Uh, wait a minute. What?

Photo by Victor Grabarczyk on Unsplash.

Recently on CNN Business, this intriguing nugget popped up:

“Scott Galloway: Before you start collecting ‘dogs and kids’ get back into the office.”

Uh, wut?

In this interview, Scott Galloway equates proximity (i.e. someone being butt-in-seat at the office) with building relationships and getting promotions. While he acknowledges that a permanent shift has taken place in the landscape of work, he still encourages people- especially youngsters early in their careers- to RTO.

I’m honestly not sure what’s worse here.

“One statistic they mention is very telling and I want to call special attention to it:

‘Younger people (18- to 24-year-olds) are the most reluctant (71%) to return to the workplace full time.’

Please remember that whenever these goofballs tell you that RTO is important for the youngsters. They are just clamoring for in-office interactions! No, they are not. So stop pedaling that BS nonsense.”
-https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2022/06/01/the-great-resistance/

This notion that younger workers are begging for RTO and feeling so cheated by being remote is bunk. Perhaps Galloway’s point is that younger workers need to be in the office, like it or not, in order to climb that corporate ladder. But frankly to me, that smacks of workplace feudalism and it also furthers the stereotype that your career is pointless if you’re not always doggedly vying for the next rung up the ladder. You need to climb that ladder, buy more stuff, keep up with the Joneses and run that rat race like a good little consumer!

Then there is the pièce de résistance: “Before you start collecting dogs and kids, get back into the office.”

What in the actual f**k?

Who is that comment directed at? As a woman, it sounds sexist as hell to me since women in the household often have the biggest child care responsibility.

It also sounds like extreme corporate propaganda as well. Before you prioritize things like, ya know, having a family and a pet or two, get your butt back in that office and be a cog in that machine, dammit!

Also, how does one “collect” dogs and kids? That sounds like people walk down the street and find random dogs and children that they take home like found pennies and dimes or soda cans they want to recycle.

There’s a scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron when Natasha aka Black Widow explains how she was sterilized when she became a spy so that a pregnancy would never interfere with the next mission.

I guess the KGB wanted to be sure she never collected dogs and kids. 😒