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The future of office work: Difference between revisions
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The first — advanced by the [[Thought leader|thought-leaderati]] and legal disruptor crowd — was to say, “[[This time it’s different|this time is different]]”: the scales have fallen, we are no longer in the ’60s and even though we can leave our homes without being arrested, we shouldn’t ''have'' to, and a diverse and dynamic economy of gig-working, side-hustling cosmopolitan youngsters now ''requires'' flexibility so, since we now know the business ''can'' manage it — right? — there is no reason it ''shouldn’t''. You can’t unsee it: flexible working is now a fact of commercial life. | The first — advanced by the [[Thought leader|thought-leaderati]] and legal disruptor crowd — was to say, “[[This time it’s different|this time is different]]”: the scales have fallen, we are no longer in the ’60s and even though we can leave our homes without being arrested, we shouldn’t ''have'' to, and a diverse and dynamic economy of gig-working, side-hustling cosmopolitan youngsters now ''requires'' flexibility so, since we now know the business ''can'' manage it — right? — there is no reason it ''shouldn’t''. You can’t unsee it: flexible working is now a fact of commercial life. | ||
The second — [[The Man]]’s — was, “get back into the the office, | The second — [[The Man]]’s — was, “get back into the the office, punks”. With a twist: [[The Man]] teetered for a while between “I’m not having these good-for-naught [[Meatware|meatsack]]s in their goddamn pyjamas on ''my'' dime”, and the more squirrelly “hold on: if these clowns work at home on their own PCs we can nix half the downtown footprint and slash our [[IT]] bill so let’s not rush this”. The two impulses then merged and The Man compromised by ditching half the office space ''and'' ordering everyone back to work. | ||
[[Cnut]]ish? Maybe. But — not for the reasons [[The Man]] ''thinks'' are the right ones — the JC reluctantly senses [[The Man]] is on the right side of history this time. The tide is turning. | |||
==== It isn’t COVID any more ==== | ==== It isn’t COVID any more ==== | ||
Working from home during COVID was, for white-collar types of a certain age | Working from home during COVID was, for white-collar types of a certain, middle, age — a revelation. We reacquainted ourselves with our local neighborhoods, clapped the NHS, ate out to help out, got to know green spaces, avoided the tube and still by most measures, productivity still ''rose'' during lockdown. But we should not close the book just yet. COVID was a weird, ''[[sui generis]]'' time, and it lent itself to ephemeral productivity boost. | ||
First, there was ''nothing else to do'', bar pacing the perimeter at a safe distance from other humans and listening to podcasts. No wonder we threw ourselves into work. | First, there was ''nothing else to do'', bar pacing the perimeter at a safe distance from other humans and listening to podcasts. No wonder we threw ourselves into work. | ||