Unfortunately the powers that be have decided that this realization is incompatible with how the economy is set up to work, commuting office space work lunches and dinners etc. and so back to the office we will be forced to go.
The work attire for technical professionals shifted from suits and ties to jeans and t-shirts because the power shifted from Wall Streeters to Silicon Valley hippies as the value added to the economy by computers grew.
This smells like another work-cultural element that could shift easily if several startup-types declare four-day work weeks and find themselves enough runway money to get to revenue-positive.
Maybe it's impossible. But if the folks who champion productivity-through-focus are to be believed, those firms should be X times more productive than five-day firms or crunching firms, the numbers will show it, and the industry will follow.
I spent most of last week in all-day meetings with executives, senior consultants, and engineering managers. Each group dressed distinctively. It’s been 3 years since I attended such meetings in person and I’d forgotten…
Execs - suits with open collar/no tie, dress watches (Tag, Rolex, etc)
Consultants - slacks and jacket. Casual shoes (but not sneakers). Apple Watches.
Engineering - jeans and sneakers. Apple Watches.
Not hard and fast rules, but definitely a pattern.
People are being forced back to the office because the banks and the fed fear an economic crisis. They are demanding mass layoffs to destabilize the worker leverage earned in the pandemic and force them back into spending habits that might bail all these cmbss out. Suits never needed to come back. Office space must.
The bailout in 2007 was paid for with our taxes. The bailout of 2023 is being paid with your time and happiness. Never forget it.
I think there's a lot of value in face to face interaction with coworkers, but it's hard to want to go into a office when the trade off is less time spend with my family.
The commitment to work is still there, but now more and more have reasonable boundaries.
There's not a relationship in the world worth self-subverting for.
I also have many other uses for that time. My kids won’t be small for long, I have many hobbies I like to do, etc
I know it's easier said than done, but anyone who has the means to do it should try.
You need worker solidarity at a large class level.
Out of all the different types of workers, devs have the most power. But we often don't exercise it. It's so tempting to just go along with whatever your work decides is best, because you've started to think of them as "your group." Once you identify as a part of a group, you're subjected to lots of peer pressure -- from yourself, no less.
I hope this becomes widespread just so I can point and laugh at those thrust into poverty because their pensions required that young men hoodwink themselves into overwork to be solvent.