> But then they readily admit that they are meeting their "production quotas". So what's the problem? The reason we still work in offices is for the psychologi

> But then they readily admit that they are meeting their "production quotas". So what's the problem? The reason we still work in offices is for the psychological effect it has on managers. Managers mostly measure themselves not through objective criteria like whether deadlines are met but through subjective criteria, like how many people they control and how much of their lives they control. The more people 'under' them, the longer hours they are worked, the 'better' the manager feels themselves to be. Whether this results in increased productivity or not is not something that concerns them much. I mean, we have mountains of evidence that has been stacking up for DECADES showing that open floor plan offices reduce productivity, that shorter work weeks increase productivity, that telework increases productivity, but none of these things are adopted. Because they would hurt the feelings of the managers. In private businesses, I expect this will bankrupt most companies in the coming decades. They will be outcompeted by freelancers coordinating online who don't have to pay for the insanely expensive things like an office building (which creates no value, it only wastes it). There are instances of telework done in a screwed up way, of course, like the situation with Yahoo where they flat out did not track even whether employees were meeting deadlines (the only thing which needs to be tracked). But the raw visceral fear that managers experience when they consider the idea that someone might be meeting their deadlines but actually working less than 40 hours? That keeps them up at night. The realization that they can't walk around the cube farm and pretend with some busywork to be contributing and that this might unmask their lack of value to the company? That scares them too. And they get to indulge their personal whims.... until competitors exploit that indulgence in comfort at the sacrifice of efficiency...