Time to repeat my topical story.
I worked for a startup that prided itself on being “data driven”. They’d talk about how other startups were doing stupid things because they followed their feelings instead of data.
One day in one of those all hands meetings, the CEO was taking questions. Someone said, “Studies are showing that four day work weeks are more effective on like every metric. Can we look into that?”
The CEO said "No, we’re not doing that ". Didn’t read the linked studies. Didn’t entertain it at all. His mind was made up, and the data was irrelevant.
Because he doesn’t really care about data. He cares about feeling smart and irreverent. He cares about being seen as a cool disruptive startup guy who’s going to grind his way to success.
The dishonesty makes me want to puke.
But you know what also makes me sick? All the sycophantic boot lickers that would gather round and tell him his every idea was great. The people who would work unpaid long hours to “get shit done”. Bunch of fucking wormtongues who would sell out their coworkers for crumbs.
Maybe he was a real person once who really did care about data. But by the time I met him, he was an empty suit
Lol, did we work at the same place?
“Empty suits” it’s the realest statement.
I resigned my position because I couldn’t take it anymore. I told leadership that I refuse to use my skills and talents for those who I do not respect, and they responded by saying that there was a lot of money on the line.
They can fucking keep it. Fucking ghouls.
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That’s exactly it.
When they said that there’s a lot of money on the line they meant for themselves since they were partners.
They offered to share some of it with me in the shape of a very generous 3% contingent salary increase, which would come with strings attached like everything they ever offered me.
I’ve been learning to grow veggies, cook dry beans, and bake bread since money is tight after I resigned, and my partner and I are way happier because I’m not as stressed out from dealing with sociopaths and morons at work all day long.
You just reminded me of a similar incident at a company I worked at. Larger than a startup, but still not huge. Same situation where it was a question at an all hands, the response from the CTO was simply that he had not seen that data and immediately moved on.
Funny thing was, the guy that asked the question wasn’t even adding about a 32 hour work week, he just wanted to option to do 4 10s over 5 8s but they moved on from his question so fast they never gave him a chance to clarify.
They know this. A schismed individual is a compliant employee.
I’ve been studying managers for much longer, and I’ve reached a very clear conclusion: they don’t care.
Managers are playing the game. Rules vary from company to company but are broadly similar.
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Take credit for your subordinates work as if you did it.
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Make sure you have enough scapegoats to cover the fuckups.
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Sleep. Precious beautiful sleep. I can roll out of bed, rip a huge wet fart, log into Teams, pretend to care for 5 minutes, go right back to sleep (and still be able to smell that fart, thankfully), take a long nap, get up to take a big smooth dump, then put in the same 3 hours of actual work I’d do at the office, then play Sokoban all afternoon. All the while reducing resource usage.
This is the UBI/leisure society I was promised as a kid.
If you spend most of your day getting to and from work, then pretending to be busy at the office, you don’t have time to think or be a threat to the billionaires by starting your own competing company/product.
You paint a beautiful, utopian picture of how life could be.
Nope. Never mind I nearly shoved a bundle of iron rods into a co-workers head in a moment of anger. If it were not for that bit of self-control, and pulling back I was mid-swing, well yeah. Very safe.
Does anyone have a link to the actual study? The article doesn’t seem to have it.
I’m having a tough time finding it. I found this citation from an article that appeared to reference the same four year study.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0248008
And to be clear, that study does not have those conclusions:
Participants slept 27 minutes longer (95% CI 9–51), got up 38 minutes later (95% CI 25–50), and did 50 fewer minutes (95% CI -69–-29) of light physical activity during COVID-19 restrictions. Additionally, participants engaged in more cycling but less swimming, team sports and boating or sailing. Participants consumed a lower percentage of energy from protein (-0.8, 95% CI -1.5–-0.1) and a greater percentage of energy from alcohol (0.9, 95% CI 0.2–1.7). There were no changes in weight or wellbeing. Overall, the effects of COVID-19 restrictions on lifestyle were small; however, their impact on health and wellbeing may accumulate over time.
What? You don’t automatically trust “The Editorial Team’s” assertion at the bottom that “This article is based on verified sources and supported by editorial technologies” is valid? I mean they linked to a few other articles - the fact they’re only ones on their own site shouldn’t matter…
🙄 “Trust me, bro!”
I got it from this totally legit article.
I know it’s legit because it has a picture of a Man Working At Home With A Laptop, Wearing A Shirt.
Wearing A Shirt
And nothing else!
Yeah I’m a researcher in the field that studies stuff like this and it’s infuriating that there is no citation for this. I can probably find it but it’s just horrible “journalism” to have no citation to the subject of your article.
I haven’t looked extensively, but for the past ten minutes I’ve not been able to find any article. About 20 different news stories to say the same thing, but none of them actually link a peer reviewed published article.
When you have to conduct a literature review just to find the results of one study there is something deeply wrong
I find it really weird that companies would want to pay the enormous cost of maintaining huge buildings full of people, that don’t actually need to be there, in person. That just seems like a huge waste of money.
Partly because people that control large companies that lease large office buildings have a lot of money to lose if office space were devalued as much as it should be.
Large commercial office spaces are one of the more historically stable investments that banks have money tied up in. The WFH shift of covid was a massive threat to those portfolios and freaked people out
This is the answer. And the C levels renting from these spaces are absolutely invested in the companies that lease the space.
I’ve seen it even more incestuous as well. CEO buys building for kids and lets other C levels get in on it. The company rents a space. Everyone at C level agrees it’s the best space because they can get a sweetheart deal on rent for the company. Company pays for space, money flows back to C Suite and CEO doesn’t have to pay for kids’ lifestyles anymore.
There’s a very nice office building like that down from me, except it’s CEOs cousin or nephew or something. It came out when they started pushing for RTO as soon as they could.
Must be nice getting C level salary, a little extra in your bonus for getting a sweetheart rental deal, and passive income from being a partial owner of the building your company rents from.
Control freaks are afraid of not getting the full attention of their employees - especially the “overemployed” crowd holding down multiple jobs simultaneously while working from home.
The money isn’t the whole point. It’s also about control and emotions. Management wants to feel a way and they’ll pay for it. And/or make you pay for it
Sunk cost fallacy
Working in an office for 8 hours a day costs me an additional hour getting ready and commuting to to work, an hour away from home for lunch, an hour commuting back home and unwinding after work, turning 8 hours of paid labor into 11 hours of doing shit for other people.
Working at home claws back 15 hours a week.
It’s also how I got into a head on collision when some oblivious guy who pulled out in a left turn with oncoming headlights (me) driving straight in the lane. Close to home like most crashes are statistically, had I not been made to drive down to the office building then the rental car and repairs would never have been needed. There are costs everywhere that can be factored into this.
As well as 15-20 more hours that you don’t really work while at the office, and you have to actively disguise as work-related activity. Add that to your prep time, and you’ve clawed back 30+ hours of time.
You could get that second job you need to survive!
Advancing tech was sold as a way to make all our lives better. Here is an instance of tech making our lives better, but instead companies dismiss it because the real purpose of tech for the capital class is control.
I bet they aren’t going to make the AIs come into the office.
Of course. Saving an hour of meaningless commute every day is a huge positive change.
God I’d love it if my commute were only an hour.
It’s 90-minutes each way if traffic cooperates. I put about 30k miles on my car in a given year.
My back was injured so they let me work from home yesterday, and other than the pain it was magical. I also got SOOO much done.
You mean we had a worldwide event that proved to us that an incredible technology that allows us to work remotely could actually be used to work remotely, then our overlords chose to ignore that and now studies are proving what we already knew was true, is true?
Neat.
It is 0850. I start at 0900. I am still in bed.
Working from home is great.
Could’ve just asked.
I love the way any article which says remote work is good still has to use the word, “surprisingly” as often as possible. Nobody is surprised.
So much of this is just slop for the White Collar hogs. You’re not “Working from Home” as a retail employee or a grease monkey or a machinist. They spilled a thousand bytes to tell you what you already know “surprisingly”, but I don’t see word one in there about paid sick leave or vacation time.
It largely depends on if you can afford to have a room dedicated as your home office.
Working/relaxing cannot happen in the same space. Our brains are not wired to do such a dramatic difference in mental activity in the same location. That’s also why bedrooms should be used for sleeping and fucking ONLY. Once you start reading/scrolling in bed, your brain makes that connection, “Oh, I’m in bed, I should doomscroll for the next 3 hours” instead of “Oh, I’m in bed. I should sleep.”
As someone who currently sleeps, works, and relaxes in the same room these absolutes you’re throwing out come off as hilarious. I’ve literally always lived in a room with both my bed and my computer, always worked and gamed from my computer, always slept within a couple of meters of my desk chair and computer.
You absolutely can work, relax, and sleep in the same space.
Does that mean I prefer that? Could I gain some meaningful benefits from having more spaces to dedicate to certain tasks? Absolutely. And the moment we tax the ultra-wealthy out of existence and therefore make housing affordable again, I’ll make those rooms.
But working from home is not reliant on a square ft/m metric that the home must pass, nor how those spaces are organized or themed. I think saying it does only hurts my ability to stay at home, which is better for the environment, the economy, my productivity, and most importantly my life and mental health.
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Our brains are not wired to do such a dramatic difference in mental activity in the same location.
Sounds made up bro.
Did the web site swap in a completely unrelated story about how swimming is good exercise for people over 55?
LOLWTF it also swapped it for me
