, dammit, this is not the nineteen fifties. We are not living in a some episode of ''Mad Men''. Smell the coffee, JC. Some people, frankly, just choose to work from home. They work better that way. We have the tools and capabilities, so why the hell ''shouldn’t'' they? They can be just as effective as the most grinding tube-jockey. It is grossly unfair of you to generalise.”
{{quote|
“It is just wrong for you to imply that remote workers all take it easy. Some have personal circumstances beyond their control. And look, dammit, this is not the nineteen-fifties. We are not living in a ''Mad Men'' episode. Some people ''choose'' to work from home. They work better that way. Wake up and smell the coffee, JC. We have the tools and capabilities to work away from the downtown office, so why the hell shouldn’t we use them? You are perpetuating grossly unfair stereotypes.”}}


Now every word of this is true. But not one grasps the point, which is that this can all be true while a significant portion of home workers do take the Mickey , but more to the point, many office jockeys, deep in their blackest heart, will harbour this conviction. Punters actually do think this. It might not be fair, but they do. People are human: they justify themselves, like any pattern-matching generaliser, they make generalisations. Such as all other things being equal the more committed people ''show up''.  
Now, every word of this is true.  


These metaphors tell us something deep about our common cultural values. We have a bunch of metaphors that equate presence with effort and energy, and distance with half-heartedness. That is, literally, the origin of the expression, “phoning it in”. It is what it means to say, “I don't know what happened there. The Aresenal just didn’t ''turn up'”. Or “JP ''put a shift in'' on this”. “She really came good.“Stay close ” “ Keep in touch ,"be on it ”. ”“They represented.“She went missing in action.” “he was awol”. “she seemed distant and uninvolved.” “She had real ''presence''.” “This is all a bit remote”. “sorry I was miles away".
But it is to miss the point, which is this: whether they are right to or not, many office workers, deep in their blackest heart, ''do'' think remote work is a soft option. They might not say this in public, but they do. It might not be rational or fair, but they do. This is because they are human: they generalise, they categorise, they look for ways to ''justify'' their own contribution against others’ — to ''elevate'' and ''aggrandise'' it. A really easy way to do this is by comparing ''visible effort''. There is, in western culture a deeply ingrained conviction in the virtue of commitment and, all other things being equal, ''committed people show up''.  
 
Yes, this is a heuristic; it is unsupported by data; it leads to gross mis-valuation of work contributions, but it exists, and it runs deep.
 
Our metaphors denoting commitment, o the lack of it, tell us about our common cultural values. By and large they, equate effort and energy with ''physical contact'' and ''presence'': “He really ''put a shift in'' on this”. “She has a real ''presence''”. “Stay ''close'' on this one”. “Keep ''on top of it''. “Stay engaged during the final stages of the project.
 
And we associate half-heartedness with ''distance''.  “He ''phoned it in''”. “The Arsenal just ''didn’t show up'' in the second half”. “It was an ''unengaging'' performance”. “She ''went missing in action''”. “He was ''AWOL'' when we really needed him”. “She seemed a bit distant in the meeting today”. “Sorry, I was ''miles away''".
 
These cultural values sit in a layer below the infrastructure. They are not arbitrary: they reflect a common historical perception. It may shift, but only slowly, and ''only if that perception is no longer true''.

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