Let’s face it: I don’t want the U.S. to be compared with France on anything (okay, maybe when we start making better food).
From none other than Martha Stewart:
In an interview with the magazine Footwear News, the author, TV personality and entrepreneur slammed hybrid work culture, saying that people cannot “possibly get everything done working three days a week in the office and two days remotely.”
Stewart’s comments come as more managers push for an end to the work-from-home trend that took hold more than three years ago at the start of the pandemic.
Stewart compared the state of in-person work in the United States to France, calling it “not a very thriving country.”
And of course, she’s right — and not just about France.
Here’s a humble suggestion for managers whose employees refuse to stop working from home: for all those days that they don’t come in to the office, pay them 33% of their rate. Then, for those who still refuse, use the savings to train their replacements who will want to show up for work.
I’m so sick of people who expect to get paid well, but refuse to do the amount of work that deserves such compensation.
And say what you like about ol’ Martha, but nobody ever accused her of being a slacker.
My company went in whole hog, 100% work from home for all engineers for 7 or 8 months, then partial work from home for another 5 or 6 months, then finally back to the office (thank God!). My practical assessment –
The first several months, everybody scheduled meetings all day long. Total BS, most meetings were nothing more than an attempt to look busy. It was more like “see, see, I’m online and working” crap with no value. The only way to get any real work done was to log in with my “work” laptop, mute the volume, and then log in again with my home laptop and actually work on that.
After that phase, things got better and without all the extraneous BS I could actually clear my daily workload before lunch. Aside for occasionally checking in during the afternoon (which made it look like I was working), I had the whole afternoon to fuck off and reload ammo.
The partial WFH was a step backwards as now I had to cart my laptop back and forth. People could never remember who was on what schedule, they’d want you at work for a field walk-thru on your home-day, and I ended up pretty much 100% back in the office even though I was supposed to be 50% work from home.
But just like the school situation where every parent really saw what kind of education their child was truly getting, the work from home let everyone see that what takes 9 hrs in the office is really only 3 or 4 hours of work cluttered up by 5 or 6 hrs of BS.
Meanwhile, those of us who figured out (or knew) how to run remote teams are laughing all the way to the bank.
There are people who can work remotely, and people who can’t.
I was one who could, and did, for 10 years in the 90’s, when state-of-the-art was dialup. I did it again for 2 years during the Covid hysteria.
My last employer decided to let all the IT folks on the software side work 100% remote after the success of the pandemic trial run. Unfortunately, they decided that 100% remote workers, who never saw patients and seldom saw coworkers, had to have the clot shot. I refused, and they fired me.
I’ve been work from home for the last 3 years and love it. Its not perfect though.
I will echo the “some can, some can’t” mantra.
It does bring up an interesting story that a buddy of mine told me:
He’s a manger at a global megacorp , but not one of the “employee friendly” types. He had some new Millennials working under him, and they instantly began to make noise about 3 days a week remote, work-life-balance, and all the other bullshit they think they were entitled to, as you know, Millennials.
Buddy replied to them thus: “Ok, well follow me, I’m not going to tell you how I am going to handle this, I am going to show you how megacorp handles it” They followed him into a different area, and he starts introducing them to other cube-dwellers. “This is Shabbir, he’s from Mumbai, and is working here on a Visa, This is Chang from Singapore, he’s working here on a Visa, etc.”
When they got back to their area, buddy informed his whiners, “If you don’t want to do the work requested, as requested, Megacorp will find someone who will.” After the crybabies drifted away one of the new guys said to him, “That was brilliant.”
…and it was.
…………..nobody ever accused her of being a slacker…………
But a lot of us admired the way she filled a pair.
Lifelong IT guy, worked 20 years for one company, got the “downsizing” letter. Moved to another company and after 5 years the entire IT staff was “rebadged” to an offshore services firm. Still do the same job for the same company, just as a consultant now.
When they sold me to India I went 100% remote and never looked back. My staff is 75% Indian and 25% American, spread out all over the country.
This is my last gig. If they ever want me in an office, I retire. I’m one that “can” and do.