For the sake of argument, let's say that COVID is over. Let's say that it has been eradicated. OK, awesome. I'm really struggling to wrap my head around the fact why that means we have to round up all of the office workers and force them to return to their little cubicles ASAP, when the past two years have been one of the greatest developments in the workers rights movement since the 40 hour work week.
It really just seems like the bourgeois (and PMC) want to strip away every bit of autonomy over our own lives we've gained since the beginning of this pandemic (and this is just for those of us who are privileged enough to work remotely)
My company literally just announced a plan to phase out hybrid work (two days in the office, three days remote) with the hopes of eventually returning to normal (five days a week in the office).
How is this shit sticking
i think you forgot the sex pests, but otherwise that's a very good list.
as jeffrey toobin has shown us, working remotely is only a barrier for some sex pests
These people make up at most 20% of the workforce but they are enough to ruin it for everyone else
ahh so following the same trajectory of historical outcomes here 😎
I feel for people in studio apartments or limited space situations though.
Tag yourself, I’m “extrovert who can’t handle being alone with their thoughts all day”
Hey now, some of us are introverts who can't handle being alone with their thoughts all day.
extroverts who can’t handle being alone with their thoughts all day
people with no lives outside of their jobs who, before the pandemic, relied on work for all their social interaction
both of these kinds of people are directly suffering due to living under capitalism and being alienated from any role outside of laboring, and I don't like them being dismissively lumped in with actively problem causing individuals.
How are owners of commercial real estate ever supposed to buy superyachts if people don't go back to the office? You need to take into account the needs of minorities.
Working from home sounds nice and all, but I saw a business guy get quoted saying something to the effect that "If i'm paying some guy to work from home out of Boulder, why shouldn't I pay people to work from home out of Dhaka?"
Work from home is popular because you don't have to commute or interact with Eichman's as often, but I wonder if there's a peril we haven't realized yet, where Work from Home is weaponised against the worker, another innovation to pay less for labor by sourcing it from the global south. In fact, Here's a Planet Money story from 2019, about how some in Silicon valley are looking to hire people in Mexico to code remotely, for considerably less of course.
I wonder about this too. I also worry that this will accelerate the trend of jobs becoming gigs. It seems easier for employers to isolate remote employees and force them to work as contractors or gig workers.
I think one or two half days a week for meetings and team stuff for individual contributor roles is more than enough
And mitigates that tradeoff of dhaka to some degree, but being in the office 5 days a week doesn’t stop that either
This is just the "if we have to raise minimum wage I'll replace all my employees with robots" argument. If it really made sense they would have already done it, and if it's really that much cheaper for them in the future they'll do it anyways regardless.
Many cities and towns (which are already near broke all the time paying cops) rely on commercial real estate property taxes to prop up the massively subsidized suburbs and in some cases specifically single family homes. Paradoxically more people working from home and not interacting with commercial real estate would actually result in many cities and towns being forced to consider raising taxes on homeowners ( or austerity) to cover falling commercial real estate assessments.
This, plus if work can be done remotely, it can be done from anywhere which means that you don't need to spend $2500 on rent in a "superstar" city, you can live somewhere more reasonable. It always gets back to real estate.
literally everything is just land and the people who live on it, with many projections placed over it.
Because, like with everything else in capitalist society, business interests must be protected. Forcing people to commute to work means whatever businesses (restaurants, retail, etc) are in the area will also see an influx of customers. Chances are those workers will also be commuting by car, so gasoline companies will also see an increase in profits as those workers will have to fill up their cars more frequently now as well.
Because when they can't manufacture the consent they'll just use raw coercion to force us back.
one of the greatest developments in the workers rights movement since the 40 hour work week.
yeah, no
Aside from child labor laws, genuinely curious what has provided more autonomy
Not having to be watched by a boss for 8+ hours a day isn't a win for workers rights in your eyes?
its a win for workers, but to claim that a temporary adoption of telecommuting among a fraction of a fraction of the working class as "one of the greatest developments since the 40 hour work week" is ridiculous
even in the hellhole that is america, since the 40 hour work week has started, workers have seen: OSHA, Civil Rights Act, Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Equal Pay Act, Social Security Act, OSHA, OSHA, and OSHA
even as toothless and worthless as OSHA can be at times, it is far greater of a development than WFH. i get that youre a white collar worker so it’s effects aren’t as apparent to you, but having spent my life mostly doing trades OSHA gives a fair amount of agency, previously unseen, to workers even if the org itself can be useless at times, and even if the super or foreman doesnt give a shit about regulations. And this agency even extends to you, it covers all workers. This shit would never have passed if they tried to implement it today.
Agitate co workers. Threaten to quit. Tell them they are stupid to do this in the best labor market for workers in decades
Yeah I think if you dig in and say “im not coming back, if you don’t like it fire me” and keep logging in and doing your work it would put them in a tough place
I like being in the office I hate commuting
And unfortunately now unless you’re loaded you can’t afford to live in literally any city
Personally, I fucking hate working from home. I’m unproductive (I have too many distractions available, like video games and a comfy bed), I fucking hate emails and would much rather just go to the lab next door and ask my question, I like the social interaction I get by just being in a space with other people, and working in person gives me a much better work-free divide that helps me balance stuff better.
I was much happier pre-covid when I just went to the lab 10-6 Monday through Friday and then when I came home work turned off. The only time I was thinking about work was when I was there, as soon as I left work was out of my head. Now I’m constantly thinking about when I will and won’t go in and what I can and can’t do from home and trying to schedule things and if you ever have to meet someone it’s a pain because no one’s in at the same time so you can’t just meet up.
Agitate
Educate
Inoculate
Organize
Union
Use this to agitate your coworkers! This is the perfect wedge issue to use to start organizing your workplace!
Office building landlords need their money. Middle managers need control and a justification of existence.
A friend of mine hates working from home. She's completely compliant with COVID stuff, doesn't complain, but her company only works from home now and it drives her crazy not actually speaking to anyone for 8 hours of the day. I would never wanna work in an office if I could work from home, but I understand that coworkers are sometimes the main socialization that people have.
There’s also a lot of people who live in studio apartments or small spaces with kids, roommates, family, for whom a return to the office would be a positive if commute isn’t bad. I think a middle ground could exist but not for the reasons blue checks, CEOs, an politicians say
Just to be clear, do you mean she hates working from home?
at least 10x a day i would shout over my cube "hey coworker, real quick, is this how i do this" and now i can't do that, which means 10x a day i just don't do things i would otherwise do
