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but these are the people who are most at risk of technological redundancy: those are the jobs that really can, and should, be carried out by machine.
but these are the people who are most at risk of technological redundancy: those are the jobs that really can, and should, be carried out by machine.
====Songs of innocence and experience====
It is tempting to blame the siren call of the office on “the usual grumblings of old age”, or “pea-brains” who “can’t envision a future different than the present”.
But over the long term, by which cultural shifts measured, Generation X won’t have much of a say, and the Boomers none: they’re at retirement age now. Any [[system effect]] that draws people back into physical offices will be prompted by the people ''entering'' the system, not those leaving it. If won’t be grumpy boomers driving this, but from ''people wanting jobs''.
{{quote|
Oh what a multitude they seem’d, these flowers of London town! <br>
Seated in companies they sit with radiance all their own.<br>
The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs,<br>
Thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands.<br>
:— William Blake, “Holy Thursday”, from ''Songs of Innocence'' (1789)}}
We are not fixed in time and space. We are each on our own private life journey. At the start, we sing only songs of innocence: we have little to offer but energy, effort and time. But then we learn. We practice. We get better. We grow. We ''experience''. ''We get old''.
By degrees, our relative value shifts from ''energy and time'' to ''wisdom and judgment''.
{{quote|
I wander thro’ each charter’d street,<br>
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow,<br>
And mark in every face I meet,<br>
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.<br>
:— William Blake, “London”, from ''Songs of Experience'' (1794)}}
By the end, we sing only songs of experience. We who, short years ago, were scrappy, stroppy, hungry upstarts — are now worldly-wise, world-weary and valued not for our energy but our ''experience''. We have little to prove: what advancement we stood to gain happened, or didn’t, but either way the ship sailed. We have little further need for elbows: those who had them, used them and by now are long since out of sight. If someone will pay us a decent wage to work from home, happy days.
This is not the cohort trying to force anyone back to the office. Why ''would'' we? That would mean ''we'' had to come back. too. Who amongst Generation X wants ''that''? Lockdown ''rocked''.
But there ''is'' a group who wants that.
Remember the dynamic at the ''front end'' of the labour curve, where new generations enter it: a graduate’s main point of differentiation from her peers is ''energy'': expertise and skill comes later. Organisations need to find people with energy. Graduates seeking jobs, and those with jobs seeking advancement, want to show it.
And, culturally, how do we symbolise energy and effort?
''We turn up''.
So as the seasons turn, and existing graduates grow into subject matter experts, existing subject matter experts move on and yet new generations, with boundless energy, enter the workforce, it is not hard to see the [[system effect]] at work. We of the COVID generation will eventually collect our belongings. Those with the personal circumstances, experience and relationship capital to justify it, will continue to work remotely, as they always did. And the rest will tend back to the office —
Until the next pandemic.
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