charlieandannie

AHP here: GHOSTWORK is such an important book, and I'm so glad you brought it up. In short: we all should be working less, and continued automation should make that possible, but only if we can let go of the (frankly arbitrary!!) idea that working 40 hours a week (or more) is what qualifies you for healthcare. This is a huge question when it comes to childcare, as you point out, but also with the massive influx of elders who will be needing care as the boomers continue to age. (And also, what is all this technology for if not TO WORK LESS?) Healthcare must be decoupled from employment. This is the future. We're just dragging our feet getting to that point, and suffering tremendously, in so many overlapping ways, as a consequence.

I think normalized WFH across industries is going to take time. There will definitely be companies that drag their feet on this and demand butts in seats. And I think that will work in the short term. But, eventually, the staunch in-person only companies are going to see that they're having retention trouble or that they're feeling bloated and out of position. I think a whole bunch of fancy pants business school case studies are going to show the benefits of flexible organizations in the coming years and then these same stodgy companies are going to pay a bunch of overpriced McKinsey consultants to come in and tell them exactly what smart flexible orgs are doing right now. They'll be five to seven years behind, and it's going to cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees.

I also think that we're still so early in this transition. There are so many people that are excited to get back into offices (or have returned and are happy). Makes sense! People miss it! But I think we're going to see, after a few months back that people miss parts of their flexible/ remote work lives. Once you give somebody this kind of flexibility...it's hard to take it away. And so there'll be...negotiations. - Charlie

Wait...for real? Justin's house? What jacket? I'm very interested. DM me At the very least I can get you a free copy of this book!

AHP here: It's fitting that you bring up that Meg Conley piece, because Meg is one of the people whose work I always turn to when I'm thinking about domestic and unpaid labor, and what would (and could!) happen if we value it differently. Right now, so much of that labor remains invisible — and, as such, expected, and not considered in the larger calculus of what any one human can bear. Women, in particular, are carrying a huge burden of caretaking (for children, but also for aging parents) added to existing work obligations. There's some interesting data from the pandemic about how men (in hetero couples) working from home --> men doing more domestic labor than before, in part because they were just present, but also because they were witness to (and participating in) some of the labor that they just couldn't see, for better or worse, before they were working from home. When the labor becomes visible, it's easier, in some ways, to divide it (so long as your partner isn't a total asshole). But now, as more men feel comfortable (or pulled) back into the office, those numbers are rubberbanding back!! The worst!! Most moms I know are really struggling still, too, and feel like something has to give — and a lot of that has to do with continuing Covid anxieties for kids who can't get vaxxed yet, and the fact that we still haven't actually addressed the massive childcare crisis (federal funding, dudes, it's not that hard, treat it like we treat elementary school) but also that we're once again expecting women to do fucking everything! Can remote or hybrid work fix that? Not on its own. You have to use it as a tool (like any other technology), but direct it towards the continued gender imbalance of domestic labor (which stubbornly sits at around 65%/35%, and I'll let you guess who's doing the 35%) and also the ever-escalating demands of bourgeois parenthood, which make it so that any time a mom has to herself she should actually be spending on parenting in some new and advantageous way. In addition to being an inequality machine, this dedication to hyperparenting also just makes pretty much everyone miserable. And as for your last question: when people are paid a living wage, and aren't terrified of student loan payments and getting financially devastated by healthcare costs, then there isn't the push to monetize every part of your personality and every hobby. But we need to reknit the social safety net for that to happen in a meaningful way.

I think that generally people inflate the importance of spontaneous collaboration in office settings. The water cooler chat is a nice social element and I think there's real value at times in being able to walk over and have a quick, impromptu low stakes chat with somebody about something. And I say this as (Charlie, here) a person who enjoys being in the office and finds the organic collaboration to be energizing.

But you're totally right. A lot of collaboration during this pandemic period has been horribly clunky and exhausting. People set up a Zoom to brainstorm and it becomes this nightmare. I think these are early growing pains, though. Some of this might be ameliorated with interesting tech (a company called Branch is doing interesting proximity based audio stuff and virtual office environments so you can replicate that 'walk over and tap somebody on the shoulder' quality.

One thing that remote work does though is that it forces people to be more intentional in every aspect of their work lives. I look at companies like Gitlab, which documents everything and has these extensive README files for each employee...it's essentially an instruction manual that every employee writes about how they work most effectively and how they like to collaborate. It's a pain in the ass to write, but ultimately, it's this incredibly helpful tool that allows people to really learn how to collaborate with their employees...and it's something that is remote-centric. I really think that flexible work (which, by the way, includes time in the office...or retreats where the whole group gets together) will create new ways to collaborate organically. One thing to remember is we are still dealing with a pandemic that makes organic, in person collaboration a logistical mess. Pandemic flexible work is not quite the same as what we could have if we take the time and design a more flexible future. - Charlie