this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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chapotraphouse
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Does anybody that isn't worthless middle management actually want to go back to their office?
Like nah, you know what, I don't like working in the comfort of my own home, around my animals and with my small comforts. I want to go back to working in a fucking beige box with monitors that use wack ass resolutions because they're so goddamn old, be surrounded by my chud ass coworkers, have a chair that is significantly shittier then the one I own, have people constantly fucking popping up, and be positioned such that I can't see a window unless I goddamn walk to the end of my row
I miss it so much
sure some people do, because not everybody has a home that they can comfortably work from. some people live in cramped apartments with roommates they don't want to be around 24/7, some people live with rude or abusive family members, some people live in a noisy distracting environment, some people live in a place that's too fucking hot with no AC. some people don't have a home at all.
what if your landlord doubles your rent overnight and you have to crash on a friends couch until you can find a place to live in this fucked housing market? how are you supposed to do your remote only job then?
don't get me wrong - forcing people back into offices during a pandemic that our society ignored is absolutely dystopian. making people commute to work in places where public transportation is nonexistent is dystopian.
but frankly, expecting everyone to turn their living space into their working space is dystopian as well. our entire lives should not be confined to our personal little boxes. it's isolating and atomizing, it makes communication and collaboration harder. we're social creatures and we're meant to be around other people.
working from home is of course preferable to many people in our present society, if only because the alternative is so much worse. but I worry about the notion that remote-only work is some sort of ideal solution to the crises we're facing because it's anything but.
and of course this discussion ignores all the workers who will never have that option because their jobs can't be done behind a computer. people working in warehouses, working in retail, food service etc. obviously can't work from home and still have to commute, have to be exposed to COVID every day. and those for the most part are the jobs that actually matter - people doing real work in the real world. let's face it, a lot of the jobs that can easily be done from home contribute nothing to society and don't need to exist at all.
(sorry that turned into a massive rant but it's something I needed to get off my chest)
I think what leaves so many people stumped is that this entire kerfluffle demonstrates the lie about our political economy. In idealized capitalist conditions we would seize the opportunity of ridding ourselves of all that office space simply because it makes financial sense. People are also more productive if their hours/commute are flexible (what's more flexible than commuting to your living room?) and their workplace comfortable. Except for those at the top who are all heavily invested in real estate, they also control the entire media apparatus, so what you have is a propaganda war to convince everyone they should be happy to go to the office. If they aren't, then something's wrong with them, their priorities, their 'mindset', and perhaps even their mental state.
Worse. That PR offensive is incapable of talking about real things, as you have. Some businesses just can't go remote, some businesses are old and due to sheer inertia won't be able to, some people would rather not work from home, some people outright can't, and, in fact, working from home can be more exploitative - as it means you're always on call, and you're always slated to work more. And yet, due to the interests of influential middle managers and landlords, the discussion is centered around completely farcical topics.
We are seeing the growing pains of a major change in the means of production. All that clerical work that defines many of the richer pockets of global society will have to reckon with remote work as a possibility. And instead of getting ahead of future issues with housing, transportation, work/life balance, and the livability of our neighborhoods, we have this stupid debate about how entitled people don't want to live in a cubicle.
the most cursed solution would be if workers had to pay to WFH at internet cafes as businesses started closing office spaces
No, that's all fine and reasonable, it's just my own personal frustration. The company I have been working for has decided to force people back now, apropos of nothing (and after previously attempting such an idea but halting it due to it's massive unpopularity). We had a completely flex work setup (work from home or in office however often you feel like per week), and it's just...incomprehensible.
We also immediately lost someone that was going to be working with us and filling an important position, and I can't imagine becoming less flexible is appealing (although our disconnected executives are trying to tout it as such lmao)
I didn't mean to come off as completely unsympathetic to people for whom it's a more desirable option, just mourning the loss of flexibility that had actually gotten me to be ok with my job
For sure, I didn't think you were being unsympathetic or anything like that. I kinda just used your post as a jumping off point to collect my general thoughts about the "stay-at-home vs back-to-office" debate and how we're all stuck arguing between two bad options. It wasn't my intent to argue or debate, I just think the problems with remote-work don't get brought up enough and it's really hard to talk about this in a nuanced way.
That really sucks that your company is making you return to the office like so many others right now. Workers should absolutely have the choice whenever possible.