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No one wants to point out the super obvious elephant in the room: remote work works worse and worse over time because more and more people realise they can scam

No one wants to point out the super obvious elephant in the room: remote work works worse and worse over time because more and more people realise they can scam their employers. Too many people work for 3-4 full time employers at once (and many solved all their money issues and even saved for retirement in these short 3 years, this way, without changing the nature of work they do). There are only two reasons why employees may like remote work. "You can slack off easier because the boss isn't looking", and "you can make 3-4x more money". These go hand in hand because as productivity falls so do the expectations and one who doesn't want to make more by scamming, can simply slack off more and get away with it easily.

betreyal 3y ago
[flagged]
ggm 3y ago
at scale, all endevours between people invite this kind of risk. Shops routinely have to deal with 1-5% lossage of stock for reasons that might be customers or staff, or both. Some employers wind up doing a-social things like videoing staff and intrusive body searches (Amazon, South African gold mines) and others reward their staff so the motivation to petty fraud is less than the benefits of being well paid. You write as if this "elephant" is "it" for all time, for all remote workers. It's not, because there has been (and will continue to be) a cohort of remote workers from before Covid, who realise there is a cost/benefit here, and who do not commit fraud, they just work from home at the intensity they work and their employer is just fine with that Sure, sending everyone home, and then wanting them to come back highlighted that people who aren't self selected up front to WFH include a cohort who cheat. So what? They probably cheat in other ways at their desk. SOME remote work works worse and worse over time because SOME people realise they can scam their employers. But, what % it is, against overall work-life rebalancing, value for money, increased work time because of not spending time commuting, reduction in other costs (ok, dealing with sunk cost in the office is an issue) .. It's nothing like as elephant-in-the-room as you think it is. No, one of the elephants in the room is that a fucktonne of Management KPI are built around offices, and the people who demand return to office want to return to achieving those KPI. And, a fucktonne of corporate future profit and tax offset is predicated on property retaining its value and those office blocks are dropping like stones in a deep pond: Thats why Google and Salesforce both unloaded huge property investments (rental or lease) recently. Managers and CEOs and Boards want return to office because they have "REI-ified" beliefs around the nature of work and the value of office work, and they have set deliverables which will make them personally wealthy by achieving this. Its not dissimmilar to the mass firings: there was no across the board need to shed 10% of staff. It was a KPI which benefited a cohort of managers and CEOs. Thats all (in my opinion) Workers and Bosses are always in tension. The factory model was designed to increase production at the expense of craft work done in the home by weavers and spinners. Was the "product" better? For some things yes, but for others no: it was about profit extraction, Taylorism, and hourly rates.
dv_dt 3y ago
This is simply assigning remote work an outcome that happens all the time in office, and I think more often because in person there are fewer discussions about explicit deliverables or milestones.
- anovikov 3y ago
  Well, in the office most people can slack off, but can't work for two employers at once, or more - that will surface way too quickly. So an additional incentive is added.
  - dv_dt 3y ago
    If management cannot tell the difference between the output of one person doing the job, that's the fault of remote work? I disagree with that assertion. If the outputs are all that are asked of the job are being met, why do they care? If it's about committed energy and time spent working, why waste the time and energy of of all workers with a required commute to prevent a vanishingly small number of cases of double-booking. It just seems like banning remote work with a bizarre justification for bad management.
porcoda 3y ago
Having worked over 25 years in offices, I can assure you: being in an office was never a means to prevent people slacking off to extreme degrees. We had plenty of dead weight that contributed nothing even when we were all sitting in our silly little cubes or open office plan dystopia. I also think you vastly over estimate the number of people who are willing to commit fraud to make more money.

betreyal 3y ago

[flagged]

ggm 3y ago

at scale, all endevours between people invite this kind of risk. Shops routinely have to deal with 1-5% lossage of stock for reasons that might be customers or staff, or both. Some employers wind up doing a-social things like videoing staff and intrusive body searches (Amazon, South African gold mines) and others reward their staff so the motivation to petty fraud is less than the benefits of being well paid. You write as if this "elephant" is "it" for all time, for all remote workers. It's not, because there has been (and will continue to be) a cohort of remote workers from before Covid, who realise there is a cost/benefit here, and who do not commit fraud, they just work from home at the intensity they work and their employer is just fine with that Sure, sending everyone home, and then wanting them to come back highlighted that people who aren't self selected up front to WFH include a cohort who cheat. So what? They probably cheat in other ways at their desk. SOME remote work works worse and worse over time because SOME people realise they can scam their employers. But, what % it is, against overall work-life rebalancing, value for money, increased work time because of not spending time commuting, reduction in other costs (ok, dealing with sunk cost in the office is an issue) .. It's nothing like as elephant-in-the-room as you think it is. No, one of the elephants in the room is that a fucktonne of Management KPI are built around offices, and the people who demand return to office want to return to achieving those KPI. And, a fucktonne of corporate future profit and tax offset is predicated on property retaining its value and those office blocks are dropping like stones in a deep pond: Thats why Google and Salesforce both unloaded huge property investments (rental or lease) recently. Managers and CEOs and Boards want return to office because they have "REI-ified" beliefs around the nature of work and the value of office work, and they have set deliverables which will make them personally wealthy by achieving this. Its not dissimmilar to the mass firings: there was no across the board need to shed 10% of staff. It was a KPI which benefited a cohort of managers and CEOs. Thats all (in my opinion) Workers and Bosses are always in tension. The factory model was designed to increase production at the expense of craft work done in the home by weavers and spinners. Was the "product" better? For some things yes, but for others no: it was about profit extraction, Taylorism, and hourly rates.

dv_dt 3y ago

This is simply assigning remote work an outcome that happens all the time in office, and I think more often because in person there are fewer discussions about explicit deliverables or milestones.

anovikov 3y ago
Well, in the office most people can slack off, but can't work for two employers at once, or more - that will surface way too quickly. So an additional incentive is added.
- dv_dt 3y ago
  If management cannot tell the difference between the output of one person doing the job, that's the fault of remote work? I disagree with that assertion. If the outputs are all that are asked of the job are being met, why do they care? If it's about committed energy and time spent working, why waste the time and energy of of all workers with a required commute to prevent a vanishingly small number of cases of double-booking. It just seems like banning remote work with a bizarre justification for bad management.

porcoda 3y ago

Having worked over 25 years in offices, I can assure you: being in an office was never a means to prevent people slacking off to extreme degrees. We had plenty of dead weight that contributed nothing even when we were all sitting in our silly little cubes or open office plan dystopia. I also think you vastly over estimate the number of people who are willing to commit fraud to make more money.