Its amazing but only because the alternative is so horrible, we really, really appreciate working from home.

I think its also having a strong effect om how we are as people. Office culture changes people, into scared little humans who self censor themselves to fit in, and use language they think makes them sound professional.

Its a waste of life. We are originals. We are unique personalities. Not clones, not resources to exploit.

If humanity survives capitalism, and its a big if, we will look back at this and wonder what we were thinking.

Managers are playing the game. Rules vary from company to company but are broadly similar.

• Take credit for your subordinates work as if you did it.

• Make sure you have enough scapegoats to cover the fuckups.

I'm having a tough time finding it. I found this citation from an article that appeared to reference the same four year study.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0248008

What? You don't automatically trust "The Editorial Team's" assertion at the bottom that "This article is based on verified sources and supported by editorial technologies" is valid? I mean they linked to a few other articles - the fact they're only ones on their own site shouldn't matter...

🙄 "Trust me, bro!"

Yeah I'm a researcher in the field that studies stuff like this and it's infuriating that there is no citation for this. I can probably find it but it's just horrible "journalism" to have no citation to the subject of your article.

oddly, the link goes to the right article, then the site redirects to the swimming article,

here it is on another site

https://evidencenetwork.ca/remote-work-increases-happiness-4-year-study-findings/

edit: it's someone elses take, looking for original

edit2: OK, the original article is from 2020, there are updartes in 2024.

This page does a better job covering the the couple of gallup polls and some of the criteria listed

https://www.greatplacetowork.com/resources/blog/remote-work-productivity-study-finds-surprising-reality-2-year-study

though the site is sus to me :)

Partly because people that control large companies that lease large office buildings have a lot of money to lose if office space were devalued as much as it should be.

Large commercial office spaces are one of the more historically stable investments that banks have money tied up in. The WFH shift of covid was a massive threat to those portfolios and freaked people out

Control freaks are afraid of not getting the full attention of their employees - especially the "overemployed" crowd holding down multiple jobs simultaneously while working from home.

Sunk cost fallacy

The money isn't the whole point. It's also about control and emotions. Management wants to feel a way and they'll pay for it. And/or make you pay for it

If you're working at home on weekends, it doesn't sound like you're leaving work at work.

Isn't diversity neat? My ADHD pulls a gun on me if I get within 30 meters of an office.

I have WfH for about twenty five years now and I will say the same thing I always say when this type of comment pops up, if people do not want to talk to you for some reason they will not respond as its a lot easier to hide on email/IM than an office situation. If you finding that people are hiding from you, then that's as much a you problem as anything else for not directly addressing it.

I actually find it considerably easier to get hold of someone via IM than any other method short of direct dialing them as I can reach them in meetings or away from their desk or even in another country entirely, its only if they are intentionally ignoring you it does not work. If the person is presenting in a meeting or otherwise legitimately incommunicado then they aren't going to respond F2F or IM anyway.

Not measuring output volume or quality consistently is a widespread problem for businesses, regardless of location of the employee. Consistent and accurate measurement is the only way to be sure you are getting the results you are expecting, for coding that means code reviews not commit counts, 360 feedback, and so on. If you are feeding back, and someones ignoring that, guess what, its also a you problem for not building in consequences and follow ups. It also applies just as much in an office situation as it does remote.

The article does have this caveat.

"Context still matters. Job type, home setting, and leadership quality vary. Yet the direction remains positive. Even with modest differences by role, the health and satisfaction curves point upward. Inside those curves, remote work behaves as a flexible option that organizations can calibrate rather than a rigid rule."

Though I will say your argument is still centered around being productive and effective for the company (make money for the company), the article specifically centers around an individual's well-being (sleep, family life etc.). So not the same metrics.

Other articles and research I've seen that did center on productivity did conclude that yes, it depends.

How about the workers' wellbeing? Is that ever considered?

Out of curiosity, can you describe, with a bit more detail, the kind of work that was repetitive and became worse?

In the field of organizational psychology (which research like this is typically done by), the phrase "it depends" is used so often among scientists that it's a running gag at this point

Like they GAF. They've got the money & politicians in their pockets, so inconvenient truths are easily trodden over.