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A lot of managers seem to have an unshakeable convention that as soon as workers are no longer cattle-penned into an office that they'll turn into lazy slobs. A

A lot of managers seem to have an unshakeable convention that as soon as workers are no longer cattle-penned into an office that they'll turn into lazy slobs. As if the only thing stopping them from vegging out on the couch, eating ice cream and watching Jerry Springer during the work day is the watchful and benevolent gaze of their adult supervisors from across the open office floor plan. Believe it or not, most professionals are actually still productive outside the panopticon. If anything, substantially more productive because of being in a pleasant environment of their choosing. The only reason I can think why so many refuse to accept this evidence is because a lot of middle managers add little value beyond daycare supervisor. Not all, but a lot.

XorNot 5y ago
There's a disturbing number of managers who's only metric for success seemed to be "well they're in the office on time".
- jjk166 5y ago
  A natural consequence of the peter principle. You get one mediocre manager with questionable methods of evaluating employees, they promote more people who succeed according to those criteria, and in turn evaluate people on the same criteria, while the people who care about productivity and other more meaningful metrics move on to greener pastures.
hinkley 5y ago
> as soon as workers are no longer cattle-penned into an office that they'll turn into lazy slobs That's full on projecting. It's what they'd do. I'm trying to figure out what options I'm going to be interested in to work part time once I have enough money to retire, because I'm always going to be making something. It's why I got into this industry in the first place, instead of getting a job trying to trick other people into doing work.
eddieroger 5y ago
I was remote working before the pandemic, and once it hit and people had to be home, I started hearing this argument. I looked at people leaders and asked them how they dealt with people who weren’t delivering in the office, and why that would no longer work. People who slack off were doing it before at the Starbucks or through walks, Internet browsing, etc, but when they’re home you can’t look over their shoulder while they do it. What you can do is continue to look for them delivering or not, and if they are, who cares where they do it?

XorNot 5y ago

There's a disturbing number of managers who's only metric for success seemed to be "well they're in the office on time".

jjk166 5y ago
A natural consequence of the peter principle. You get one mediocre manager with questionable methods of evaluating employees, they promote more people who succeed according to those criteria, and in turn evaluate people on the same criteria, while the people who care about productivity and other more meaningful metrics move on to greener pastures.

hinkley 5y ago

> as soon as workers are no longer cattle-penned into an office that they'll turn into lazy slobs That's full on projecting. It's what they'd do. I'm trying to figure out what options I'm going to be interested in to work part time once I have enough money to retire, because I'm always going to be making something. It's why I got into this industry in the first place, instead of getting a job trying to trick other people into doing work.

eddieroger 5y ago

I was remote working before the pandemic, and once it hit and people had to be home, I started hearing this argument. I looked at people leaders and asked them how they dealt with people who weren’t delivering in the office, and why that would no longer work. People who slack off were doing it before at the Starbucks or through walks, Internet browsing, etc, but when they’re home you can’t look over their shoulder while they do it. What you can do is continue to look for them delivering or not, and if they are, who cares where they do it?