Hate to be the bearer of bad news but the glorious days of work anywhere and firms too scared to lose you to force you to return to the office may soon be behind us. Apparently KPMG is telling tax people they need to come in three days a week now and PwC announced a return to office not-mandate at the beginning of this month, and some smaller firms are leaning away from remote and toward hybrid environments that may as well be full blown RTO.
Not to say there aren’t still firms totally on board with remote work — there are, and if yours is shoot me an email so we know where to send people when their firm forces a return to office — but it’s not looking good for the future of working in your sweats. Ah well, it was fun while it lasted.
Case in point, Elon Musk went on CNBC yesterday and railed on the absurdity of the “laptop class” working from home when so many other workers, like those on the Tesla factory floor, have to show up in person. “I think that the whole notion of work from home is a bit like the fake Marie Antoinette quote, ’Let them eat cake,”″ he said.
“It’s not just a productivity thing,” said Musk. “I think it’s morally wrong.”
He went on to ask if it is ‘morally right’ that you get to work from home while the people who fix your house have to physically show up at your house to do their job. “That’s messed up,” he said. “People need to get off their moral high horse with the work from home bullshit.”
Now, we can handwave this as one guy with a lot of opinions complaining specifically about software engineers but you best believe there are firm leaders out there who take anything said by a CEO on CNBC as the gospel and will see this as justification for increasingly aggressive return to office policies.
Let the record reflect that we strongly disagree with Mr. Musk’s view.
Seems like an effort for the boss to morally shame his employees back to the office.
Is is morally right for some to work in an office, while others work in a factory or farm? Should I shiver with guilt when I order a product on Amazon knowing someone will have to get in a truck and drive it to my house, maybe in cold weather?
Specialization of labor is a feature of capitalism. Some people spend years at university training themselves to produce a service with their brain, others work manual labor with their brawn. We all play our role in the economy. Nothing wrong with being a member of the laptop class and working from home, if you have the skills.
This guy divorced his wife who married him when he was a nobody just cause he felt like it, and has gone on to give birth to a bunch of bastards. He has absolutely no authority to talk about what is and isnt moral