'Silent Majority' of Americans Don't Want to Work Remotely Full-Time (yahoo.com) 277
"While workers who want to stay at home forever have been especially vocal about their demands, a silent majority of Americans do want to get back to the office, at least for a few days a week..." reports the New York Times. The article, shared by long-time Slashdot reader gollum123, cites the opinions of workers in a variety of industries.
In a national survey of more than 950 workers, conducted in mid-August by Morning Consult on behalf of The New York Times, 31 percent said they would prefer to work from home full time. By comparison, 45 percent said they wanted to be in a workplace or an office full time. The remaining 24 percent said they wanted to split time between work and home... The data intelligence company's findings echoed recent internal surveys by employers like Google and Twitter, as well as outside surveys by firms like Eden Workplace. Among those craving the routines of office life and cubicle chatter: social butterflies, managers, new hires eager to meet colleagues, and people with noisy or crowded homes...
Certainly, some people have thrived in their new remote work lives. They saved time and money, and sometimes increased productivity. The degree to which employees have embraced permanent remote or hybrid work models has been "stunning" to company executives, said Tsedal Neeley, a Harvard Business School professor who has studied remote work for decades. But for others, Professor Neeley said, it has removed needed barriers between work and home life, increased a sense of isolation and led to burnout. "Some people just dislike the screen — their physicality and their proximity to others is a big part of what work looks like," she said.
In the Times' article, here's how one 23-year-old recent college graduate starting at Google described their own dilemma.
"If we don't get a really solid foundation at this company in our first six months, our first year, what foot does that leave us on for the rest of our time at the company?"
Certainly, some people have thrived in their new remote work lives. They saved time and money, and sometimes increased productivity. The degree to which employees have embraced permanent remote or hybrid work models has been "stunning" to company executives, said Tsedal Neeley, a Harvard Business School professor who has studied remote work for decades. But for others, Professor Neeley said, it has removed needed barriers between work and home life, increased a sense of isolation and led to burnout. "Some people just dislike the screen — their physicality and their proximity to others is a big part of what work looks like," she said.
In the Times' article, here's how one 23-year-old recent college graduate starting at Google described their own dilemma.
"If we don't get a really solid foundation at this company in our first six months, our first year, what foot does that leave us on for the rest of our time at the company?"
Umm (Score:2, Insightful)
People rather stay home and goof off when they can? No shit. And what about people who do not want to work at all? How many people would work for other people for free? That is called volunteering. How many volunteer plumbers are there? Do a study on that. Majority of people would not do their job if they were told they would get the same paycheck even if they didn’t work.
Re:Umm (Score:4, Interesting)
Obviously some jobs have to be done onsite. When I was in manufacturing, everyone had to be in the factory. Even sales required real time contact with machines but when I was in sales we had so much dead weight. Sales persons who had to come into the office to file orders. We had four inside sales people when two would have done if we could base them at home and hired responsible people instead of slackers. Because they were on time for work everyday, we pretended they were adequate.
At the end of the day, I think the most vocal opponents to work at home are the unproductive workers who sole ability is to occupy space in an office. The middle managers. The people who push papers and bits, but only the minimum they have to.
What I learned 30 years ago is that innovation is driven by a need for efficiency.. in t.he 1980s there was money to be had and spent. My parents freinds made huge cash doing pointless work. Then the money was turned off, all the unproductive labor was shut off, and the businesses that thrived were those that could leverage the technology. Offices exists because of the technology of the early 20th century, trains, ail, fixed line phones. In the 21st century, everything changes.
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Bingo. Exactly the point I was trying to make in my post about getting out of the house. (evidently someone took it personal...)
I've spent me entire career in the manufacturing environment you describe, and I'm here to remind people that the headline (and most likely the study itself) is total BS. A snow job foisted off by some upper managment trying to justify themselves.
Motorcycles are so much better than pickups (Score:5, Informative)
> Paying someone to sit at a desk, paying for fixed infrastructure, paying for managers, is not necessarily going to create billable hours.
I see you've never worked for a consulting company. :)
But seriously, I've worked from home for most of the last 25 years. I much prefer it. I tell recruiters that for me to commute costs $1,000/mile. That is, if the office is 12 miles from home I'd need another $12,000 to offset that.
Yet, I am ALSO aware of the power of working out a problem over lunch with a colleague. Many times it's been useful to be sitting within 20 feet of a co-worker when collaboration is needed. It was certainly helpful to have the CEO walk by my door every time he went in and out of my office and he or I could ask a quick question or whatever.
I'm also very aware that having a specific dedicated workspace in my give has been very important. I'm also aware how much difference it has made that my family understands I'm working. My wife learned about that when we were dating - I set the precedent early. Some families don't make it so easy. Like my step-daughter's kid. Can't work around that kid.
I have a sedan, and I have a crossover SUV. When I go to Home Depot, I drive the SUV, because it has advantages for carrying lumber and mulch. It's better than the sedan. When I drive across town to meet a co-worker, I drive the sedan. Ot has advantages for that task. There is no one thing that's better for every job.
Someone I work with can't understand why I would want to work from home. When they try that, they're thinking about hom chores at 2PM and answering work emails at 9PM. They much prefer to have home time at home, and work time at the work place, without mixing the two. I can understand that. It's not how *I* operate because I can effectively separate the two withy office being ten feet from my home. I can understand why it could be a problem for though. Especially since they live in California, so their house is probably barely larger than my master bedroom suite.
Different things work better for different tasks. Different things work better for different people. One would think most adults would realize that.
Re:Motorcycles are so much better than pickups (Score:5, Informative)
I've been working from home for nearly a decade. Two jobs ago, I went into the office once every week or two. Mostly it was to remind people that I still existed, but we also usually went and got a burger for lunch.
I do sometimes miss the camaraderie that I had three jobs ago, which was almost entirely in the office. I miss being able to call over the wall to ask a colleague a question and get an immediate response instead of sending a text or IM and waiting between minutes and hours for a response. I miss, as you mentioned, seeing random people, sometimes upper management, in random hallway encounters and stopping to talk to them for a few minutes. That's really hard to do when working from home.
Then again, I also value the time when I can shut off all the communications (with appropriate notice) and just get things done, something that is impossible in an office environment without coming in on off hours.
I've seen people really struggle with the transition. The fridge is right there. No one really bothers you if you pick up the phone on a personal call. The hedge outside needs trimming. Learning to lock that all away (especially the fridge) can be really hard for some people. If going into the office works better for them, I let them have their choice and, on occasion, envy them.
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At the end of the day, I think the most vocal opponents to work at home are the unproductive workers who sole ability is to occupy space in an office
You *think*. You might as well say you *feel* instead because there's no thinking process or logic behind that gross and unscientific generalization.
The type of tech work that can be done remotely is the type involved with IT/sysadmin and tech support or remote development work for in-house applications or to code assignments given to you/us by an actual development team that owns a product's design, architecture, direction and feature requests.
Good luck trying product development remotely. Very few can
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Most people's jobs serve no useful function and are just meant to keep them busy.
There was a recent story about a volunteer plumber (a useful job) in the news, who refused to be paid to help poor people. Too bad he went bankrupt, because you also need money to live and get around, and there were just too many poor people.
Anytime you hear 'Silent Majority' (Score:5, Insightful)
We know damn well where this is coming from too: C-Levels and Wall Street types who don't want to see the value of their commercial real estate plummet, landlords in expensive cites who don't want to see their rents cut in half and a handful of fast food restaurants that benefit from commutes so long you need something to eat in your car.
Basically the worst sort of parasites and blaggards we've got. And we let these jokers run the country and our lives.
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Yeah, what he said. But I said it first and worst. You don't call it a "silent majority" when it actually exists.
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Do you ever wonder how trump was actually voted in?
Now working in the office is not one of those topics, Most people given the choice would prefer to work from home. However most jobs can't be done from home, factory, warehouse, construction, as a start.
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While you make a valid point about silent majorities - Trump voters the first time around being a very succinct example - the media deciding to actively refer to them invalidates a lot of that purported silence.
There ARE people eager to get back in - they're the ones you mention who can't do their job (effectively or at all) that need to be in the office. But this is NOT the bulk of white collar workers. Even the ones who benefit from being in-person (agile developers being a reasonable example IMO) are 1
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Re:Anytime you hear 'Silent Majority' (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah the silent majority that the pollsters didn't hear never elected Trump in 2016.
Here's a fun fact about the 2016 election: Trump's opponent received 2.8 million more votes than Trump did [wikipedia.org]. Trump won the election despite losing the popular vote by over 2% due to the "interesting" way American Presidential elections work, not, because he actually earned a majority (or even a plurality) of the votes cast.
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They exist but they're not the majority (Score:5, Insightful)
There's the social animals but to be blunt everyone I've ever worked with has been among the most useless people I've ever worked with in my life. I usually end up doing their work for them or the work doesn't get done in the whole team gets in trouble. It's much harder for them to get away with that crap and to get by on just being sociable and likable. Still I can see why they would hate work from home because they can't goof off and then when the layoffs come use the fact that everybody kind of vaguely likes them to stay employed. It's not hard to make connections between other teams and a company when you're useful because people want you involved in their projects. But nobody's going to want you on a call just to chat.
Re:They exist but they're not the majority (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think I've worked with nearly as many unproductive people as you have, but I would have to agree that working from home full time really sorts out who is productive and who is not.
My wife was in a regular office job before the pandemic and has been full time at home since, she once asked her boss how the productivity was among the staff and the boss said that basically, the people who were very productive before stayed that way, and the people who were always behind on work were also pretty much in the same boat working from home.
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Despite all the stories of it it's really not that hard to get a kid to leave you alone to work when you need to
Found the single, childless person.
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Probably true, but maybe instead you found the person who doesn't indulge their child's every whim instead.
Children have little in their heads and so they learn quickly what works and what doesn't in their world. If you teach them that being a pill works they're going to keep doing it. And what's more, you have to be consistent.
This of course can be very difficult for people to do when in non-optimal situations. But then, a lot of people are breeding who shouldn't.
I agree (Score:2)
I also would greatly prefer staying at home pretty much all the time, but I know quite a few people that would really rather be back in an office, they like seeing other people in person and like a change of scenery every day (although for me personally, changing from one scene to one other scene every day just ends up feeling like the same scene punctuated by frustrations of commute).
I could actually see a majority of people preferring to go back, though I'm not sure if it's a majority or what... but the p
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Or... Consider the fact that about half of people out there are extroverts. And even among introverts; not all of us are so anti-social that we never want to see our coworkers in person. Add to that the fact that some people don't have a dedicated, quiet, distraction-free, home office to work in productively. And some people like to delineate work time from personal time by working at work and NOT working at home. Occam's Razor would suggest that some percentage over 50%... in other words, the majority
Re:Anytime you hear 'Silent Majority' (Score:5, Insightful)
Or... Consider the fact that about half of people out there are extroverts.
Okay...
And even among introverts; not all of us are so anti-social that we never want to see our coworkers in person.
And even among extroverts, not all of them want to socialize with their coworkers.
Add to that the fact that some people don't have a dedicated, quiet, distraction-free, home office to work in productively.
Irrelevant, most workplaces are not quiet or distraction-free.
And some people like to delineate work time from personal time by working at work and NOT working at home.
And some people have learned to delineate work time from personal time even though they are working at home.
Occam's Razor would suggest that some percentage over 50% [...] would prefer to go into the office at least part of the time
No, it does not. Your speculation and surmise has suggested that to you, but some of us prefer evidence over invention.
no need for conspiracy theories
Sure, baseless speculation will suffice.
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Damn straight. One day future generations will look back and wonder in amazement why people sat in cars or trains or buses, for sometimes hours a day, to do something that can be easily done from the comfort of your home. Wasting time, wasting energy, polluting the atmosphere...for what. To sit in some fucking cubicle all day with no view to the outside world breathing in stale air.
It's kind of like online shopping. In the old days you would get in the car, drive to the store, find a place to park, and hope
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STFU with the "Anybody who disagrees with me must be a shill or a corporate executive" BS.
I one hate working from home and many of my colleagues do as well. Much of my job is spent in front of a whiteboard collaborating on designs with people. That doesn't work efficiently with remote employees. Some people are in the room with me, others are not so they don't contribute proportionally. Online whiteboards aren't the same as live in-person ones. If I write a document up I spend hours doing it then revis
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Then I guess we have a solution here too. Let these time and space wasters congregate in the office and waste each other's time which they are certainly great at while we work without their interruptions and do what we're good at. It's just so win-win...
One Size Does Not Fit All (Score:2)
I call bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
You know who wants everyone back in the office? Micromanaging a-holes who have no idea how to manage and just want people around to make them feel important. I'm pretty sure that 'silent majority' here is actually 'the editor wrote the headline first, then assigned me the article to write'.
Re:I call bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know about "everyone back in the office", but I am mostly happier back in the office.
At home I have a little desk next to the treadmill, prime territory for distractions. At the office, I have my own office on one floor, and a shared office -- usually to myself, because the other two who use it now work mostly from home -- on a different floor. There are fewer distractions and better connectivity to my work data when I'm in the office. The only significant advantage of my home setup is superior monitors. (My home computer is faster than any of my work desktops, but that is seldom an important factor.) And it doesn't hurt that my typical commute is 15 minutes each way.
If your employer respects you and provides you with a decent in-office working environment, that can easily beat working from home.
Re:I call bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
And you are because you have your own office, because you have as well a shared office that you happen to share with no one as your other two colleagues are working from home. And because you are 15 minutes away from work.
Unfortunately, many people who are working from home and don't want to go back to the office don't enjoy the privileges that *you* do because they dont have either an employer that respects them or provides a good working environment, which by the way, is best decided by the employee and not by the employer in a one-size-fits-all manner.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, beats the custom personalised office that each individual employee can define. You just happen to have got your best from your employer, others have managed to recreate it at home, enjoy it and be productive.
Re: I call bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
As a software engineer I prefer things over people. I get plenty of in person socialization from my wife, my children, family and friends. I don't need to see my coworkers faces, but sometimes it's nice.
If employers would agree to make work from home permanent, most can afford home offices in cheaper places. It's a trade-off. Right now, we're in limbo.
I can be more effective from home in my role.
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For my employees I see similar issues as GP. Nobody likes commuting, but they enjoy having a little more structure and community at work. 75% or so in our office want to work remotely 3 days a week and in the office two (there is actually a meaningful percentage included there who will cut back to 50% full time and do the office days plus an hour each of the other three days). The ones that want to be full time in the office I would generally classify as having family life issues of one type or another, or
Re:I call bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, as you say, *you* are mostly happier back at the office.
And you are because you have your own office, because you have as well a shared office that you happen to share with no one as your other two colleagues are working from home. And because you are 15 minutes away from work.
Unfortunately, many people who are working from home and don't want to go back to the office don't enjoy the privileges that *you* do because they dont have either an employer that respects them or provides a good working environment, which by the way, is best decided by the employee and not by the employer in a one-size-fits-all manner.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, beats the custom personalised office that each individual employee can define. You just happen to have got your best from your employer, others have managed to recreate it at home, enjoy it and be productive.
Exactly. I mean, I’m senior enough to rate my own office these days - a top exec at an upper-mid-sized bank - but my entire career, I’ve been complaining about shared workspaces. And even with that office, which I enjoy working from, I have little desire to make the 40-90 minute commute (traffic dependent) each day, particularly now that I have a kid to drop off and pick up from daycare.
I don’t yet know how WFH will play out in the long term at my bank, though our official policy is 2 days per week, plus we give you some money to set up your home office. But I do know that my staff are not in a hurry to return despite favorable pandemic conditions in most of the countries we operate in, and I’m in no hurry to force them to do so. They do great work at home, for the most part.
You feel the same (Score:3)
I understood the comment just fine (Score:2)
GP's post felt more than a little like Old Economy Steve. I don't think it's unreason
Re:I call bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about "everyone back in the office", but I am mostly happier back in the office.
At home I have a little desk next to the treadmill, prime territory for distractions. At the office, I have my own office on one floor, and a shared office -- usually to myself, because the other two who use it now work mostly from home -- on a different floor. There are fewer distractions and better connectivity to my work data when I'm in the office. The only significant advantage of my home setup is superior monitors. (My home computer is faster than any of my work desktops, but that is seldom an important factor.) And it doesn't hurt that my typical commute is 15 minutes each way.
If your employer respects you and provides you with a decent in-office working environment, that can easily beat working from home.
Yes it certainly does help that your average commute is about half of the average American commute. Where I live, the average commute is more like 45 minutes. I don't care how nice the experience is in the office, it isn't worth sitting in traffic for an hour and a half each day. It also helps that you have your own office. I've never heard someone who works in a cubicle prefer to work in the office over working from home.
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Well, sure. Yet some of my coworkers have hour-long commutes. They still choose those over moving closer to the office, or finding new jobs (and there are plenty of those in the greater DC area).
A big part of my comment was meant to highlight that while providing good working space for employees can be expensive, it can also really pay off in terms of the employees recognizing what they have. And the start of my comment was to emphasize that not everybody is in the same situation as me. My employer trea
Re:I call bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
I see three problems that are entirely under your control.
Well, if you don't respect yourself and can't provide yourself with a decent in-home working environment, then I guess that that's true. So much for rugged individualism.
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My computer setup works well for my personal uses. I chose not to move or rearrange my house in a major way just to benefit my employer. I prioritize other uses of my house, because it's a home rather than a workplace.
You, on the other hand, decided to be an asshole without bothering to contemplate that maybe other people don't think the exact same way you do.
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It would literally benefit you as well. At a minimum by giving you back a half hour of your day.
A home is a workplace, just not necessarily for paid work. If you half-ass paying bills, researching information, planning projects, or God forbid, doing grown up things like the paperw
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As I told you, my computer setup works well for my personal uses. It's just annoying and distracting when I try to spend more than about four hours a day on it.
Try being less condescending, and consider that maybe people have considered the factors they specifically mention to you, before you diagnose (over the Internet!) how a stranger should improve their life.
Re: I call bullshit (Score:2)
Re: I call bullshit (Score:2)
Sure, if you get your own private office, everything is great. I work for a AAA game studio. Open plan as far as the eye can see. No privacy, no quiet. I have never worked at a game studio where anyone that needed to concentrate got their own office. The best one was BioWare. 2-4 people per office. Conversations happened in the halls, but at least I could shut the door.
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"Open plan as far as the eye can see. No privacy, no quiet"
That just sounds like hell imo. Though it's been a while since I've interviewed, I actually like to see the workspace and layout -- it says a lot about the culture/values. Open plans make me run for the hills, they are a nightmare for anyone who isn't an extrovert / social butterfly, and as you said, needs a place for quiet and concentrating.
Re: I call bullshit (Score:2)
Well there you go, your office is open. My office is open. Everyone that wants to be in the office is there. Our company is trying all kinds of bribes to encourage people coming in like free meals. Maybe there is a silent majority that thinks everyone going to the office did have some value, but it's clearly not worth it for them to actually drive in or the silent majority would be silently sitting in their cubes, voting with their butts.
Some days I miss the office, the one day I need to drive into the
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You know who wants everyone back in the office? Micromanaging a-holes who have no idea how to manage and just want people around to make them feel important. I'm pretty sure that 'silent majority' here is actually 'the editor wrote the headline first, then assigned me the article to write'.
It's interesting. We're a small (under ten people), personal IT shop. I did WfH for a good six months and I'll admit I missed some aspects of the office. Seeing and hearing my (masked) boss who I've worked for for 25 years was nice. Pausing to occasionally talk about personal stuff as simple as "how are you" or "how is your [insert relative here]" feels very natural when you're in the same room, but awkward when you're on the phone, having made a call to ask something technical or procedural. "Oh, by t
Re: I call bullshit (Score:5, Funny)
You know who wants everyone back in the office?
Some people' spouses.
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Mod parent up sad and funny.
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Don't forget the cats. They've been pissed off pretty much continuously for the last year and a half. The dogs though, straight up LOVE covid.
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Yeah, the Dilbert bosses are reason enough to never want to be in an office again. My last job I had facepalm headaches, trying to regularly argue against utterly stupid decisions with completely non-technical 'decision makers' (who Google something for 5 min to try and sound informed), was enough to make me call it a day. Remote doesn't fix that completely, but it helps.
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Remote Work (Score:5, Insightful)
After the past 11 years of remote work, I can not imagine ever going back into an office. I hate office politics, despise "water cooler" small talk, and frankly I get far more done in an 8-hour day working from home because I don't lose my focus due to some co-worker needing to show me the 'latest funny meme'. Plus, I got nearly two hours a day of my life back by NOT needing to go in to an office. Granted..I took over a spare bedroom, and then built an office space in an unused family room area.
If it works for you, great, but I can't see how it does, unless the 'work from home' area you use s nothing more than a space on the dining room table. In order for it to work correctly, you have to have a space you can call your own, and your family has to respect a closed door. They cannot just 'barge in' when they please.
Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics... (Score:5, Insightful)
An alternative headline could also be that "A Silent Majority of Americans Don't Want To Work In-Office Full Time."
31 percent said they would prefer to work from home full time...
45 percent said they wanted to be in a workplace or an office full time...
24 percent said they wanted to split time between work and home
The split is surprisingly balanced among the three options given.
Re: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics... (Score:3, Informative)
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Because of the way the headline is worded, you can add the two groups together to get a majority.
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Since the pollsters probably only counted people who responded, and those who did only numbered 950, the margin of error should be about +/-6%. So:
25-37% percent said they would prefer to work from home full time...
39-51% percent said they wanted to be in a workplace or an office full time...
18-30% percent said they wanted to split time between work and home
Statistically, there *might* be a majority of workers who "Don't Want to Work Remotely Full Time".
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This seems like an example where ranked-choice voting or a separate poll asking the respondent to pick one or the other would have been insightful. Doing it this way just makes it seem like working in an office full-time is the most popular option when in fact that 24% that wants to split time between work and home may prefer working from home full-time to working in an office full-time if they're forced to choose one or the other.
Of course, the poll may have been deliberately designed this way to get the r
Re: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics... (Score:2)
The results of such a survey are invalid.
Learn some statistics.
Many people do actually like to leave the house. (Score:2)
The comments here are a perfect example of the vocal minority. Not every one works in a cube farm, not every wants to stay home and work. Not every one sits in front of a computer all day. The Dutch invented the office a couple hundred years ago for a reason. Separation of work and home life. If I had to work from home I would kill my neighbors and house mate with in 6 months. I like to go to the job site and see my colleagues. Problem solving and brain storming in person can't be replaced by a video
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Then go to your job site, but why do you have to force me to do the same?
LOL? WUT? (Score:2)
Shill for Corps better.
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I used to have a tiny 20 square meters apartment when I was still working downtown. It was a remnant of the time when I was studying and didn't have a lot of money, and I frankly didn't see a lot of reason to change that even when I could afford a larger apartment.
Some people don't need a lot of space. I'm one of them. I was happy in my 20 square meters. Would've loved to work from home from there, too. Sadly, back then that wasn't really an option yet.
Well, of course! (Score:2)
Apparently the Silent Majority of Americans have families!
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no, the very vocal majority of us at work have families and we'd like the employer to sell off their obviously unnecessary building.
Not the majority at my company (Score:4, Informative)
At my company of about 10k people, we've done a few anonymous surveys to get direct feedback on which option people prefer. Each time, the "I want to primarily work in the office" crowd has been the smallest, the next largest has been "I only want to be remote" and the not-silent majority has been in the "I'd like some flexibility to work both at home and at the office" camp. There are a few dinosaurs in senior leadership that want to see butts in seats, but I don't think that genie is ever going to be put back in the bottle.
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This. Nobody, literally nobody, outside of a few PHBs that we know are useless time and space wasters who fear that it may become obvious that they are when they can't keep working people from doing their job anymore has ever said anything positive about forcing people back to the office, at least at my work.
The cat's out of the bag, PHBs of the world, and you won't get it back in there.
Not likely. (Score:2)
There's LOTS of money involved (Score:2)
There's a massive commercial office sector which is going to take massive losses if firms downsize to the office space they need. So they will be selling this story to all the press people they can get to fall for it.
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It's not my job to prop up a failed or outdated business model.
Not everyone is an introverted geek (Score:2)
There are people out there who are extroverts who enjoy being in the office.
There are people who enjoy banging their head against a brick wall.
Us sane types need to accept there is much madness in the world ;)
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Then go to the office and pat each others on the back. I have no use for either.
You don't want me to force you to stay at home. That's ok. But why do you think it's ok to force me into the office with humans?
People don't think; it's what we've always done (Score:2)
But there's also indirect pressure from office owners; they are facing a meltdown of demand, so will be selling the idea that 'real people' want to get back in the office.
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While I'm aware that a lot of people are dumb enough to believe any shill that comes their way, I guess the majority will notice that it's not what they want and wonder who the hell are those "real people".
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To accept is not the same as to enable. ;)
They enjoy it, but there are also people who claim to enjoy smoking crack.
I can accept that, but I'm not interested in sitting next to them so they can have company while they do it.
Maybe what they need is a VR headset?
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More precisely, 50.7% are introverts and 49.3% are extroverts [positivepsychology.com]. Given those percentages, all to takes is a very small portion of introverts to be okay with going into the office at least one day a week for the statement to be true. For my part, I've been doing 2-3 days per week in the office since we reopened it. And that's been working fine for me. So, even being an introverted geek myself; I'm part of that "silent majority."
The squeaky wheel gets the grease (Score:2)
If the silent majority wants something, they should speak up.
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If you want 2/3 (I'll assume that's what you meant) and there are apparently so many more who love the office anyway, why not do the 2/3 that way? I stay home and the silent majority that loves the office so much can spend their life there.
Bullshit (Score:2)
Count me in among that silent majority mixed mode (Score:2)
My ideal Work week is 1 full day and two half days at the office, three days WFH.
I guess many people would like something similar.
Regards
Commuting is polluting is wrong and bad (Score:2)
The few exceptions can do as they wish, but if we object to AGW, time waste, and overcrowding all our transit systems WFH wins.
If you make tech money you can afford an office. I don't and do.
Convert some less important room (no room is more important than your job) as required. If you have human problems, sort them out. My father had a home office long before the internet and we knew not to disturb him because we had effective parents.
I have done both for many years. (Score:2)
But 55% don't. (Score:3)
I don't believe it for a second (Score:2)
but I do believe this article was written by somebody who wishes that were the case.
I'd like to see the attached / single correlation (Score:2)
Beware of ANY poll not showing the question (Score:2)
Silently controlling the majority is not the same (Score:2)
Initial reaction to the story is that it's distinctly peculiar, even for the mostly paywalled NYT, to talk about the "silent majority" with anecdotal testimony from the google. The most plausible reason for appealing to a "silent majority" is a lack of concrete evidence of a "real majority". Forcing the majority of people to use your company's services is not the same thing. How about "indentured majority"?
Basing my analysis on The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Zuboff. She mostly focuses on Facebook,
We will find out soon enough. (Score:2)
If companies force people back into the office .. see how many quit. If a 'majority' quit then apparently they aren't so silent . However if only a few quit and say 90% return to the office then it is what it is. There will be not 'Silent Majority' people will vote with their feet, one way or the other.
I prefer telework, however my situation is different. I am older, I don't plan on advancing , if I happen to get another promotion that's nice and I'll take it. However if not I'm good, I like gettin
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that's really odd that you used the word force.
no one in the USA is forced by a company to work for them. The job requirements
for the pandemic required changes and they were made, after the pandemic, the
rules again will change.
You are not forced to accept them, you choose the greater benefits and make the
choice accordingly.
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What is obvious to humans, but perhaps not so much to Libertarians, is that forced-ness is a continuum.
At the top, a super-pedant could claim slaves weren't forced to work, they could choose to be beaten to death.
A little below, you aren't forced to pay taxes, you could always choose to go to jail.
Somewhat lower, you're not forced to work, you could choose to condemn you and your family to a life of penury
Even lower, you aren't forced conform to social standards, you could choose to live in utter social iso
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I don't give a fuck about the profile they have on me. You give that profile power, not them.
Knowledge is power. The more somebody knows about you the more power they have over you. This fact has been well known for a very long time. Sun Tzu made this a core tenet of his strategy back in 500 BC: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
Profiling other people in order to gain advantages over them is done all the time, all over the world. Ordinary people study their partners to understand how to interact with them to their advantage, and how to manipu
Not gonna happen. (Score:5, Interesting)
These idiots who think we're going to go back to work in offices are just kidding themselves. Nobody wants to waste their life commuting for hours each day.
The Biden administration was voted in under promises of building a greener future. There is nothing green about forcing everybody to wade through rush hour traffic. We can do better than this.
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This. Exactly.
If you can't walk to work or commute less than 20 minutes. Stay home, or move closer to "the office" if it's so important for you. The era of driving or riding a train 2-3 hours a day just to have a cheaper house is over.
We're going to see the kind of thing that happened in Detroit happen in cities that have no transit. The areas that are too far from the office/factories will simply decay without local services.
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I look forward to your logic happening.
I also look forward to the taxes increasing in suburbia
because most of the cities that are out of major population
centers have similar utility features of the major population
centers. Problem is, they don't have the required tax base
and depend on state + federal subsidized help.
brutal real estate revolt unless small towns learn to have
industry's that can provide more tax revenue.
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Sounds like an "astroturf" campaign to me...
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Young people skew the statistics. They want to live in urban areas, might not need to own a car, and live in smaller homes. Once you have kids you get out of the city and have enough space (and commute) that working from home makes more sense. If you aren’t driving, city/urban life can be nice as well as reasonably green.
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These idiots who think we're going to go back to work in offices are just kidding themselves. Nobody wants to waste their life commuting for hours each day.
The Biden administration was voted in under promises of building a greener future. There is nothing green about forcing everybody to wade through rush hour traffic. We can do better than this.
That people actually vote the OP as insightful is just another sign of slashdot's decline. There are legitimate reasons why people would prefer to work onsite, even when accounting for committing, and to simply call these people idiots, that's not insightful at all.
It sure might be cathartic, but it is puerile as fuck.
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Try a viceo conference.
If that doesn't work and people cease to listen to your ideas when you can't hold them hostage in a meeting room and they're capable of tuning out your droning by simply hitting the mute button, the problem may less be their ability to avoid wasting time but more that your ideas are crap.
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I like to get out of the house. But on my terms. Not because I have to.
Re:get out of the house (Score:4, Interesting)
I like to get out of the house. But on my terms. Not because I have to.
Exactly. Nobody wants to be _forced_ to do something (regardless of whether it's working from home, or working at the office) Employees want to have the choice - maybe the train is delayed today, maybe they are waiting for a package to be delivered. Alternatively, maybe their partner or kid is working from home today, and they would prefer to be at the office.
Any survey that uses absolute terms like "work from home full time" will see respondents say they don't want it. It would be the same if the survey said "Work at the office full time."
Ideally, there would be an office there when we need it, but no obligation to go there on any given day. Whether or not this nirvana materializes is another matter.
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They'll probably relax a lot when the holidays are over and they can safely dump them onto the daycare centers we tend to euphemistically call schools.
Re: Did they even ask about childcare?? (Score:2)