Posted on 03/13/2023 12:47:58 PM PDT by libh8er
…..But in the last few years, a number of factors have contributed to swift changes in how we work and where we work, which have revolutionised everyday life. Thanks to the rise of remote work, the four day week and flexible hours, there are now so many different ways to “make a livin’”.
The question is: Has the day job gone forever?
Just a few years ago, the idea that a large proportion of the workforce would be working from the comfort of their own homes – with their slippers on and a cat relentlessly trying to nap on their keyboard – instead of trudging into the office, would have been preposterous. But now it’s a reality for many of us. That said, whether that new reality has been net good or net bad is still up for debate.
Some of us prefer it. Working from home means less workplace distractions, less needless cash wasted on high street lunches, and more time with flatmates or family. But more importantly, it meant the death of the commute – and this cannot be overstated. The commute was the eternal hellscape that used to bookend our working lives: cancelled trains, overcrowded buses, and that awful sun-deprived feeling of leaving for work in the dark and returning from work in the dark. Nevermind the needless cash spent on doing it.
For others it hasn’t been so easy. Working from home has meant zero separation between work life and home life, and that blurring can be problematic, especially if you have kids or just a hungover flatmate that likes to noisily fry eggs in their underwear while you’re trying to do video meetings in the kitchen. And for those starting a new job, it’s unmistakably harder to strike up a rapport with your new team when they are just avatars on Slack.
Whether you’re going in or working from home, or doing a hybrid of the two, another interesting development has been the normalisation of flexible hours. Once seen as a mythical term rarely seen on job ads, it’s now increasingly popular for employers to offer ‘flexitime’. This has been a game-changer: for those of us who are early birds or night owls, it lets you dedicate your most productive hours to your work, rather than dragging yourself to your desk with a brain full of clouds and eye bags like bin bags.
But perhaps the most revolutionary change in the workplace is yet to come: the four day work week. When you really get into the nuts and bolts of this concept, it seems so utterly obvious: people are happier and healthier when they work less, and happier and healthier people are more productive at work. Trials are now taking place all over the world, and the results nearly always seem to be positive. People are reporting more job satisfaction and improved mental health.
As we cross our fingers and toes in the hope that this becomes the norm, it’s worth remembering that the five day work week was created for a largely agricultural and industrial society that is radically different from today’s. And our unwillingness to let go of it has led to a society in which people spend most of their weekends off doing the horribly mundane and tedious tasks they didn’t have time for during the week. The idea that someone might forgo going for a drink with their friends, or learning a new skill, or playing a sport they enjoy, because they haven’t found the time to hoover in a month, is both ridiculous and far too common.
They say there’s nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. When it comes to the modern workplace, we’ve deserved so much better for so long. Remote work is here, flexitime is rising and the four day week seems to be cruising along quickly behind them both. A new normal is around the corner, in which we get to arrange our work around our lives rather than our lives around our work. Bring it on.
What about gov’t jobs? Are they dying, I hope?
Why do you imagine that you "deserve" so much better? Why do you think you "deserve" anything?
>>. Trials are now taking place all over the world, and the results nearly always seem to be positive. People are reporting more job satisfaction and improved mental health.<<
Notably absent is the word PRODUCTIVITY.
There are conflicting studies about the productivity of working from home. Some say there is no loss of productivity but other say there is a significant drop off. This trend will be like every other pro-employee workplace trend. It will continue until the next recession drives unemployment up. Then workers will be told to come back or lose their jobs.
It depends a lot on the employee. Bad workers are bad workers at home or work.
>noisily fry eggs in their underwear
I bet it gets noisy when someone puts eggs in with their ‘eggs’ and onto the frying pan!
Conversely, the market for chicken-egg-sized musical underwear is probably pretty small.
Just a yolk, or two; sunny side up.
Well. The fact is that AI (real AI, not pre-programmed Chat GPT) will be taking over a lot of white collar and office jobs in the relatively near future. Many office workers will need to learn a trade.
And for the ones you can't fire, they do far less harm at home than in the office. The workers who slack teleworking are the same ones who slacked in the office, and the ones who invented new efficiencies and productivity habits in the office have done the same at home.
I don’t see how manufacturing ends up with this. 4 ten hour days seem to be normal in my neck of the woods. There can’t really be hybrid. Maybe assembly can be done at homes on a piece work deal but for the most part the machinery and tools required to build anything need a large warehouse.
Pushing off the overhead costs of office space and utilities onto people who are willing to take them on enthusiastically should be a no-brainer.
We’ve tried to allow some working at home and it results in a very low productivity rate. I can see it working for genius-level software types - who work better when left alone and spend all of their time on the programming because they love it, anyway. Typical office jobs that no one really enjoys have be done under managerial supervision. Aside from creators, only owners with skin in the game are productive at home.
One can look at the trends and sort of imagine where this is going.
Increasing indoctrination/socialism + high inflation/real estate + AI means to me at least that many future jobs will be “work from anywhere” with modest pay. Many people will accept a lower standard of living as long as they have a place to live, eat and party.
The state has a vested interest in young people being willing to settle for less.
A possible bright side of this is an enterprising competitive person might be able to take advantage of this and stand out amidst a large group of slackers. There will always be ambition. I just see more and more young people with lowering expectations.
Day jobs are becoming scarce unless you want a job in the service industry. When I graduated from college in the 60s, I didn’t look for a job — I was too busy answering the phone calls from prospective employers and employment agencies. Life was good. The prospective employer would fly you to HQ for an interview after having dined and wined you. It was that way all over the world.
There it is. I knew it would be here somewhere. :-)
No, in fact, I have friends in two GOV agencies, both of which requires coming into the office ONE DAY A MONTH!
I don't think it's so much the laziness it engenders, but the lack of human interaction and contact we used to enjoy (or tolerate). Going into work in a 90% vacant room, not being able to see the lower half of anyone's face, the closed businesses, is all to terribly depressing.
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