This is the weekend edition of Culture Study — the newsletter from Anne Helen Petersen, which you can read about here. If you like it and want more like it in your inbox, consider subscribing.
But Anne how ever will we function as a workforce if we are not forced to attend a purely performative lunch-break baby shower or "employee appreciation" pizza party.
My office currently has us coming back August 2nd. This time, it'll be 2 days in office (Monday and another day picked by our supervisors I guess), 3 days at home. I hope that lasts, honestly. Previously to COVID, we were doing 2 days a week at home which was a refreshing change from any of my other work environments. I have truly loved working from home this whole time. I don't feel isolated, I get more done, and I'm less stressed out. I'm not looking forward to commuting back into the city and eating at my desk again but beggars can't be choosers and all that.
"(See especially: those working in education, academia, and non-profits)."
I felt so seen. I've worked in community nonprofits my whole career until the current job as staff in an academic institution, which I started the day they sent us home. Even from home it is a miserable, patriarchal and paternalistic, opaque structure, and I started looking for a way out the day they started hinting about requiring an on campus schedule (even though I'm not student facing). I'm considering not going back into nonprofits, but I haven't figured out how to effect that. Obviously I'm not alone - what commonality made you call out these three specifically?
I would be more upset with my agency's 99% back to the office mandate if I didn't live walking distance from my job. I have chronic health issues so commuting an hour each way to my previous job wore out my body and I took all of my paid time off (sick, vacation, personal) as sick time. I'm someone who works better from home for lots of reasons, including that I am more productive at home because I don't have to overhear my co-workers parrot Fox News talking points all day. I could totally understand why BlPOC and LGBTQ workers would thrive better at home - they would face micro-aggressions and potentially be put on a pedestal as the "token".
My office is currently claiming they are interested in hybrid, but trust me, it's a lie. MY unit (and almost no other units) will end up having to go back full time in person because we are unfortunately the public service unit, and even though we have managed just fine without in person as an option for over a year, they will be dying to "go back to normal" and "business as usual." They want full all day long in person service again, and that means we're effed. Once they declared that at least two people would have to be in the office every day--and I note we have five adult peon employees that that's referring to--I knew it was doomed. We've been known to have 3 out of 5 call in sick on one day, and what are they going to do when that happens, as it happens fairly frequently and has happened for half the week in the last few weeks? Are they gonna call someone who lives 1.5 hours away at 7 or 8 a.m. and tell them they have to come in after all? Multiple days a week? So you can NEVER know from day to day when you have to drop everything and run to the office? Hahahah, yeah right, it'll just be easier to force everyone to be here every day and "be flexible." Unfortunately, I had no job options before the pandemic--I spent a lot of years trying to get off public service team--and it's not going to be any better now.
Our offices sound pretty different in how they're organized, but "claiming they are interested in hybrid, but it's a lie" sounds EXTREMELY familiar. Our back to office date (which is of course mid summer, rather than after school starts again in the fall...) hasn't arrived yet, but I'm already getting a strong sense of there being a difference between the written flex work policy and the unspoken rules that will actually determine promotions, etc. Love to add one more abled white male non-primary-caregiver norm on top of the rest that HR can't technically tell you to follow, but the higher ups will enforce in practice.
I hope your job options end up being better than they seem right now!
Hahahaha, not unless they drastically decide to revision the office, i.e. cut required in-office staff times to wait on the walk-in public. Which they would rather shoot us all dead than do. Added bonus: our leader quit this year and we have no idea who's going to be making these decisions for us in the future.... BLECH on all of it.
Well, I got to enjoy working from home and being more well rested and getting more quiet for over a year, which was more than I ever expected to get in my work life. Bright side!
Good article, and in line with most other 'the office is changing' literature. But what if your work isn't in an office? Shift workers in retail, hospitality and manufacturing have had the opposite problem - too much flexibility in scheduling, all of it dictated by the needs or whims of the employer, creating just as much difficulty in meeting domestic or caregiving responsibilities as many office workers have faced. Some thoughts on how that work environment is evolving post-pandemic would be appreciated.
Excellent article. When management asked for feedback on plans going forward, I basically told them there is no going back now that people have tasted flexibility. Get a plan that is comprehensive and fair to all or get left behind.
Bloom worrying about the divergence between single men coming into the office and women with kids staying home is valid, but framing ignores single women and modern dads. Pre-covid, my teammate with the most kid-related WFM was a dad with a doctor wife.
Interesting article. The best part was the prediction of the possible long-term disadvantages in regards to promotion for those employees who choose to stay home due to childcare or other needs. The author's use of the words "shitty" and "shit show" were distracting. That choice of vocabulary seemed immature and unprofessional in an otherwise admirable article.
If the use of shit show was your biggest takeaway, maybe you should reread it to actually get the many valid points that were made in the article. Think outside your box....
Ok Anne Helen Petersen, I'll bite. I was always taught (and believe) that profanity is a small mind trying to express itself. I also believe that all writing is clearer and more effective without profanity--though it certainly takes more effort. So please educate us as to what you believe the use of potty-mouth language adds to your piece.
Thanks for the story, but it misses the point. There may be some emotional (or other) payoffs for people who use swear words (I suspect there are also emotional benefits to people who punch holes in the wall when angry)--but unless Ms. Petersen intended this piece as a form of personal therapy, I continue to believe there are clearer and more effective ways to communicate with others.
I agree. It's been really sad to me to see how much journalism now accepts the use of swear words. This came off sounding more like a young person whining and complaining than an actual intellectual prediction for companies who approach this problem with distrust and controlling attitudes. It lacks professionalism, and it seems to me that there is plenty of "candid" vocabulary out there that could be used to express the same ideas.
I really like how this article addresses the companies who do not trust their employees. I felt the same way when I read about the company that will make their employees work Tuesday through Thursday. It screamed distrust. If productivity has been the same or better while everyone was at home, why not leave it as is with the flexibility to come to the office? I also like how this points out the possibility, of people who come to the office more often than the rest, might get more opportunities because of management that sees productivity as coming into the office, no matter how much work is done.
We were just told that our hybrid schedule would be: a) three days in office mandatory; 2) no two consecutive days at home 3) no consecutive Friday/Monday at home; 4) no Friday before a Monday holiday at home. This is not my immediate organization, but apparently coming from Up On High.
Wow. It's like the bigwigs got together for a brainstorming session to identify all of the ways "our pesky employees will try to abuse hybrid work", and then incorporated the resulting list into a policy memo. Really screams "we trust you".
You seem to really be discounting the productivity gains of being in person. Yes, in some jobs - maybe if you're a writer or doing lots of solo work - you can be just as productive or more so working from home. I work in wealth management at a major bank and we're a team of 10 people. We have clients to whom we provide advice, financial planning, administrative functions, etc. I can't tell you how much more productive we were in person - we could just easily shout out to one another in the office, or walk to someone's desk with a quick question. Now, everything is over email / internal IM / phone and it's the worst. It takes 2-3x as long to get tasks done, and it's draining. Myself and two other team members have come back to the office to sit together recently and we were shocked at how productive we were. Work was a breeze and we were actually "done" at 5pm. So yes - I'm not claiming there are spontaneous hallway gatherings happening, but I think people are not realizing that many types of jobs exist in the corporate world and some really are easier to do in person.
I completely get the point you are making. But if a product like Slack or Teams can't replace you asking questions over desks at the office, I feel it's more just a resistance to change and not the occupation itself. I believe that the inability to change that culture of shouting around the office or walking up to someone's desk is what has resulted in the reduction in production while remote, and not the "nature of the job".
Total opposite effect here on the front end website developer side. Driving into the office serves no function other than wasting gas, time and sanity. We get more done than ever this way and the ol' boss can't wait to micromanage everybody again, for whatever reason.
I agree with Stephanie. I lead a branch office of over 200 workers, and there is a big mix of jobs that are done well collaboratively (and more productively in person) and other jobs that can be done effectively in a distributed environment. I travel internationally every month (even during the pandemic), so I am used to working remotely and on-the-road, but easily recognized which parts of my job suffered because of a lack of personal contact as my travel was greatly reduced.
As a manager, I have noticed areas where productivity has fallen off and I have seen abuse (in some cases substantial) of the WFH conditions. So, I am struggling with to define a policy that will safeguard my company's interests. [In my younger days, I ran a small construction-like company with hourly workers - the rule was: you were paid 8 hours wages for holidays, but only if you worked on the scheduled workday before and after holiday.] Lets keep in mind, for most people, work is something they would not do if they didn't have to :] Companies pay a wage to have you do something your wouldn't otherwise do, and they have the right to ask you to do some of that at certain times and in certain places. That may create certain biases - and the companies that can manage to minimize that should fare better than others.
I thought this article had many interesting points of view, but didn't really give strong consideration to the challenges that managers must face. Managers seemed criticized if they were not "flexible" and "chill" or had not already learned how to judge value from non-present workers in the same way they have (for years) from present workers. Managers are people, too, and will have to discover reliable methods to evaluate things we used to be able to evaluate in person with our own eyes.
Please understand that different people might have a different job than you do. My industry and job is collaborative, there really isn’t the same type of deep concentration required as with other roles. It’s more administrative and we handle hundreds of small tasks a day (we don’t have projects). You’re painting everyone with a broad brush, I’m just trying to say that not everyone is more productive WFH.
Forbidding people from going to the office every day makes no more sense than forbidding people from wearing more formal clothes than the standard, or forbidding people from taking less than X number of sick days per year. Frankly, it seems like Communist thinking to me - "forcing equality" by prohibiting what you believe will cause some to get ahead. Just like Red China. Why not just ditch capitalism entirely? You'd have just as much an argument for that on the basis of "forced equality".
In March 2020, we were promised that forced remote work would be TEMPORARY in order to "flatten the curve". If that promise is broken, then then next time there is any sort of crisis, I'm going to do everything in my power to fight change, because I won't believe anyone's promises that it won't be permanent.
I work for an Oxfordshire UK based company where we have clearly been told there will never be any Hybrid or WFH model. This despite the entire office exceeding our numbers while WFH in the last 15 months. We as company have technology and staff that can work from anywhere in the world. However, the company did not engage with any staff to make this call and staff were left with no other option. The senior management team is very clear in this stance and refuses to buldge on this point when asked or requested to reconsider. 9 resignations have been submitted in the last 6 weeks and there a few more in the pipeline for a total office strength of 27 people. Lack of trust is the number one reason why the company is refusing to allow hybrid working models.
If you ignore the identity politics that come out now and again, it's not a bad article. I think my company is doing a very reasonable job at coming out on the other side. No doubt there are opportunities in the current work environment to improve one's lot in the corporate jungle. I wish everyone the best in your quest to find a better way to pay the bills and put food on the table.
But Anne how ever will we function as a workforce if we are not forced to attend a purely performative lunch-break baby shower or "employee appreciation" pizza party.
This line from the Just Trust Me has me nodding my head, yep, yep:
"My body and soul are hungover, dehydrated and malnourished after this last decade of 2009 onward."
My office currently has us coming back August 2nd. This time, it'll be 2 days in office (Monday and another day picked by our supervisors I guess), 3 days at home. I hope that lasts, honestly. Previously to COVID, we were doing 2 days a week at home which was a refreshing change from any of my other work environments. I have truly loved working from home this whole time. I don't feel isolated, I get more done, and I'm less stressed out. I'm not looking forward to commuting back into the city and eating at my desk again but beggars can't be choosers and all that.
"(See especially: those working in education, academia, and non-profits)."
I felt so seen. I've worked in community nonprofits my whole career until the current job as staff in an academic institution, which I started the day they sent us home. Even from home it is a miserable, patriarchal and paternalistic, opaque structure, and I started looking for a way out the day they started hinting about requiring an on campus schedule (even though I'm not student facing). I'm considering not going back into nonprofits, but I haven't figured out how to effect that. Obviously I'm not alone - what commonality made you call out these three specifically?
They're all fields with high levels of demoralization (click on the link to demoralization to learn more about its specific characteristics)
I would be more upset with my agency's 99% back to the office mandate if I didn't live walking distance from my job. I have chronic health issues so commuting an hour each way to my previous job wore out my body and I took all of my paid time off (sick, vacation, personal) as sick time. I'm someone who works better from home for lots of reasons, including that I am more productive at home because I don't have to overhear my co-workers parrot Fox News talking points all day. I could totally understand why BlPOC and LGBTQ workers would thrive better at home - they would face micro-aggressions and potentially be put on a pedestal as the "token".
My office is currently claiming they are interested in hybrid, but trust me, it's a lie. MY unit (and almost no other units) will end up having to go back full time in person because we are unfortunately the public service unit, and even though we have managed just fine without in person as an option for over a year, they will be dying to "go back to normal" and "business as usual." They want full all day long in person service again, and that means we're effed. Once they declared that at least two people would have to be in the office every day--and I note we have five adult peon employees that that's referring to--I knew it was doomed. We've been known to have 3 out of 5 call in sick on one day, and what are they going to do when that happens, as it happens fairly frequently and has happened for half the week in the last few weeks? Are they gonna call someone who lives 1.5 hours away at 7 or 8 a.m. and tell them they have to come in after all? Multiple days a week? So you can NEVER know from day to day when you have to drop everything and run to the office? Hahahah, yeah right, it'll just be easier to force everyone to be here every day and "be flexible." Unfortunately, I had no job options before the pandemic--I spent a lot of years trying to get off public service team--and it's not going to be any better now.
Our offices sound pretty different in how they're organized, but "claiming they are interested in hybrid, but it's a lie" sounds EXTREMELY familiar. Our back to office date (which is of course mid summer, rather than after school starts again in the fall...) hasn't arrived yet, but I'm already getting a strong sense of there being a difference between the written flex work policy and the unspoken rules that will actually determine promotions, etc. Love to add one more abled white male non-primary-caregiver norm on top of the rest that HR can't technically tell you to follow, but the higher ups will enforce in practice.
I hope your job options end up being better than they seem right now!
Hahahaha, not unless they drastically decide to revision the office, i.e. cut required in-office staff times to wait on the walk-in public. Which they would rather shoot us all dead than do. Added bonus: our leader quit this year and we have no idea who's going to be making these decisions for us in the future.... BLECH on all of it.
Well, I got to enjoy working from home and being more well rested and getting more quiet for over a year, which was more than I ever expected to get in my work life. Bright side!
Good article, and in line with most other 'the office is changing' literature. But what if your work isn't in an office? Shift workers in retail, hospitality and manufacturing have had the opposite problem - too much flexibility in scheduling, all of it dictated by the needs or whims of the employer, creating just as much difficulty in meeting domestic or caregiving responsibilities as many office workers have faced. Some thoughts on how that work environment is evolving post-pandemic would be appreciated.
Excellent article. When management asked for feedback on plans going forward, I basically told them there is no going back now that people have tasted flexibility. Get a plan that is comprehensive and fair to all or get left behind.
Bloom worrying about the divergence between single men coming into the office and women with kids staying home is valid, but framing ignores single women and modern dads. Pre-covid, my teammate with the most kid-related WFM was a dad with a doctor wife.
likewise a dad with a professor wife
Interesting article. The best part was the prediction of the possible long-term disadvantages in regards to promotion for those employees who choose to stay home due to childcare or other needs. The author's use of the words "shitty" and "shit show" were distracting. That choice of vocabulary seemed immature and unprofessional in an otherwise admirable article.
I'm right here, you can call me by my name
If the use of shit show was your biggest takeaway, maybe you should reread it to actually get the many valid points that were made in the article. Think outside your box....
Who said that was my biggest takeaway--other than you? Maybe you should reread my comment, it's not I who has missed the point.
who said i was talking directly to you
Ok Anne Helen Petersen, I'll bite. I was always taught (and believe) that profanity is a small mind trying to express itself. I also believe that all writing is clearer and more effective without profanity--though it certainly takes more effort. So please educate us as to what you believe the use of potty-mouth language adds to your piece.
What you were taught has been debunked. I suggest you read this story: https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/26/health/swearing-benefits-wellness/index.html
Thanks for the story, but it misses the point. There may be some emotional (or other) payoffs for people who use swear words (I suspect there are also emotional benefits to people who punch holes in the wall when angry)--but unless Ms. Petersen intended this piece as a form of personal therapy, I continue to believe there are clearer and more effective ways to communicate with others.
Boo hoo. I don't like fake people that wear a smile mask all day, myself. I appreciate candid responses and wording.
I agree. It's been really sad to me to see how much journalism now accepts the use of swear words. This came off sounding more like a young person whining and complaining than an actual intellectual prediction for companies who approach this problem with distrust and controlling attitudes. It lacks professionalism, and it seems to me that there is plenty of "candid" vocabulary out there that could be used to express the same ideas.
I too was startled by the interest in shit by this author. In my 78 years and time sent in 13 countries I thought I had "heard it all".
I really like how this article addresses the companies who do not trust their employees. I felt the same way when I read about the company that will make their employees work Tuesday through Thursday. It screamed distrust. If productivity has been the same or better while everyone was at home, why not leave it as is with the flexibility to come to the office? I also like how this points out the possibility, of people who come to the office more often than the rest, might get more opportunities because of management that sees productivity as coming into the office, no matter how much work is done.
We were just told that our hybrid schedule would be: a) three days in office mandatory; 2) no two consecutive days at home 3) no consecutive Friday/Monday at home; 4) no Friday before a Monday holiday at home. This is not my immediate organization, but apparently coming from Up On High.
Wow. It's like the bigwigs got together for a brainstorming session to identify all of the ways "our pesky employees will try to abuse hybrid work", and then incorporated the resulting list into a policy memo. Really screams "we trust you".
You seem to really be discounting the productivity gains of being in person. Yes, in some jobs - maybe if you're a writer or doing lots of solo work - you can be just as productive or more so working from home. I work in wealth management at a major bank and we're a team of 10 people. We have clients to whom we provide advice, financial planning, administrative functions, etc. I can't tell you how much more productive we were in person - we could just easily shout out to one another in the office, or walk to someone's desk with a quick question. Now, everything is over email / internal IM / phone and it's the worst. It takes 2-3x as long to get tasks done, and it's draining. Myself and two other team members have come back to the office to sit together recently and we were shocked at how productive we were. Work was a breeze and we were actually "done" at 5pm. So yes - I'm not claiming there are spontaneous hallway gatherings happening, but I think people are not realizing that many types of jobs exist in the corporate world and some really are easier to do in person.
I completely get the point you are making. But if a product like Slack or Teams can't replace you asking questions over desks at the office, I feel it's more just a resistance to change and not the occupation itself. I believe that the inability to change that culture of shouting around the office or walking up to someone's desk is what has resulted in the reduction in production while remote, and not the "nature of the job".
Total opposite effect here on the front end website developer side. Driving into the office serves no function other than wasting gas, time and sanity. We get more done than ever this way and the ol' boss can't wait to micromanage everybody again, for whatever reason.
Yes, I think you’re proving my point that different jobs require different amounts of concentration and you feel the opposite way.
I agree with Stephanie. I lead a branch office of over 200 workers, and there is a big mix of jobs that are done well collaboratively (and more productively in person) and other jobs that can be done effectively in a distributed environment. I travel internationally every month (even during the pandemic), so I am used to working remotely and on-the-road, but easily recognized which parts of my job suffered because of a lack of personal contact as my travel was greatly reduced.
As a manager, I have noticed areas where productivity has fallen off and I have seen abuse (in some cases substantial) of the WFH conditions. So, I am struggling with to define a policy that will safeguard my company's interests. [In my younger days, I ran a small construction-like company with hourly workers - the rule was: you were paid 8 hours wages for holidays, but only if you worked on the scheduled workday before and after holiday.] Lets keep in mind, for most people, work is something they would not do if they didn't have to :] Companies pay a wage to have you do something your wouldn't otherwise do, and they have the right to ask you to do some of that at certain times and in certain places. That may create certain biases - and the companies that can manage to minimize that should fare better than others.
I thought this article had many interesting points of view, but didn't really give strong consideration to the challenges that managers must face. Managers seemed criticized if they were not "flexible" and "chill" or had not already learned how to judge value from non-present workers in the same way they have (for years) from present workers. Managers are people, too, and will have to discover reliable methods to evaluate things we used to be able to evaluate in person with our own eyes.
in other words, you were the people pissing everyone else off while they're trying to get work done without breaking concentration
Please understand that different people might have a different job than you do. My industry and job is collaborative, there really isn’t the same type of deep concentration required as with other roles. It’s more administrative and we handle hundreds of small tasks a day (we don’t have projects). You’re painting everyone with a broad brush, I’m just trying to say that not everyone is more productive WFH.
Forbidding people from going to the office every day makes no more sense than forbidding people from wearing more formal clothes than the standard, or forbidding people from taking less than X number of sick days per year. Frankly, it seems like Communist thinking to me - "forcing equality" by prohibiting what you believe will cause some to get ahead. Just like Red China. Why not just ditch capitalism entirely? You'd have just as much an argument for that on the basis of "forced equality".
In March 2020, we were promised that forced remote work would be TEMPORARY in order to "flatten the curve". If that promise is broken, then then next time there is any sort of crisis, I'm going to do everything in my power to fight change, because I won't believe anyone's promises that it won't be permanent.
I work for an Oxfordshire UK based company where we have clearly been told there will never be any Hybrid or WFH model. This despite the entire office exceeding our numbers while WFH in the last 15 months. We as company have technology and staff that can work from anywhere in the world. However, the company did not engage with any staff to make this call and staff were left with no other option. The senior management team is very clear in this stance and refuses to buldge on this point when asked or requested to reconsider. 9 resignations have been submitted in the last 6 weeks and there a few more in the pipeline for a total office strength of 27 people. Lack of trust is the number one reason why the company is refusing to allow hybrid working models.
If you ignore the identity politics that come out now and again, it's not a bad article. I think my company is doing a very reasonable job at coming out on the other side. No doubt there are opportunities in the current work environment to improve one's lot in the corporate jungle. I wish everyone the best in your quest to find a better way to pay the bills and put food on the table.
EXCELLENT DESCRIPTIVE ARTICLE ANNE!!!!!!!