Remote possibility

Power typically accrues power

Remote work seems to be the stickiest change coming out of the pandemic. Some see it as a boon for workers. It adds flexibility, opens up possibilities for caregivers and appears to be what people want, particularly young people. Prominent CEOs like Amazon’s Andy Jassy and JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon say they want their people back in the office, claiming it leads to more creativity and better outcomes. Scott Galloway, marketing professor at New York University, believes the office is where many of our most important social muscles and relationships are built.

A concern I’ve not heard is the possibility that some jobs become even more greedy than they already are. Several years ago, Anne Helen Peterson clued me in to the notion of greedy jobs, particularly in areas like law and professional services. In these jobs there are great rewards to being accessible and connected. A worker who responds to a client’s or boss’s email late at night or on the weekend will become the person that client or boss goes to with questions on a deadline. There’s a pressure to be available and responsive at all hours of the day, and those who can maintain that connection are more likely to get ahead. More often than not, when a family faces these incentives, the husband’s job takes priority. To paraphrase Anne, once women closed many of the gaps in education and opportunity, the rules of the game shifted.

Greedy jobs blur the line between work and life. Communication tools, like Slack and Teams, allow us to stay connected in ways that feel easier, but do they make life easier? Do they make life better?

Remote work extends this extractive creep. The blurred lines between work and non work push deeper into our homes, and the power inequities they produce are likely to widen.

This possibility shakes some of the core operating principles I’ve relied on in my own approach to work and advice to students. “Ninety of life is showing up” is a value I often espouse. It works quite well as a general rule, but when policy and technology conspire to mean showing up is potentially 100% of life, the consequences don’t seem all that healthy or equitable.

Remote work might make us think we like our jobs better, but it could also lead to more extraction of our labor, less clarity between what is work and what is not, and greater surrender of our lives to our employers. Given what we’re learning about social networks and smart phones, we’d all be wise to wonder whether something that appears to make our lives more convenient actually makes our lives better.

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I’m planning to do more regular writing in this space. Hopefully a short-ish post, once per week. My goal is to offer insights and surface ideas you’ve maybe not considered. Some of the hyperlink’s I’ll provide will be to past podcast episodes I’ve hosted, others to articles I’ve found interested. If you find any of it useful, please consider subscribing and supporting what we and others do.

Thanks,

jA