As usual, the article never lets slip that billions of humans have non-cushy-office jobs - for which remote work is not physically possible.
I don't think its a crime of omission to focus on the target audience by any means. The Register is a tech focused news outlet and an overwhelming amount of tech jobs are white collar jobs.
Entire finance departments can work from home, my company is 100% remote, its a fintech company that handles and processes sensitive stuff all day.
Never impeded by regulation or data safety concerns, in fact, I think this company has better security practices than others I've worked for in the past to be quite honest.
There is an illusion that security requires an office. Most of it comes down to 'can you trust X person' vs any locality stuff.
I'm unaware of any meaningful difference in practice when it comes to the work stream though.
That said, I'm no lawyer nor an expert on the differences between the US (where I reside) and the rest of the world, in terms of specific data laws and handling procedures
Certainly for bigger deals they come onsite for the final stages of the sales process, but most interaction is handled remotely and they aren't in an office.
I do manual labor. My manager (a very nice guy) must show up on location. After we talk about things I message him and repeat the very things we've talked about so that I have a written record of things.
They have him drive around the country for useless chit chat. If I ask him why stuff isn't done it is always this same excuse. He has to go to meetings where the goal pretty much is to write my whatsapp message on a piece of paper and for other people to hear themselves talk. I sometimes jokingly ask him how it went. The usual response is PFFF, a 5 hour drive for nothing. He manages both the day and the night shifts which adds to the joke.
I think we need to send in the environmentalists so that people can stop burning my gasoline, eroding my roads, killing the birds, stinking up my city, taking my parking spots and wearing out their car.
I propose a special daily commute tax, a flat fee for the first 20 km with extras per additional km and a multiplier for each hour shorter than 8 before the return trip. Lets also do an office tax per square meter.
True.
> I don't think its a crime of omission...
Nobody else thinks that, either.
Perhaps I should have been longer-winded than "As usual, "? My concern is not particular to this article, nor to The Register. Whether you figure that journalism merely reflects the worldviews of its audience, or that it also shapes those - there seems to be a near-universal "less-privileged people don't exist, or we should never give thought to their welfare" undertone to the whole RTO issue. Historically, that kinda thing was often a bad sign for a society.
If you do facilities work in a downtown area, people not working from the office means you have less work to do and your job is potentially affected. Same goes for restaurant workers, sanitation workers, etc.
This is not a matter of interpretation or view. You are privileged and your comment shows exactly that.
Lest my negative attitude get the better of both of us, we should believe that society's goals are to improve everyone's quality of life.
It definitely is a view. If you don't see it as such, that just means that's probably the primary way you view the world.
Splitting popular support ( akin to Musk's attempt to cast WFH as 'laptop class' ) would accomplish that.
I have no good counter, but it only reminds me that maybe we do need some pan-wfh org that tries to deal with social media narratives.
There are billions of humans who live in countries that don't have a functioning democracy, but we still find it to be valuable to fight to keep and advance democracy in those countries that have it. There are billions of humans who are poorer than the poor in rich countries, but we still find it to be valuable to fight for better living conditions for the poor in our own countries.
Are you proposing that no one should fight for WFH because not everyone can? Or that there should be one of those "privilege disclaimers" at the top of all of these articles that apologizes for bothering to write a piece that fights for improved conditions for a group that is already perceived as privileged?
Why on earth does everyone have to fit the same mold?
If automation was to be implemented then there would be no job at all for the cashier.
Or is it "my job is bigger and important" argument?
Not every occupation, at this point, can fall under this categorization.
My job, for better or worse, however, has to exist in the same time-zone for the sake of meetings, while my output is more ephemeral.
<< Or is it "my job is bigger and important" argument?
Hadly. If anything, I would argue that my job is less important.
What is my reason..
You want to work from home because it's easier for you. And I agree, it takes a lot of weight off your shoulders but for me who enjoys working in the office a caveat is that it's harder communicating with those who do work from home.
I couldn't work from home, even if I wanted to.
They don't. (And I don't know a single person who thinks they do).
But in any society where the "haves vs. have-nots" division is a major social problem - there can be serious downsides to convincing the latter that the former really don't give a crap about them.