Well, having the office was nice because I like my colleagues. Iâm lucky in that regard though, and as nice as it was to socialise at work, working from home is nicer. Not to mention much much cheaper by every metric. In conclusion fuck ever going back to the office, thank you for coming to my TEDx Talk.
I personally like it too, but not daily. I average 1-2 days in office now and itâs healthy for me. See my coworkers, they know my name, we catch up, have our meetings, then I go home for a few days again. Iâve just learned everyone is different, and the company definitely shouldnât be telling people how to work, people are grownups and can decide themselves. (And if they canât, then fire them instead of punishing everyone).
However for this meme, another great way to get people off the roads would be⌠trains
I like freight trains, but I wouldnât want to live anywhere that commuter trains would make sense.
Some people donât have the space at home to set up a working area and really want to just go to an office that their employer pays for, and thatâs fine.
This, and I do a lot of gaming on my pc, have a nice setup etc, usually not great trying to work there (donât have space for another desk and canât really justify having two sets of monitors, keyboard etc
This is why coworking spaces exist.
I donât know in other countries but it is working quite well in France, you can get a subscription to the closest working space and have a desk, meeting rooms ⌠To work remotely.
I like that it gives a separation between home and work but without long commute.
Unnecessary RTO should be outlawed
The worst part of it is most big companies are forcing RTO to either justify the leases they donât want to pay to break, or to satisfy tax incentives agreements they made with municipalities.
In both cases, theyâre deciding itâs better if you pay - in time, gas, car maintenance, mental health, productivity, and stress - for their business decisions that went bad instead of paying money out of their own bloated pockets.
I donât have the kind of job that can be done remotely, but Iâm all for remote work where itâs possible and desired. My best friend hated working from home at the height of covid because heâs an extrovert who canât really afford to go out much. Now he works from home Mondays and Fridays and I think itâs kinda the best of both worlds for him. I think that employers that already have office space for workers that could effectively do their job from home should give workers a choice. Maybe hybrid workers have required scheduled days in the office just to make sure theyâre there to attend necessary meetings or collaborations or whatever rather than it just be them coming in when they feel like it, but the technology has caught up to allow way more flexibility than ever before. If I had a 100% desk job, I would move somewhere cheaper and never come in. I know Iâm not alone there, and I think thereâs no reason to hold that option hostage. Covid proved that it could be done for most white collar work, and we canât let them try to squeeze that Pandora back into its box.
Honestly I think weâre going to hit a wall where we realize we need about half as many âoffice dronesâ as we have in a couple years.
So many people with office jobs drive in, sit at a desk, and do maybe 2 hours of actual work in the entire day. Or they work from home and do the same. And then they collect their 95k/year salary.
I really dunno if people are prepared for businesses to start going âwait, what are all of these people doing?â And axing their workforce and replacing most of them with AI or existing other employees
The thing youâre not accounting for is that work that primarily involves thought, which is what âoffice dronesâ are doing, arenât productive in the same way that physical or service jobs are.
Looking off into space thinking is part of the work. People average about four hours of productive work in an eight hour day.
The thing you canât do is get rid of half the people and then expect the other half to magically be eight hours productive per day. Businesses keep trying and weirdly it just tanks their output.
AI is not the panacea that so many people think it is. Do you feel happy when you need help with something you bought and you get an AI trying to offer you helpful articles or tips? I donât. Do you want the same level of service from the entity that controls where your paycheck gets deposited or fixed your HSA contributions?
If you definition of work is butts in chairs typing, office workers donât do too much work. But thatâs a very naive definition of what most office workers are actually doing.
The thing youâre not accounting for is that work that primarily involves thought, which is what âoffice dronesâ are doing
Found the office drone.
Our office drones are not âthinkingâ for half the day like you, and input and manipulate data. You could also include half these âmanagersâ too who sit in an office sending emails all day, and never hit the shop floor.
Given that office drone would cover any job that isnât service, manufacturing or laborer, itâs not exactly surprising that youâd find one. Iâm a software developer.
Itâs almost always best to assume that other peopleâs jobs actually take some form of skill, because they always do. People get paid for a reason. Otherwise you fall into the trap of calling huge swaths of work âunskilled laborâ and thinking they donât deserve much pay, just because theyâre just moving stuff around on the shop floor.
What do you think those emails the managers are sending are, if not work?
If it is so easy to be an office drone, why werenât you able to get a job like that?
Is it maybe because it involves skills you arenât aware of?
Experimental solution proposal:
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Fire all management. Theyâre expensive and exponentially less productive. Their stupid large offices and pricey desks also waste space.
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(Office) workers collectively do the thing they do without being micro managed and stuffed into pointless meetings.
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???
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Probably profit, actually. But then how would the âin-clubâ kids reap all the rewards without working? :( :( :(
or you could let everyone work half as many hours for the same pay, but sure why should anyone except business owners get to benefit đ
Iâd be fine with going into the office if public transportation could get me there, but itâs a 15 minute drive vs 1.5 hours on the bus. And when I go into the office I just put in headphones with a YouTube documentary and donât talk to anyone. Whatâs the point?
