And here is that lengthy response, with a few modifications
I appreciate the work Peter does for his outstanding substack and I want to stress that this is a thoughtful piece and my quibble is based around a minor point. The paragraph that I am compelled to respond to is:
“Count me among those skeptical of the idea that WFH will result in greater productivity overall. Especially with the exaltation of "shadow-quitting" and other re-namings of slacking. Individuals vary in motivation, and I know plenty who are getting more done than ever now that the hours lost to commuting each week are erased. But, we all know that far from everyone out there is self-motivated and ambitious enough to leverage that time productively, and I expect that the young, especially, are susceptible to the siren-song of slack and sloth.”
To someone who has been working from home for the past decade this reads the same as “Count me as skeptical that indoor plumbing will result in greater sanitation” after all walking to the outhouse has done just fine for everyone. The beauty of plumbing is not just that we no longer have to trek to the outhouse (commute) it is that we have an ease of access for almost any scenario and it almost always works. To apply this to the average tech job just imagine the websites you (yes, you!) use, be it for banking, paying insurance, renewing your car’s registration, paying taxes, paying bills, buying a new bike chain, I could go on but let us look at one example: Paying taxes. We all hate doing our taxes but remember when Turbo Tax was introduced and how easy it was to use? All we had to do was install it on our computer via CD-ROM, and where are the CD-ROMs of Turbo Tax 2022? They do not exist, we all know you can now just log onto Turbo Tax’s website and do it all. Not only can you do it all, you can do it -whenever you want-. Let me stress that last point as it applies to all the examples I named, you can pay bills, buy products, check wikipedia, read Peter’s fantastic newsletter, -whenever you want-. How did we get to this world of CD-Rom-less 24/7 convenience? It is schmucks like me keeping the lights on, from home.
Let me peel back some layers on this onion, as I do not want to lose the plot, Peter was doubting the productivity benefits of WFH models and I am basically saying we are already far past that, we are incredibly productive in so much as we can do anything almost at anytime, and for the better. I can already feel the pull of desiring a simpler time when Amazon was not so ubiquitous and social media were not rotting our minds, but we don’t want to go back to a time where hospitals could not rapidly send patient data, where multi-billion dollar companies could not take global bids for contracts in real time online, and so many other behind the scene things consumers (and, based on my current position, taxpayers) never see but keep our market machine lubricated. So getting this back to Work From Home, these advances in tech that I have been extolling require folks to develop, deploy, monitor, and administer software, that software in turns needs to be on hardware that requires its own set of care. In short, to buy something on Amazon or to make sure records are sent securely requires surprisingly diverse teams and for those teams to be able to respond quickly. We do not want to log onto Amazon, find out it is down and wait three hours for the right guy to drive into work, log in, assess the problem, etc. No sir, we want things up and running all the time. I suppose we could keep offices open 24/7 with rotating staff in case of events like this, in that case enjoy your $59.99 shipping on the new bike chain, this is to say there would be tremendous trade offs if we moved away from the WFH model.
Peter does make good points about slacking and work ethic, these things are hard to pin down in our modern tech landscape though. If we have an asset that can restore vital infrastructure in no time flat but is otherwise playing videogames all day while “working” how do we value that? As we move into the future we are looking at a workforce that needs to be more flexible, but also work environments that need to be more flexible, everything will be 24/7 in ten years, maybe sooner, heck, almost everything critical is 24/7 now, and the greatest degree we have in that flexibility is the WFH model.
I want to stress Peter’s article was about a lot more than Working From Home, but his comments, coupled with folks like Malcolm Gladwell, have been on the rise lately and I feel duty bound to respond each and every time. I would want my take away to be that you are already living in the Work From Home world, we are the solution to your forgotten problems, and if we want to go back into the office do not be surprised when those problems arise.
All well said. Thank you Peter. This piece had me thinking of Charles Murray's book, "Coming Apart," as well as how my Dad raised me. There used to be a time when a man (especially men) would be ashamed by idleness, a failure to work hard or to provide for their families.
Although some of today's slackers are at least are willing to forgo having a family, recognizing that the dedication and selflessness required doesn't fit into their responsibility-free life plan.
My late brother-in-law was a gambler, drug abuser and Social Security Disability scam artist who lived off the hard work of my sister-in-law. He spent his days gambling, watching online porn, smoking weed and doing whatever else it is degenerates like him do. The rest of our family despised him of course - especially as his wife toiled away for years to support his bad habits. Twice they declared bankruptcy. He never exhibited any shame. On rare occasions he'd have a poker windfall or a stock tip that paid off - Then he'd show up at a family function with a fat wad of money in a gold clip, acting like Tony Soprano or something. He'd made sure all us poor working stiffs in the family, saw his cash. He had to know that we thought he was a sorry excuse for a man.
One element of this problem of idleness and resistance to hard work (or any work) is a lack of pride and a societal collapse of what it means to be a man. From a young age my Dad instilled in me that I must always be working, doing my share, keeping my word and meeting my commitments. Young men today aren't programmed like that so much, I guess.
I recently saw a friend working part time at Home Depot. He had been a real estate appraiser and salesman, but just wasn't having success. His wife and my wife are close friends. He apparently told his wife that he was embarrassed that I saw him there, in his Home Depot apron. Presumably, he felt that working retail when money was tight for their family represented a failure of some kind on his part - that he fell short of life's expectations or something? Or maybe he assumed I would see it that way? I don't know. I told my wife to please relay to her friend that it made me respect her husband all the more. Not surprisingly, he was quickly promoted to manager and has been tapped to be trained as a regional manager for Home Depot. That's a man. Getting the job done for his family. How can we have forgotten that in so many corners of this society?
Part of the problem of increased slacking is greater awareness of mental health. It pains me to say that, but there it is. Now people can say, "Oh, I can't do much today because my anxiety is too bad right now". I've got a couple coworkers that have pulled that excuse. I want to tell them, "Oh yeah, well I have anxiety too, but you don't see me slacking off and not doing my work".
Or the elusive "work-life balance" excuse. Really frustrating to me when I'm running circles around kids who are half my age.
A few years ago, a legal recruiter I know well told me that many of the kids coming out of law school were far more interested in how much pro-bono work they'd be empowered to do, rather than in doing what the firms wanted of them.
That was pre-Covid, and during strong economic time. But, the "me" attitude remains, and kids who know nothing of life come into the economy with vastly inflated senses of self-importance and an expectation of being doted upon.
Thank you. It's getting pretty depressing out there.
It is. That’s why we support each other and cheer on the good guys!
As always, an amazing assessment of the situation. Thanks, Peter!
Wonderful article, I have typed a lengthy response to one of your points that I will be posting in a group we are mutual members of :D
And here is that lengthy response, with a few modifications
I appreciate the work Peter does for his outstanding substack and I want to stress that this is a thoughtful piece and my quibble is based around a minor point. The paragraph that I am compelled to respond to is:
“Count me among those skeptical of the idea that WFH will result in greater productivity overall. Especially with the exaltation of "shadow-quitting" and other re-namings of slacking. Individuals vary in motivation, and I know plenty who are getting more done than ever now that the hours lost to commuting each week are erased. But, we all know that far from everyone out there is self-motivated and ambitious enough to leverage that time productively, and I expect that the young, especially, are susceptible to the siren-song of slack and sloth.”
To someone who has been working from home for the past decade this reads the same as “Count me as skeptical that indoor plumbing will result in greater sanitation” after all walking to the outhouse has done just fine for everyone. The beauty of plumbing is not just that we no longer have to trek to the outhouse (commute) it is that we have an ease of access for almost any scenario and it almost always works. To apply this to the average tech job just imagine the websites you (yes, you!) use, be it for banking, paying insurance, renewing your car’s registration, paying taxes, paying bills, buying a new bike chain, I could go on but let us look at one example: Paying taxes. We all hate doing our taxes but remember when Turbo Tax was introduced and how easy it was to use? All we had to do was install it on our computer via CD-ROM, and where are the CD-ROMs of Turbo Tax 2022? They do not exist, we all know you can now just log onto Turbo Tax’s website and do it all. Not only can you do it all, you can do it -whenever you want-. Let me stress that last point as it applies to all the examples I named, you can pay bills, buy products, check wikipedia, read Peter’s fantastic newsletter, -whenever you want-. How did we get to this world of CD-Rom-less 24/7 convenience? It is schmucks like me keeping the lights on, from home.
Let me peel back some layers on this onion, as I do not want to lose the plot, Peter was doubting the productivity benefits of WFH models and I am basically saying we are already far past that, we are incredibly productive in so much as we can do anything almost at anytime, and for the better. I can already feel the pull of desiring a simpler time when Amazon was not so ubiquitous and social media were not rotting our minds, but we don’t want to go back to a time where hospitals could not rapidly send patient data, where multi-billion dollar companies could not take global bids for contracts in real time online, and so many other behind the scene things consumers (and, based on my current position, taxpayers) never see but keep our market machine lubricated. So getting this back to Work From Home, these advances in tech that I have been extolling require folks to develop, deploy, monitor, and administer software, that software in turns needs to be on hardware that requires its own set of care. In short, to buy something on Amazon or to make sure records are sent securely requires surprisingly diverse teams and for those teams to be able to respond quickly. We do not want to log onto Amazon, find out it is down and wait three hours for the right guy to drive into work, log in, assess the problem, etc. No sir, we want things up and running all the time. I suppose we could keep offices open 24/7 with rotating staff in case of events like this, in that case enjoy your $59.99 shipping on the new bike chain, this is to say there would be tremendous trade offs if we moved away from the WFH model.
Peter does make good points about slacking and work ethic, these things are hard to pin down in our modern tech landscape though. If we have an asset that can restore vital infrastructure in no time flat but is otherwise playing videogames all day while “working” how do we value that? As we move into the future we are looking at a workforce that needs to be more flexible, but also work environments that need to be more flexible, everything will be 24/7 in ten years, maybe sooner, heck, almost everything critical is 24/7 now, and the greatest degree we have in that flexibility is the WFH model.
I want to stress Peter’s article was about a lot more than Working From Home, but his comments, coupled with folks like Malcolm Gladwell, have been on the rise lately and I feel duty bound to respond each and every time. I would want my take away to be that you are already living in the Work From Home world, we are the solution to your forgotten problems, and if we want to go back into the office do not be surprised when those problems arise.
All well said. Thank you Peter. This piece had me thinking of Charles Murray's book, "Coming Apart," as well as how my Dad raised me. There used to be a time when a man (especially men) would be ashamed by idleness, a failure to work hard or to provide for their families.
Although some of today's slackers are at least are willing to forgo having a family, recognizing that the dedication and selflessness required doesn't fit into their responsibility-free life plan.
My late brother-in-law was a gambler, drug abuser and Social Security Disability scam artist who lived off the hard work of my sister-in-law. He spent his days gambling, watching online porn, smoking weed and doing whatever else it is degenerates like him do. The rest of our family despised him of course - especially as his wife toiled away for years to support his bad habits. Twice they declared bankruptcy. He never exhibited any shame. On rare occasions he'd have a poker windfall or a stock tip that paid off - Then he'd show up at a family function with a fat wad of money in a gold clip, acting like Tony Soprano or something. He'd made sure all us poor working stiffs in the family, saw his cash. He had to know that we thought he was a sorry excuse for a man.
One element of this problem of idleness and resistance to hard work (or any work) is a lack of pride and a societal collapse of what it means to be a man. From a young age my Dad instilled in me that I must always be working, doing my share, keeping my word and meeting my commitments. Young men today aren't programmed like that so much, I guess.
I recently saw a friend working part time at Home Depot. He had been a real estate appraiser and salesman, but just wasn't having success. His wife and my wife are close friends. He apparently told his wife that he was embarrassed that I saw him there, in his Home Depot apron. Presumably, he felt that working retail when money was tight for their family represented a failure of some kind on his part - that he fell short of life's expectations or something? Or maybe he assumed I would see it that way? I don't know. I told my wife to please relay to her friend that it made me respect her husband all the more. Not surprisingly, he was quickly promoted to manager and has been tapped to be trained as a regional manager for Home Depot. That's a man. Getting the job done for his family. How can we have forgotten that in so many corners of this society?
I relate to this so much. My grandparents and dad instilled in me a strong work ethic from a young age. It's not taught anymore it seems
Part of the problem of increased slacking is greater awareness of mental health. It pains me to say that, but there it is. Now people can say, "Oh, I can't do much today because my anxiety is too bad right now". I've got a couple coworkers that have pulled that excuse. I want to tell them, "Oh yeah, well I have anxiety too, but you don't see me slacking off and not doing my work".
Or the elusive "work-life balance" excuse. Really frustrating to me when I'm running circles around kids who are half my age.
Thanks for this Peter
A few years ago, a legal recruiter I know well told me that many of the kids coming out of law school were far more interested in how much pro-bono work they'd be empowered to do, rather than in doing what the firms wanted of them.
That was pre-Covid, and during strong economic time. But, the "me" attitude remains, and kids who know nothing of life come into the economy with vastly inflated senses of self-importance and an expectation of being doted upon.
Such attitudes are very tough to break.
Yes, absolutely. The "participation trophy" aspect you mentioned. Spot on