Honestly I think weāre going to hit a wall where we realize we need about half as many āoffice dronesā as we have in a couple years.
So many people with office jobs drive in, sit at a desk, and do maybe 2 hours of actual work in the entire day. Or they work from home and do the same. And then they collect their 95k/year salary.
I really dunno if people are prepared for businesses to start going āwait, what are all of these people doing?ā And axing their workforce and replacing most of them with AI or existing other employees
The thing youāre not accounting for is that work that primarily involves thought, which is what āoffice dronesā are doing, arenāt productive in the same way that physical or service jobs are.
Looking off into space thinking is part of the work. People average about four hours of productive work in an eight hour day.
The thing you canāt do is get rid of half the people and then expect the other half to magically be eight hours productive per day. Businesses keep trying and weirdly it just tanks their output.
AI is not the panacea that so many people think it is. Do you feel happy when you need help with something you bought and you get an AI trying to offer you helpful articles or tips? I donāt. Do you want the same level of service from the entity that controls where your paycheck gets deposited or fixed your HSA contributions?
If you definition of work is butts in chairs typing, office workers donāt do too much work. But thatās a very naive definition of what most office workers are actually doing.
The thing youāre not accounting for is that work that primarily involves thought, which is what āoffice dronesā are doing
Found the office drone.
Our office drones are not āthinkingā for half the day like you, and input and manipulate data. You could also include half these āmanagersā too who sit in an office sending emails all day, and never hit the shop floor.
Given that office drone would cover any job that isnāt service, manufacturing or laborer, itās not exactly surprising that youād find one. Iām a software developer.
Itās almost always best to assume that other peopleās jobs actually take some form of skill, because they always do. People get paid for a reason. Otherwise you fall into the trap of calling huge swaths of work āunskilled laborā and thinking they donāt deserve much pay, just because theyāre just moving stuff around on the shop floor.
What do you think those emails the managers are sending are, if not work?
If it is so easy to be an office drone, why werenāt you able to get a job like that?
Is it maybe because it involves skills you arenāt aware of?
Experimental solution proposal:
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Fire all management. Theyāre expensive and exponentially less productive. Their stupid large offices and pricey desks also waste space.
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(Office) workers collectively do the thing they do without being micro managed and stuffed into pointless meetings.
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???
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Probably profit, actually. But then how would the āin-clubā kids reap all the rewards without working? :( :( :(
or you could let everyone work half as many hours for the same pay, but sure why should anyone except business owners get to benefit š
I worry that the widespread acceptance of work from home without any other societal changes will increase the level of loneliness. Itās a solution that has to come packaged with other quality of life enhancements or social trust is going into an even faster free fall. I wonder what a wfh/social solution would look like.
Edit: Iām not advocating for the office, I just think people like me wouldnāt do very well without other changes, and I think there are more people who donāt know how to make adult friends than we think. Iām not even an introvert, I just donāt go to any place often enough to make friends from it.
Most of the social gatherings Iāve been to have been set up with coworkers. Maybe I was conditioned by the American education system but I donāt think Iāve ever made a friend outside of a place that we both were expected to go to consistently. Iām not very familiar with constructs outside of that if Iām honest.
If your only social interactions are through work, youāve got a problem already.
I have only ever had stressful social interaction at work, except for my current job where Iām generally the only one there and as long as Iām within budget whatever I say goes. That is to say the only non stressful job I have done is the one that is 99% just me with no other people and I only even need to be there because itās physical work, the odd clerical thing is done from home on a phone work profile.
Donāt get me wrong I have certainly had my fair share of bad work interactions but most were benign and some became friends. Although Iām not advocating for the office, I just think people like me wouldnāt do very well without other changes, and I think there are more people who donāt know how to make adult friends than we think. Iām not even an introvert, I just donāt go to any place often enough to make friends from it
I worked with the public. I was constantly stressed out and kept away from my coworkers I actually got along with. I always felt āalone in a crowd.ā
Iād lie if I said thoughts of self-termination never crossed my mind. Only one or two of those coworkers actually kept up with me when I left, too.
I get a little lonely at home now, but Iām with people I love, and I make time to talk to people by choice.
Quality over quantity, Iād say.
In theory if you have a circle of friends already, then social should be better with WFH because when it is quitting time you are immediately done and have more evening for social gatherings. if you recently moved cities before WFH, not having colleages might cut down chances of finding new friend groups
Iāve been working from home for over 15 years now. One thing I do not miss is the āsocialā aspect of the office.
Thatās fair, my coworkers are really the only people I talk to. I donāt know how to make friends as an adult honestly. I donāt think Iām the only one in this boat
Thatās an issue, but itās not an issue for your job to solve for you, especially not when āsolvingā it would negatively impact the rest of the coworkers who prefer the benefits of WFH.
The most common advice Iāve seen about stuff like that is to get involved in hobbies that have clubs or groups that meet in your free time. You can try out new things or join a club about stuff youāre already interested in, and youāll meet people doing stuff that youāre interested in and sometimes they can become your friends.
Thanks Biden ya fuckin loser: https://www.npr.org/2023/09/07/1196787623/federal-workers-remote-office-ordered-taxpayers-telework-science
The resistance to allowing WFH really shows how bullshit the push for EVs āto help the environmentā is.
Iām not anti-EV and do believe they are better than ICE. But even better than an EV-driven mile is a mile that isnāt driven at all.
Iām not sure how you equate that first paragraph at all. Can you expound? The second one just nullifies the first lol.
My point is that if they were serious about protecting the environment, they would promote WFH (for those who canā¦not everyone can obviously) in addition to EVs. Instead, there seems to be a big push for return to office.
Got it. Thanks. It definitely read like you were saying EVs were some secret not as good as you thought it was issueā¦
When theyāre pretty damn fantastic at lowering pollution over time.
https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1110016823009055
Itās not bullshit at all. It is a lot better for cars that are being used to not shoot out smoke from combusting refined oil. There will always be cars in use, so it will always be better for them to not shoot out smoke.
Itās not possible for all workers to live inside dense cities and use public transport and work in offices or at home. MANY other jobs are out there and still need doing every day. Everyone who physically maintains all of our critical infrastructure, manufacturing, and food supply industries is pretty much going to commute to work one way or another. Millions of those people donāt live in cities with public transport and/or donāt work where public transport can take them to. EVs are an improvement for all of those necessary use cases, because the vehicles they need could not be shooting out smoke.
Iām not sure what percentage of workers could do their job from home if they were allowed to. Itās probably a small minority, though a quick glance of numbers from COVID would suggest 15-20%. Iāll use 15% for sake of argument but would welcome a more āconfidentā number if someone has it.
Reducing the number of miles is and important way to reduce impact. Additionally, even those who cannot work from home benefit from reduces congestion and reduces vehicle idling. Although idling has less impact on EVs (though they still have to run HVAC), ICE vehicles are still the majority of vehicles being sold today in most nations and will be in circulation for decades.
Not everyone can WFH, but it needs to be part of the strategy of reducing emissions from transportation. Not pushing WFH (for those who can) is leaving a lot on the table. This is not a replacement for EVs, rather in addition to.
Iām all for WFH and EVs personally. Havenāt bought an EV yet but I would like to have a non-spyware-laden one for a reasonable price.
This is the truth. People like to tout EVs as the end all, be all, āsilver bulletā for the petrochemical industry. Bullshit. Your EV is riddled with oil-based products and asphalt contains a shitload of petrochemicals. EVs are better than gas burning cars in the same way getting stabbed with a knife is better than being shot. If you really want to help the environment by buying a car, buy a used car instead of a new one. Still, nothing really compares to just having a society where the average individual doesnāt need a vehicle. I think if we had a more robust service economy structured around couriers who took care of shopping and delivery, and then had a genuinely decent public transportation system or taxi options, weād do a lot to reduce emissions. But the car is itself a sign of affluence and personal freedom in America. Always has been; probably always will be. Ownership of one, especially an expensive one, confers a certain status, and thatās a cultural problem, not an environmental or material one.
Only if the environmental narrative was cohesive and consistent lol.
If govts really cared about the environment they would push companies into remote working as much as possible instead of pushing for electric cars that are a hazard to the planet.
