Fuck the office
Recently, numerous tech companies have come out and let their employees work from home. They were not planning on it, but COVID-19 happened and, well, highly-paid and sought-after software engineers can just go to your competitor if you keep sending them to the office to get sick and your competitor doesn’t.
As time went on, it doesn’t seem like productivity has collapsed because everyone is drinking martinis in their pajamas all day long while working from home. In fact, the productivity is up, workers are happy and many companies have already switched to being “remote-first”. And it’s not like we did not know that!
One thing that blows my mind, however, is the fact that fundamentally, majority of tech companies could’ve been remote-first from the beginning. All the advantages one gets from being remote — no commute, bigger talent pool, no office rental costs, happy workers, productivity increase — could have and should have been picked by the “disruptive” startups and incorporated into their culture from day one.
However, while disrupting their own industries, and creating amazing tech every single day, most founders prefer to stick to the status quo when it comes to the location from where their employees work. Gotta see those butts in the seats. “I used to walk to work both ways uphill, battling tornadoes, snow, and stray dogs, you can do the same!”
Thing is, though, all this “going to work” creates an enormous stress on our society — just think about the traffic on 101. It doesn’t have to be there. People don’t have to die inside the metal boxes trying to get the building where they will share cat memes with others, microwave their fish and wait for their boss to leave so they can get out as well. No one needs to speed to make that 9am meeting when it’s remote. I mean, you can die falling down the stairs to your basement because you were trying to walk downstairs and hold your cereal, your laptop and that vodka bottle for your afternoon martini all in one hand… But seriously, why the fuck do we need to go to the office if we can do this job just as well from home?
Yes, there are challenges to overcome when we work from home and don’t see each other in person — but if we managed to put people in space, cured many horrific diseases and can talk to people all over the world with virtually no delay — can’t we figure out how to do some accounting, programming and other office jobs without sitting next to each other?
