No Remote Employment. Onsite Only. Remote During COVID-19 Only. Anticipating Return to Offices.
Didn’t COVID-19 teach us that tech-related jobs, and many other white-collar jobs, can be done remotely without significant problems? Yes, we had some early glitches with meetings and unfamiliar collaboration tools, but those challenges faded quickly.
If an employer isn’t going to be flexible after the pandemic, I’m not that interested in the position anymore. Forget it.
Looking back, I always wanted to work remotely.
When I was an undergraduate, my dream job was working at a major newspaper in California’s Bay Area. I wanted to write about technology, business, and policy.
Newspapers have employed correspondents since the penny tabloids. Reporting from afar, submitting reports via correspondence to the main office.
Correspondents turned to the telegraph for filing reports quickly. During the 1950s, major newspapers would employ transcriptionists to take reports via telephone.
By the 1990s, reporters were in love with the Tandy TRS-80 Model 100, a computer that was smaller than a typewriter. I knew reporters with Atari Portfolios and Epson HX-20 computers, too. These computers featured LCD screens with a only a few lines of text. They were, however, ideal word processors on the go.
News media need reporters where the stories are, not in the newsroom. Yes, you’d return to the office, but you worked out in the field.
My other career path also encouraged remote work, and that was in the 1980s.
As a computer programmer and technical support consultant, I had a terminal in my apartment. I could work anytime I wanted. Projects mattered, not hours clocked.
The novel coronavirus pandemic proved many jobs don’t need to be located in a central office.
Call it telecommuting, work-from-home, work-from-anywhere, remote work, “officing” at home (one of the odder phrases I’ve read), or whatever you like, the reality is that many people managed to work off-site without problems. Many of us even work better without the distractions of an office.
Yes indeed, some of us focus better at home. We don’t find the refrigerator to have magical powers. Wearing comfortable clothes didn’t zap our professional skills.
We listened to music, looked out our windows, and worked.
So why are employers now insisting we return to offices? As I started looking for new opportunities, I noticed how many job listing include, “Remote work is not an option” and “Most employees are now on site.”
Employers should be open to new approaches. More flex time. More WFA options during the week. Consider projects, not hours spent in the office.
Instead, employers are signaling, “We don’t trust you to do good work unless we can see you.”
Dress it up with all the silliness about collegiality and collaboration, but the reality is we’ve proved we’re okay without nine hours on-site.
Offer office time to those extroverts who need it. Have weekly rotations so people can meet up and bond or whatever. But, don’t insist on a return to the old ways. Those weren’t working out so well for many people.
I do prefer meeting people face-to-face versus video chats. Absolutely. I’d love to never use Zoom, Skype, of Meet again. Seeing faces was not helpful in the least. I’d rather use voice-only if I have to communicate in real-time remotely.
My actual preference remains email. Let me read messages, think about them, and then respond. Time to think proved quite valuable while teaching remotely.
I do use Slack and Teams. The problem with instant threaded text messages is that they feel urgent. Whenever Slack chimes, it feels like an emergency, something too urgent to ignore.
Overall, that sense of “you must reply, now!” is my only complaint with remote work. I’ve had to set “do not disturb” times on Slack just so I don’t rush to respond at all hours of the night when a student messages me.
What I’ve loved about higher education is that I teach, hold office hours, and then I can work from home. University teaching has proven to me that I you can have some set times on site and flexibility.
My wife and I want to be able to take our daughters to medical appointments whoever the doctors are available. We want to be able to visit with teachers without juggling a work schedule. We’ll make up the hours, although hours are a stupid way to measure employee value.
If you’re company is posting jobs that declare employees must be in the office, every day, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Frida… I’m not interested. Nope. During interviews, that’ll now be a question I ask.