There are countless stories about the give and take of continuing, ending, or halving remote work opportunities. Supervisors want to keep an eye on their subordinates. Then there’s the loss of office camaraderie — as if colleagues who like each other can find ways to connect. The crying need for face-to-face meetings which can happen on Zoom. Or the people with family needs who love having more control over when they work. The ridiculousness of commutes that cannot be billed and serve no useful purpose unless you sell gasoline and or car maintenance plans.
The office footprint is cheaper and better for bottom lines. But worse for bottoms genneraly, as it keeps people glued to screens, wearing headphones all day, using Slack or texts or whatever to complain about colleagues or management or telling kids to do their homework or empty the dishwasher. The Ying and Yang of remote work won’t go away. Having tasted its decided positives, workers — many skilled, marketable, and endlessly recruited to wiser employers — will vote with their feet. Some will settle for lower wages, having figured in the cost of commuting and the burdens families bear who have two working professionals.
I worked in open environments for many years and acquired the simplest shortcuts to let my computer screen go blank or present some sort of work-related endeavor whenever someone approached my cube. And having never found value in office politics and breakroom chatter — things that will persist whether one works remotely or not — I can say that the best thing about working remotely is having a door.
I have freelanced for over six years and find the isolation needed to write and think and just stare out the window, walk my dog at three in the afternoon, have a simple lunch and sometimes a beer that doesn’t set me back what lunch and a beer typically costs office workers. There is nothing I miss about working in an office, showing up at a fixed time, going to goofball meetings that serve no purpose because they have no purpose, staying late to make my superiors think how committed I am to the “enterprise,” etc.
If employers want to bring people back to the office, give them one.
