Elon Musk recently reached for infamy when he declared that his work force should be in the office at least 40 hours a week – or else. While companies have at least partially repatriated their staff’s back into the office following Covid, a certain demographic has rebelled against the notion. They found work-life balance during the Covid exile and don’t ever want to go back. If everyone could be completely honest, it would be more accurate in many cases to say they found their personal life balance predicated on less intense work and less scrutiny. This isn’t to say that they got more work or less done at home; it may be that they produce the same amount, but it feels better not having anyone looking over their shoulder. Some people get more done working at home. Personally, I’m not opposed to home and hybrid work situations. I’m just opposed to classist entitlement.
To quickly get this into perspective, it might be helpful to make a short list of all the employment sectors for which the majority of its workers have no option to work from home like their more fortunate comrades:
All blue-collar workers such as industrial, construction, and agriculture
Energy and utilities
Medical
Food production and restaurant
Hospitality
Transportation
Vehicle maintenance
Logistics
Retail
Services
More could be added to this list but it’s just a quick reminder of how many don’t have any practical way to work from home, enjoy the dog and warm blankets and coffee while in pajamas while taking work calls. So, what industries get these perks in times of national crisis?
Many white collar
Administrative
Tech
Education
Finance
Media
Government
How far we’ve fallen. One of the things that seems apparent from the list is that the at-home crowd are not representative of the majority of workers. The entire blue-collar workforce cannot sleep in. Go an extra layer in and you can still see instances of poor single mothers working two or three jobs or broke retirees getting up at 5 AM and working at McDonalds to supplement their Social Security. What you also see is that the entire go-to-work crowd serves the conveniences that the stay at-home crowd casually enjoys. This is what makes those that protest-eth much at Elon’s companies and elsewhere so egregious. Somehow, we’ve nurtured little petulant entitled royals, even within economy 3.0. These people are the pansies of the corporate world.
Elon is going to win. You can yell all the ‘green’ hype you want over the energy use for commuting, pretend you’re more productive at home, pretend you’re more connected via those little panes on MS Teams, but at the day, your company must keep up with the industry and your industry has to keep up with the rest of the world. It’s all too easy to assume that you’re the best and the brightest and thus you are afforded the privilege to work from the beach. You may really believe that working from home twenty feet away from your baby also makes you into the best and the brightest. From that station in life, you feel you’re immune from competitive realities. Do yourself a favor and accept whatever is freely offered from your employer, but don’t kid yourself about why.