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THE WORK-FROM-HOME FUTURE IS DESTROYING BOSSES' BRAINS

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THE WORK-FROM-HOME FUTURE IS DESTROYING BOSSES' BRAINS

Ed Zitron
Jun 9, 2021
93
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Yesterday, Silicon Valley Analyst Jeremiah Owyang vaguely reported that
executives are scared of their employees “working part-time (but paid full
salary)” and “even working on side hustle startups, while on a full-time
salary,” a truly terrifying prospect that has chilled me to the bone.

Jeremiah Owyang @jowyang
Why do executives want employees back to the office? One reason: I've heard of
some employees working part-time (but paid full time salary), or even working on
side hustle startups, while on a full-time salary.
9:54 PM ∙ Jun 8, 2021

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

436Likes65Retweets

This may seem like just one fellow who has stepped on a giant rake, but Jeremiah
has unfortunately burrowed into a core issue that’s going to come up as a result
of the remote work being fairly mandatory during the pandemic. There is now a
fight for the very soul of hiring - the very reason that we hire people, and
what our expectations are versus what we’ve told them they are.

Let’s break apart this anxiety - executives have hired people full-time, and in
this case I assume that the work that they’re required to do is done in
part-time hours. These people are either “working part-time hours” or “doing
side hustle startups,” and bosses want them back in the office, ostensibly to
put an end to this practice. As I hinted at in Monday’s Substack, “remote work
inherently messes with the power dynamic of the worker and the boss, and it is
going to make many, many brains malfunction.” The reason isn’t just about
control, but the very fabric of how employment or contract work is designed, and
the way in which we have been conditioned to view labor.

The issue at its core is that bosses hiring people “full-time” often do so, as
dramatic as it sounds, to capture their soul. Within the hours of 9 to 5 (but
let’s be real, it’s more than that), they expect to own the time, attention and
energy of that person. The nebulous badge of “full-time” brings with it a level
of ownership of the person - they cannot go elsewhere, what they create is
yours, on some level they are yours, because you have deigned them worthy of a
salary and benefits and whatever other crumbs you pass their way. In return, you
expect them to dedicate their existence to you - on levels of dramatic ranging
from “I need to see you in the office” to “I want to make sure I can text you at
10PM and badger you about some shit that bothers me.”

The drumbeat around hybrid work is not remotely about spontaneity or
collaboration, deep down. Sure, there’s a vague element of “it’d be nice to see
everyone,” but I think at the core there’s just an expectation that people have
done this for years, and thus it’s the way things work. Societal memes spread
around the idea of hallway conversations or chance encounters that somehow
inform the future of the company, with very little regard for their actual
existence. And, if I may be a little dark, I think that there is an executive
function that asks “what am I getting for this money?” and doesn’t want to admit
that part of that thing they’re getting is a person’s physical presence as well
as the time, so that they may feel that they own them.

Now, of course, everyone has had a boss that seemingly breaks all of these
rules. They’re off on vacations all the time, or they’re taking meetings that
take 3 hours and they come back drunk, or they’re simply working from home
“because they had late calls.” And, of course, Silicon Valley in particular
lionizes founders with multiple projects and investments, while spitting on
workers who may do the same.

Hybrid work is not something that can be done simply by spending some days at
home and some days at work. There must be a value proposition for going back to
the office.

Sadly, this isn’t what most bosses think of when they perceive an office. Much
like many of the structures that we’ve built around work, the office is assumed
to be good for something, but really is a mechanism for capturing and
restraining the laborer.

Just like middle managers.


THE MIDDLE MANAGER ISSUE


My father’s most specific advice on being a dad is that you learn two things
from your parents - how to be a parent, and how not to be a parent. It’s also
great advice when it comes to being a boss - you learn through both terrible and
great bosses how to motivate people and how to get them to do stuff. The problem
is that many people don’t actually learn a single thing from a bad boss,
thinking that the reason that they became the boss was because they commoditized
labor and treated people like shit, and that was part of the reward.

The masters of the current working society have told a giant lie around
corporate advancement, specifically that people “don’t just want money, they
want to feel part of something.” While this statement is technically true, a lot
of companies read the sentence with either a bolded or entirely-removed “just,”
parsing the sentence as a means to not pay people more, but to reward them with
new titles and the ability to be mini-bosses in a larger empire, regardless of
whether they’re actually good at or capable of managing people as anything other
than a feudal lord.

The other part of this issue is that promotions and career advancement have been
tied, on some level, to years of service, rewarding people who are good at not
getting fired rather than good at their jobs. We have tied the vague idea of
management so tightly to career advancement that we simply make people managers
as a rite of passage - we think that because they’re good at their job they can
either make people good at their jobs or watch people be good at their jobs and
make them do them more. This is a dysfunctional view of work on three levels:

 1. Management is not being good the same thing as being at your job.

 2. We incentivize management as a control mechanism rather than a motivational
    and organizational mechanism in an organization, meaning that most middle
    managers are glorified cops.

 3. Middle managers are often graded on the work of their team, which means that
    they are actively incentivized to steal work and do little of their own.

Now, someone insufferable will read this and say “NOT ALL MIDDLE MANAGERS,” and
let me tell you, if you’re thinking that, you are probably part of the problem.
The reward system on the corporate ladder has become inextricably attached to a
kind of professional abuse - that the only way to rise within a company is to be
able to “take control” of a department and its people. This incentivizes those
who are able to claim other people’s work and “make them” do things, while also
actively deincentivizing being good at your job - middle managers are rewarded
when they can take work from those who are good at their work but aren’t paid a
manager’s salary.

Why? Because there are many CEOs (and VPs, and so on) that have got there with
the joyous idea that the reason you become a CEO is to get paid for other
people’s labor, which also means you don’t have to work. That’s also because the
modern corporate interpretation of capitalism is inherently patriarchal - borne
from the prospect that we all look up to someone, and we must learn from them
and grow from them, until we eventually go and make our own children
(companies). But until then, we’re under their “care” but also the rule of their
law.

This is a misinterpretation of what capitalism is (for better or for worse, the
most efficient extraction of money from labor - which also means getting the
most from workers), and what attracts people to management roles
(misinterpreting control as an efficient way of extracting value). The reason
that there are so many bad managers - middle and otherwise - is that lots of
people see management as delegation of work that you take credit for, mostly
because that’s how many corporations function on a grand scheme. It’s framed
palatably as contributing a small piece to a larger whole, but middle
management’s truly noxious existence proves that people absolutely love it. The
attraction to these positions isn’t what a true manager is - fostering talent,
making the company better, getting more done, winning together - it’s about
control and abuse.

These people are so prevalent because most companies aren’t okay with the
obvious way to make people who are good at their jobs happy - paying them more
money. Management titles are bargaining chips that work with people because they
sound good to their friends and on LinkedIn, but those who are excited about
them are usually not excited about the prospect of managing.

I rarely have run into a manager that has actually kept doing the job. In my
profession, middle managers usually worked the longest hours but contributed the
least, but were somehow graded based on my performance, as if their existence
was the lightning rod.

Another issue is that we as a professional society continually reward useless
brainstorming and “ideation.” Ideation without creation is wasted oxygen.


THE REMOTE BREAKDOWN


The reason that remote work is so threatening to a lot of corporate thinkers is
that it largely devalues the middle management layer that corporate society is
built on. When you’re in person, a middle manager can walk the floors, “keep an
eye on people” and, in meetings, “speak for the group.” While this can happen
over Zoom and Slack, it becomes significantly more apparent who actually did the
work, because you can digitally evaluate where the work is coming from.

Zoom also makes it far more difficult to justify useless brainstorming
activities - if you’re all sat on a call, still at your computer and capable of
doing other things while you’re doing so, it’s so obvious how much time is
wasted. You could (and probably do!) do work during these calls, and the more
work you find yourself doing during the call, the more obvious the time is
wasted. And, when distanced from the power dynamics of where people are sat in
an office - the private office for the manager versus cubicle for the worker -
you are no longer bound by the constructs that framed how you’d perceive someone
and their work.

Also, while reducing people to windows or computer screens can be bad, it also
makes evaluating people’s outputs easier. While there are always soft
contributions - people that inspire others with ideas, people that do truly help
mentor others - it becomes far less palatable to have someone you’re paying well
who’s position appears to be “tells other people what to do.” Manager
contributions are vastly overemphasized in person - they walk from meeting to
meeting in full consternation, they go to people’s desks, it’s all very dramatic
and visual and thus justifies the expense.

And these people are fuckin’ cops, man! Many managers take the idea that a
manager is meant to evaluate and foster talent and read it as policing their
every action, assuming that their manager status makes them perfect. They police
your attendance, your output, if you “look productive,” all things that are so
much less tangible in a remote world.

This cop attitude naturally ends at a point where you are expected to “give them
your respect,” and the classic manager failure dance when they say “I have 15
years of experience.” The moment anyone tells me that I usually stop listening.

I also add that a lot of these middle management statements I’m making can be
applied to bosses in general, which is part of the reason that many of these
boss types are absolutely shitting the bed around the prospect of people staying
remote. Generally, people are attracted to and inspired by leaders that lead by
doing stuff - by doing work, by putting themselves on the line, by compensating
people for their work and, ideally, providing fulfilling and meaningful work for
them to do.

But bosses have been educated to believe that the reason that people are loyal
to them is because people look up to you based on your experience and your past
triumphs, as well as the fact that you are “the boss.” It is a fundamentally
pathetic stance, but one that many bosses take. Yes, there is a level of “the
company works this way and your job is X expectation for Y compensation,” but it
often goes so much further - when they expect “more work” or “better
performance” without giving you the means to do so, or extra pay for extra
hours, or without dealing with, say, middle management goons who bark orders
without education. At its purest, it is hiring people for vanity’s sake - you’re
not hiring because you want to make more money, you’re hiring because you want
to do less and own people.

This becomes so much less satisfying without an office. Without an office
environment, the dysfunctions of an organization are that much more obvious.
Those who are in the office all the time seemed busy, but become so obviously
useless without that physical presence that they over-act by sending tons of
Slack messages, which makes it seem like they have way too much time on their
hands. This goes all the way to the top - if your boss is a lazy, laissez-faire
asshole who only barks orders, it’s far more obvious without seeing them in the
office, hearing them talk a big game about how they’re constantly in meetings,
or, of course, simply seeing them on the phone all the time.

Basketball coach John Wooden once said that “the true test of a man's character
is what he does when no one is watching,” and that’s the problem here -
corporations have advanced and lionized people based on what they do when
everybody’s watching. Remote work mostly destroys the ability to appear busy,
other than having a full calendar. Being on lots of calls does not actually have
an output if you’re just on them to waffle on about some bullshit, and bosses no
longer have the mechanism to appear busy other than doing work.

The annihilation of the office structure in a remote future is so scary because
it upends the ability to have a career based totally on being a manager for 20
years. This may seem like a stupid thing to frame as dangerous to the foundation
of executive management, but so many people have gone so far in their careers
through the nebulousness of “management” that has basically no value in a remote
setting.


FAILURE BY CONTROL


The entire value system that hiring has been based on is at risk due to remote
work.

sHAYNE mATHIS @MetalShayne2000
*Taps the sign*

Jeremiah Owyang @jowyang
Why do executives want employees back to the office? One reason: I've heard of
some employees working part-time (but paid full time salary), or even working on
side hustle startups, while on a full-time salary.
12:51 AM ∙ Jun 9, 2021

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

84Likes9Retweets

Bosses love the idea that they capture your time and part of your soul with work
- you are theirs, “full-time.” Their intention was not just to hire you for a
task within an organization - it was to trap you and your production in the
office, and on some level divorce you from your labor while extracting it, in
exchange for the “protection” of full-time work that rarely if ever defends you
from layoffs or firings, especially in at-will employment states. That’s why
Shayne’s statement is so powerful - it is not about work, it is about ownership.

In reality, a smart business should be grateful that there’s someone that can
get shit done in less than 8 hours, it means that they can do more for you in
less time, and if they’re doing non-competitive side work, maybe you should pay
them more so they don’t go and do that full-time. Or, like, be glad that they’re
choosing to use their time to work for you in a way that’s good.

The trickle-down issues of the reasoning behind hiring - the “dance, puppets,
dance” mentality of many bosses - is damaged so much by remote work because it
relies so much on you being on the boss’ territory. The rise of middle
management culture is contrary to the whole idea of “lean management” that
companies have lied about believing in - it’s simply a way of the executive
giving people the chance to taste and enjoy having power over people’s time and
money. Exercising control over people has become such a prevalent form of
compensation that many organizations simply have no idea how to advance people’s
careers.

Remote work ultimately disproves the notion that anyone can be a manager.
Management is tough, managing people is tough, motivating people is tough. It is
really difficult to get the best out of someone, to find what they’re good at
within an organization and then give them the means and motivation to thrive. It
is also equally tough to deal with how some people within an organization have a
ceiling - they will never be better than they are, and giving them a managerial
title (because they’re not worth more money) is an actively abusive thing to do.

When you take away the dysfunctional executive’s territory (the required time in
the office), you remove their ability to “have fun” with the power given to
them. It’s less satisfying to call people into your office when you don’t have
one. It’s hard to make a manager feel special when they can’t call someone into
a conference room for all to see and berate them - it’d be weird to invite
people into a Zoom room to watch.

You can’t monopolize someone’s time when you can’t trap them and act as a hall
monitor over their every action, and so they want you back in the office. They
deep down know you’re not working all 8 hours of the day at your work station,
but they know that you know that they could walk behind you at any time and see
that you’re doing something else. They don’t want to make the office a place
where things actually get done, because that’s not the point to them - the point
is that they own you.

And it’s hard to keep control of something that’s out of arm’s reach.




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No hustle
Jun 11, 2021

Many companies have made questionnaires about how many want to return to the
office, and the vast majority says they want to continue remote work. Many also
stated point blank that not being able to work remote will affect their future
employment status at the company.

I noticed a peculiar detail last week: The people who want to work remote are
fine with other people's decision to either come into the office or work remote,
but for some reason, people who (claim to) want to come into the office aren't
satisfied until everyone else comes in too. It's just selfish.

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Michael O. Church
Jun 12, 2021

This is spot-on. The whole system is without value or redeeming characteristics;
its only purposes are rent-seeking and class dominance. The purpose of the
corporate system is to make a hereditary oligarchy appear to be a meritocracy;
toward that end, it will always favor control over performance.

This isn't strictly a middle management problem, of course. The highest-up
executives want us to believe that it's the case-- if so, it can be solved by
firing a bunch of middle managers and getting new ones by acquiring some
piece-of-shit startup, a move which strengthens the executives' positions
because people are now divided. It goes all the way to the top. It's not
inefficient by accident; it's designed to be so, because wasting peoples' time
is a way to humiliate them.

Corporate capitalism must be destroyed at any cost.

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