Maybe The Office Isn't So Bad After All

There’s been a lot written over the past 3 years about the negative aspects of office life, about how it harms our health, distracts us from what really matters and makes us less productive.  The freedom to choose where and when we work, it’s argued, is transformative, enabling us all to create our own perfectly tuned work-life balance. It sounds nice, the idea that no one (at least no white collar worker) will remain oppressed by the constraints of working at an office, or working on a fixed schedule.  Turbo-charged gig workers, calling our own shots.  What could go wrong?  Maybe a lot. 
 
For starters, we earn less.  Labor costs go down when the labor pool is global vs. local.  Don’t buy it?  Look at what happened to manufacturing costs when supply chain went global.  Made in America doesn’t win when made in China costs 75% less.  Secondly, the connection between nomadic mercenaries and their employers is not strong.  It’s not personal.  I compare this erosion in connectivity to what happened in dating with the advent of dating apps.  Suddenly there’s always a new, more exciting option just a swipe away.  No need to get too invested in the current state.
 
But employees are more productive when working where and when they want, you say.  Let’s unpack this a bit.  I’ve worked in the commercial real estate sector my entire career – this is my bias.  Brokerage is a business which lacks structure; or, more positively, it provides a lot of freedom.  Freedom to choose when and where you work, for example.  Yet many would be commercial real estate brokers fail because they lack the discipline necessary to thrive when no one is looking.  I’m not saying we’re inherently lazy.  I am saying we should look at how we behave when we have more control over our time and we don’t have to work in the presence of others.  In this context, brokerage is a great proxy.  Especially when you consider that brokers who work harder and smarter, but always harder, earn more money.  There’s a 100% correlation between effort and return.  So even here, when the broker should be sufficiently motivated to do more, it’s often the case they fail by doing less.  But what of the salaried employee?  Would it not be in keeping with the capitalist instinct to find a way to positively leverage a newfound opportunity to shift the work-life balance dynamic a little more in favor of life?  After all, if my role does not permit me to enjoy a material increase in compensation by working more (and most don’t), my leverage lies in maintaining the same compensation while working less.  I’m not one of these draconian types that believes everyone must be relentlessly monitored.  I’m just a realist when it comes to human behavior and the economic motivations created in a capitalist economy.    
 
Passionate rejection of the office flirts (dangerously?) with what could be described as economic anarchy.  Society has structure because humans need structure.  I don’t love all aspects of my work life.  Some days I don’t want to go to my office.  Some days, I want to do whatever I want to do.  My business allows me the freedom of choice.  But when I choose to do something other than work, I do so knowing my choice comes with the possibility of less earnings.  This is an economic reality. 
 
We’re in a moment in time when we should be asking the harder questions.  Instead, I’m mostly hearing a tired dialogue characterized by surface level arguments for and against the office, as if it’s a binary choice, not something that has deep societal implications and knock on effects that go way beyond the obvious.  It is entirely possible the office creates more value than we realize, both for society and for individuals.  If we make sweeping changes in how and where we work, we may inadvertently destroy vital aspects of our society, creating long term negative consequences.  It’s worth considering the benefits (societal, individual, corporate) of the modern office.  Maybe, just maybe, the office isn’t so bad after all.