Return-to-office orders look like a way for rich, work-obsessed CEOs to grab power back from employees::White-collar workers temporarily enjoyed unprecedented power during the pandemic to decide where and how they worked.
Its important to note what they consider work too. I’m sorry but spending half of your day getting to meetings and the other half in them is not the same as fixing a layer 3 issue on a critical app, or laboring all day in the sun at 60 hours a week. I don’t subscribe to the idea that work is work. If that were true nobody would mind being a traffic controller over an office administrator.
But work is work. If you’re doing it for the benefit of a business only because they’re paying you to do it then that is the literal definition of work. Just because it’s not hard work doesn’t mean it’s not work?
Besides, that number isn’t self-reported numbers, it’s from a study I read recently, and it was included as a tangentially related point. I could try and track it down if you like.
It’s also important to note that not every CEO is a billionaire of a megacorp. There are millions of small business owners who are also CEOs.
You shouldn’t be getting downvoted for your numbers. I would believe, especially in smaller businesses that the CEOs actually work. Hell, the CEO at my company is a great guy. I meet with him every week and he is there all day with us. There is another layer though, which is the managing partners. They fill the traditional role of the boogeyman CEO people imagine. So we aren’t necessarily mad at the position. We’re mad at the inequality in pay with no tangible or even existent contribution. Especially when these people are taking such a large portion of what could honestly be spread around to make everyone comfortable, at least in my specific situation.
This logic is going to be lost on these anti-work nerds. All business is bad. All workers are gods and all CEOs are lazy scum making billions off the toil of their hoard of exploited office drones. This place…
If all work is not the same why would people perform these difficult jobs where you fix issues on critical apps.
Simple office administration jobs which aren’t difficult can be done by anybody.
Sure, most CEOs get disproportionately paid for the position they’re in but I don’t think they’re job is any less stressful or demanding than actually working with the nuts and bolts.
I actually love my job as a software engineer! I’d rather do absolutely nothing else, as a boring desk job where I sit around looking busy all day would bore me to hell and I’d very likely make 1/3 what I’m making now. I find exactly zero interest in a “people job” even if it paid more because I wouldn’t enjoy it.
So, the reason I do the job I do is because of personal fulfillment and money. Beyond the bare minimum of survival, that’s why people do the jobs they do. It’s not rocket science
Talking about work during a business dinner does not equal hours. Thinking about work ideas after hours does not equal hours. Fostering a business connection does not equal work hours.
And if they do, then I get to count stressing in the shower, arguments in my head while I go for a walk, ranting to my partner about work problems, and keeping in touch with former coworkers.
A third of their job is “fostering business connections,” with the other third being “understanding the company and workforce,” followed by “actually making decisions.”
I do 40 hour weeks. I certainly do less difficult work than a construction worker, but it’s still considered work. Work is work, whether you’re being paid to sit on your ass and draw stick figures or actually doing continuous manual labor.
All I’m saying is just because you don’t consider it work doesn’t mean it isn’t being done entirely for business reasons, for the business, during work hours, which they are only doing because it’s their job. It is therefore definitely work. Not “hard” work but still work
I can’t believe you’re getting downvoted for citing a Harvard study….
Here’s the link for the lazy. https://hbr.org/2018/07/how-ceos-manage-time#how-ceos-manage-time
I’d also work 60 hours a week if I could count getting chauffeured around and eating lunches with people as “work”
My dad had a family friend that was CEO that claimed he worked 80 hours a week. He pulled out a calendar, and not only was it closer to 50-60, about 6-10 of those hours were golf business meetings it was funny. I doubt he would have laughed if one of his workers were calling him out though…
