Good normin' sunshine

An op-ed about returning to offices causes me to return to you.

I took a big break from writing. I’m back now though, did you miss me as I did you? 

My struggle has been to come up with a writing cadence that doesn’t stress me out to the point of dread. As proud as I am of this newsletter, its genesis was absolutely a ‘pandemic project’. As things opened back up, I’d found it increasingly difficult to write each week on top of work and doing all of the things we couldn’t do during the shutdown. Writing became the gas which expanded to fill the empty spaces in my time, leaving me little time for nothing time.

As I write this from the brightly-lit, refrigerated confines of a Brooklyn Public Library amidst an NYC heatwave, I feel optimistic I can find a way to make this work, sans dread. Thanks for sticking with me. Champagne for my real friends, and real pain for my sham friends.

The pandemic’s not over, and others are starting anew (hello, monkeypox). Years after the initial shutdowns, the WFH vs. WFOffice debate rages on. In today’s edition, I prove—anecdotally—I have at least one friend. We’ll also analyze an op-ed from someone whose love for the office somehow surpasses my own for you, the reader.

The other night over dinner, a friend shared a story with me about a co-worker of theirs: He was a seasoned VP of Product Management who for a few months had been struggling to achieve a good working relationship with one of the 32 year old co-founders of a series B tech startup. The co-founder had never managed anyone and had little experience working in product. While on vacation, and without warning or the offer of a performance improvement plan, the co-founder phoned the guy at 1am and fired him. My friend reported to that VP, which meant he now had direct exposure to the hair-trigged co-founder. 

All without warning: 

1. One guy loses his income. 

2. Coworkers lose a colleague.

3. My buddy is forced to work closely with–and pretend to be normal around–the guy he just watched mercilessly shitcan his friend.

Hearing this story coincided with reading a contender for this years’ silliest op-ed by The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan. In “The Lonely Office is Bad for America”, Noonan bemoans the diminished role of the office in white collar work. Of her many arguments in favor of a return to the office, one struck me as particularly boneheaded in light of my earlier dinner conversation:

There will be fewer deep friendships, antagonisms, real and daily relationships. Work will seem without depth, flat as a Zoom screen. Less human. Without offices you’ll lose a place to escape from your home life.

The differences in norms between our working lives and our personal lives are stark. In ordinary life, someone excising someone else out of their lives comes with some sort of warning sign: a confrontation or discussion, annoyance, gradual withdrawal. Not an unforeseen snip. That the decision could impact someone’s ability to earn money further warrants the need for a warning. 

Back to Noonan’s point: Remote work is less human. The events described above—variations of which happen at workplaces all over, all the time—aren’t human at all. Why would anyone want to escape from home life (as Noonan puts it) to a life where the dynamics of human interaction we’ve all been socialized to understand, suddenly fly out the window?

There are reasons why it might be necessary or preferable to work from an office instead of home such as; lack of space, distractions, or lack of equipment. Those aside, home, and most people’s preference for being there, stems from it being a place whose culture is largely cultivated by us for us. You choose your partner, your decor, your pets, and to a certain extent, the nuisances you’re willing to live with. All without wasted hours commuting.

I remember my first day at a large financial services corporation being struck by how colorless and impersonal everything seemed. There were attempts to make things feel less Office Space-y: half-sized cubicle walls (so you could make eye contact with coworkers!), a fancy communal coffee machine, and occasional in-office events based around charitable organizations and corporate partners.

‘Office Lunch’

Six weeks from joining, there was a re-organization. The role I’d signed up for was moved to another team, which meant I’d be moving to a brand new role. Most of my original team (all the people I’d interviewed with to assess the job) was broken up, scattered to other parts of the company. Eight weeks after joining, the person who hired me moved to a new role. Ten months in and I’d had four different managers and two distinctly different jobs, decisions all made without my input. 

Ten months in, I could’ve left the job for something else. But companies know nobody wants to look for another job after they’ve just started one, or for the most part, at all. More importantly, companies just don’t care. Not once did anyone ask for my feedback about the changes, or if there was anything which could be done to advance my career goals amidst the chaos. 

This entire process happened in full view of dozens of people, some of whom had the power to help. But work had dehumanized people into seeing the events as acceptable or normal. It was the office, and the culture it engendered, which prevented people from speaking about the company’s transgressions in the light of day, as they would if they were in their homes. Instead of addressing concerns in the open, we’d have to sneak off to a midday coffee, find a meeting room, or chat over drinks. 

It wasn’t that nobody cared. In fact, when I did share my story in a one-to-one setting and attempted to change my course there, people were sympathetic and shared constructive advice. What both enabled these conversations and yet was missing from them was the office itself. The leery eyes and ears of managers and execs, the subtle fear of being seen doing anything without a computer, and most importantly the singular focus on one’s own output. 

Absent any severe work surveillance technology—and this could be a big given—working from home engenders comfort, safety, and assuredness. Conversations are safe from the office accoutrements which might cause hesitation to meet and create a fear of disclosure. In this composition, work moves to the background, with humanity taking its place in the foreground. Work’s still crucial to the composition, but if it left the picture, you’d still kind of get the gist.

It was in those aforementioned conversations where I gained the closest friends and mentors. Frustration, anger, fear, and sadness were shared, interspersed with glimpses of children, pets, environments – their personal lives.

Once the office was removed from the equation, things became far more human.

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