As the corporate staff shifts the better part of its days from the office back home, many will ask ourselves about the time we normally spend in offices. As we move towards a new normal, what will be offices role?
“Created to ensure efficiency, offices immediately institutionalised idleness. A genteel arms race arose as managers tried to make their minions work, and the minions tried their damnedest to avoid it.”
Indeed, most of corporate labor has never experienced work outside office or even beyond office hours for a consistent period. Nor has the habit of spending weekdays daylight alongside children or family. Now we all have.
“The most transformatory aspect of offices was less the buildings themselves than the sheer amount of time we spent in them.”
At least for now, we have a critical perspective on how commuting, studying and working can be rethought. This essay offers some well written suggestive paths.
“The office has further-reaching patriarchal ploys up its sleeve. Chief among these is its response to children. Or rather lack of it. For most of history, workplaces ignored children entirely... ”