Bossing
Various thoughts on work
A funny thing I’ve noticed over the years, based on casually seeing some of what goes on in the companies my wife has worked for, is that corporate executives don’t really seem all that wise—i.e., it’s very easy to wonder whether all of the mergers and consolidations and layoffs and rehirings are really in the best financial interest of the company.
The other day I had a thought: if offices are so important, and being in the same space is so important—as a lot of corporate executives claim—why have these guys been outsourcing and offshoring for so long? Why do they have teams in different countries and different time zones that never even meet in person? How much sense does it make that people who have the misfortune of living near a company office are required to come in a minimum number of days, but those who don’t are just fine to be fully remote?
In other words, is there any reason to think that outside of inherently creative or collaborative jobs, that the bosses even believe offices matter? Or do they really just resent the idea that remote work lets people have more time to themselves, regardless of its effects on job performance?
I have another question: if remote work can be shown to not degrade performance/productivity or even enhance it, why do companies not have a fiduciary responsibility to shed unnecessary offices and their expenses?
I’ve not had a lot of bosses thus far in my career, but my first one was a kind of grizzled veteran of the publishing world type fellow, and I guess he earned his right to be…less than nice. But I also think about how little I learned from working under him.
For example, he once told me, when I’d followed a book publisher’s directions for requesting a review copy, that it must have failed to arrive because I hadn’t personally spoken to someone on the phone. “Oh, of course it didn’t show up. You have to call someone! Come on!” I remember spending far longer than I should have trying to find a phone number so that I could tell him I spoke to someone on the phone without lying to him.
But the publishing house had essentially done everything possible to route all these requests through email. In other words, my boss, who obviously had the prime of his career at a time when it was much easier to get someone on the phone, put me in the position of having to go against his instructions or actually accomplish the thing he asked me to do. I suppose being put in those situations teaches you something.