| > the only people that want to go back into the office are are busy bodies and control freaks Or, y’know, people whose whole job consists of “chitty chat”, such that remote is making them less efficient at doing what you pay them to do. The type of people that, when given the choice between individual offices and a private group workspace room shared with their team, choose the shared workspace, because their work actually occurs entirely on the shared table while talking to their colleagues, not at their own desks. Basically, think: people who brainstorm all day; people whose productive output is either ideas or decisions. Academic researchers are like this—90% of their work is figuring out what to try or how to try it, and this process is accelerated by bouncing ideas off of others; and, in the end, actually attempting something often requires many hands to set up the required apparatus. Marketers are like this, in pretty much the same way: ideas percolate, reach consensus, and then applying the chosen ideas requires horizontally-scaled grunt-work. Executives are like this. What is an executive but someone who sits in meetings all day? Managers may interface with people actually doing work, but executives only interface with other executives. They may as well all be co-located, so they can continue to bump into each-other and argue/negotiate in smaller groups “after work”—like a legislative body when it’s in session. |