Back to the Office! And a door slams shut on Social Justice
It appears it was a narrow window of opportunity…
And just when under-represented low income “Below the Cardboard Ceiling” (BTCC) workers like single working moms had the chance to better themselves…
Sign from Covid days. My edit.
Work from home gave them the opportunity to better their situation, even in the absence of owning a vehicle or having access to mass transit.
It gave us all back hours in our day that would have otherwise been wasted commuting. Saved us all the expense of the commute in dollars as well as time.
Eliminated the Carbon Footprint of the commute.
Improved mental health by reducing the stress of commuting, its time and hassle. Provided relief from the stress of work life existing on the “Hare” track instead of the “Tortoise” track. “You need to get this done during working hours at the office”.
(Can you tell I just re-listened to Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers? Good discussion of this topic around the LSAT, law school, and the disconnect between that and actual practice of the law. Thanks Malcolm for Boxed Set of Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers for a single credit on Libro.fm! It had been awhile since I listened to them, got lots from the re-listen, highly recommend especially for Entrepreneurs).
And if the “beginning of day, end of day” tracking of productivity was a reality (or even better, beginning of day to beginning of day for night owls like me), we could all juggle our productivity around other obligations like taking care of children (horses and kitties in my case) and our natural productivity schedule. And could still get the job done.
Virtual workers could learn new skills that would increase their value in the marketplace if carefully provided professional development and mentoring. Which elimination of the commute might free up the extra hours to commit to these activities.
Remind me why “Back to the office” is progress?
One of the (few) silver linings of Covid was it forced us to face up to the fact that productivity did not require physical presence.
Showed us that we could have Global Diversity at no extra cost. In fact with some advantages such as hand-offs from time zone to time zone for even better productivity.
Why go back?
Community Call: What’s your take on this topic?
Til next time…
