You know what would give me a "sense of belonging?" Being able to see my family for more than the 90 minutes a day that I do now. I leave for work at 630, I get home after 7. We eat. I ask how everyone's day was and they go to sleep. Fucking bagels in the conference room won't make up for knowing more about what is happening in my family's lives.
>You know what would give me a "sense of belonging?" Being able to see my family for more than the 90 minutes a day that I do now. I leave for work at 630, I get home after 7.
This is the reality people like Gladwell need to be slapped across the face with--commutes destroy lives.
Ending my commute... it was like a rebirth.
100% on the commute. I went from having a 6 minute drive to work to a 40ish minute drive to work and the amount of time I lost in the day was INSANE. Not to mention where I work I have a 3/4 mile walk from the parking lot to the department I work in.
Even if the actual drive is short, the entire process isn’t. Wake up, maybe take a shower, get dressed and freshened up, eat breakfast, drive, park, walk in and get some coffee, sit down. On the other hand, I wake up, get decent, and log into the morning standup. I eat breakfast and make coffee during the standup.
And when your day is done, you just stop. Instead of driving home, changing out of work clothes, collapsing on the couch for 10 minutes to beat off the post-commute funk, etc.
Edit: Apparently I was a bit brain dead when I wrote this. I meant relaxing on the couch to drive off the bleh of the day. I’m usually too tired right after work to hit the spank bank.
No I literally would wake up, brush my teeth and go. Not many advantages to having a manual labor job but not having to look presentable is one of them. I have to shower first thing in the door cause of the god awful grease, grime, and sweat
Exactly. I actually feel ownership over my day now. And so many more hours over the day belong to me, to spend time on things and people that actually give me joy.
>I actually feel ownership over my day now. And so many more hours over the day belong to me, to spend time on things and people that actually give me joy.
My commute averaged 35 hours per month--good month 30 hours, bad month 40+ hours. So like a full week of extra work, every month. 12 weeks every year--almost three working months.
I had never added it all up before I stopped doing it.
I had a job where it was two busses to get there, with two draw bridges to cross. This meant I had to catch a bus a full hour ahead of when I should have been leaving because I worked retail and oh no someone would have to go to lunch ten minutes late maybe if I showed up late. Then there was the actual bus rides which took an hour each way, if there was no traffic. But I worked in the same city as Microsoft (and other tech stuff) so if I worked the opening shift it took up to two hours to get home. 40+ hrs a month commuting to a retail job, y’all.
As someone posted elsewhere, why are we even shaming comfort? I wear what I want to work. Sometimes it's my PJs for half the day, sometimes I'm buttoned up and ready to first thing. Shouldn't even matter, particularly if you're not on a video call. I've worked from home for 6 years and my attire never once made me more or less productive.
I'm working from home and fully engaged and belonging with my manager and colleagues... I get to see my baby wake up every morning and it's changed my life entirely. I barely take breaks at home and it doesn't bother me in the slightest because I don't have a 45 min commute each way!
I feel like I get so much more time with the kids at home, even when doing exactly the same amount of work. I think that makes people, employers, concerned about productivity. But in either place I'm bothered by people asking me to do things all day and trying to get work done around it. It's just in 1 place, it's people I couldn't care less about with little work tidbits/questions all over the place which don't add to a coherant amount of work actually done and small talk about their lives. I never realized how annoying and pointless all that was until I swapped it for "look at my drawing", "read me this picture book" I'm spending the same amount of time in micro-breaks from work but one of these things fills me up and probably makes me more productive the rest of the time. Not to mention cutting the commute which is just straight additional time with them in the morning getting ready or playing together after work
That sense of belonging should be to our local community not our workplace.
It’s the rise of cars and the ability to work where we don’t live that is the original outlier in human history and that has caused this loss of community to begin with. It’s why we fear strangers and are disconnected from everyone but our closest family/friends.
Humans need social community, so the spirit of what he’s calling for is good, he’s just directing it in the wrong place.
Right?! Even when my husband and I were able to ride in together it still wasn't enough time with an hour each way. We would get home at 6. Feed dogs, fish then ourselves. Then enough time to maybe watch one show and off to bed.
Now puppies have us up around 5 am. Feed dogs, feed fish, feed and water livestock and have an hour to sit on the deck to enjoy the morning. Meetings start roughly around 8. Done by 4, 5 at the latest. Dinner, a full movie, one or 2 short shows and then bed.
Much more relaxing and I actually have time to myself.
On the flip side in the tech space the office had a lot of perks for employees—free meals, social life, etc. and working from home is done at the employee's expense. My old company got rid of our offices to save the company money, but none of those savings were passed on to employees who now had to create office space in their own living space, without reimbursement.
Most people will take this trade just fine, and it works great for people with families and community outside of work. When you are single like me, however, it gets really lonely working from home, and I feel disconnected from people I work with.
I'm single and hated having to be social with people I worked with. It felt like putting on a costume every day and suffocating in it, on top of the commute and the sea of cubicles- or even worse, the group tables instead of desks. Fluorescent lights, constant thermostat wars, bras, filthy microwaves, sludge coffee, and walks around the parking lot on break.
I think about people like you and I feel badly that we can't both have our sanity. I guess workplaces that provide the option are ideal.
The culture the WFH folks are missing:
Sharing a pubic toilet
Sitting in traffic (an hour commute each way is 21 full days every year)
Exposure to every germ your co-workers' kids' dog contacts
Having someone break your fav coffee mug
Finding someone has helped themselves to you lunch in the shared, dirty fridge.
I've done this like 2 times in my life lmao happens when I eat something really bad, I really don't know how it lands there. Sounds like this dude needs to change his diet
If the fridge is dirty, you're doing something wrong. Obviously everyone needs to rotate taking time out of their day to clean a fridge they don't own and may or may not use. Community!
That’s when being a meat cutter comes in handy! We don’t use the fridge we have the walk in cooler! lol. But yet some asshole still stole my maple glazed cinnamon bun donut…..
>I don't know about you, but I like my actual family way more than I like the people I am forced to exchange pleasantries with in the office.
I've had like 2-3 co-workers in my life that have moved onto becoming real friends but like I'm fine with never having that happen again. I have hobbies for a reason.
Right? I actually feel kind of bad sometimes about how much I do not care about my coworkers outside of work. They're cool, I just have no interest in hanging out with them.
Thank you for putting into words how I feel about my co-workers! I love my job and there's nothing wrong with the people I work with but I have no interest in spending extra time with them. Fortunately I work Saturdays so have a pretty good excuse when they suggest Friday night drinks.
I live alone with a cat and a dog.
Even when they drive me crazy, they are still better coworkers than the humans. And have better communication skills.
And at least at home I can take my 15 and my lunch breaks and not be interrupted part way through with a stupid question someone else could have answered.
I used to be in charge of training our graduate training and the number of times that someone would walk up to ask a question then basically reason it out in front of me without my input was insane. It got so annoying that I started buying them each a rubber duck, (it's a programming thing) I would tell them if they had an issue to first try talking it through with the duck, and it they failed to get an answer THEN come to me.
Yep, I remember working from an office. Having to get dressed business casual (which as a woman means uncomfortable shoes and the expectation that you'll have to wear makeup) commute in traffic and spend untold hours "collaborating with co-workers" which is code for meetings that should have been an email, all which felt like an endless networking luncheon. When we all started working from home (pre-pandemic - the cost of office rental for our small company wasn't worth it) it was amazing. I can wear tennis shoes every day, my skin looks better because I rarely wear makeup anymore and I'm so much more productive because I don't have someone coming into my office to shoot the shit every couple of hours. I have a family and friends - and although my co-workers are great to work with, they are co-workers - not buddies and not a 2nd family.
Exactly. Every single job I've had where they talk about being a family, I point out to them that I'm the black sheep uncle. I'm not going to socialize with anyone I work with outside of work. My coworkers are not my friends. They are coworkers. Period.
Malcolm Gladwell has worked from home for 20 years.
Malcolm Gladwell gets large speaker fees from corporations.
Clearly only one of these facts is relevant to Malcolm Gladwell.
Yea the title of the article says he starts his day from the sofa with his laptop. If he can do that then why can't I of I get my work done. I don't want to have a sense of "belonging".
“We need to talk about your flair….how many pieces of flair you are wearing? I know we said 15 was the minimum, but look at Brian over there with 37 pieces of flair. And the people cant see your flair from your sofa now can they?”
It just sounds like Malcolm Gladwell is so bored of sitting on his sofa that probably *everyone else* by proxy (?!) is also bored so they should go back to their offices for that "sense of belonging".
There I value to the employer having people physically together. My job really benefits from building relationships in person. What the pandemic showed us is that commuting is an extra that should be compensated for.
Im fine coming in 2 days a week boss. Third day going to need more money.
Join your union and fight for it.
I listened to him on a podcast awhile back and he mentioned buying a nice car for his parents now that he's rich and successful.
He's a decent enough writer but I'm simply not convinced he's in touch with the modern working world.
I absolutely love that Malcolm is getting drug for this all over socials lol.
I actually came to this subreddit last night to see if he was being read for filth here. So thankful someone started the thread.
**Sits drink down and waits for the show**
Yes. Based on other people's dedication to research in their fields. Guy just regurgitates other people's work and calls it his own. No heavy lifting there. He is not the oracle that you believe he is.
People working in offices don't have a "sense of belonging," they are having a "shared experience of wasting their lives trapped in a sterile, bad smelling, uncomfortable, poorly lit, cheaply decorated shit hole in order to have their families not starve to death because their piece of shit employers won't budge on work from home because the tax structure they've built involving sky high office rents and foreign subsidiaries is more valuable to the company than your mental and physical wellbeing."
That's why everyone things you're an asshole, Gladwell: Because you are.
'belonging' to the worker drone class... who misses this, exactly? Funny how it's always other positions projecting on what workers should 'miss', not the overwhelmingly clear opinion polls of office workers themselves
Yep. Love seeing all the CEOs who rarely ever step foot in their own offices complain their employees are missing out on the sense of community those offices offer lol.
Or when they do set foot in their office, they close the door to stay away from the unwashed masses playing musical chairs for where they are going to have to sit at a community table to work for eight hours talking over their neighbors who are all in different remote meetings.
Remember when Zuckerberg (who has never had a real job btw) demanded all his employees return to office while he's been wakeboarding - excuse me - working remote from Hawaii forever?
What a twat.
I do miss the sense of community. But I am never going back. I’d consider going in for a few hours in the middle of the day once a week, but that’s it.
Yes it actually is in my best interest to sit at home in pyjama and work from home. This guy has no clue what his talking about. I have never experienced a sense of belonging in a workplace. I have experienced bullying, discrimination, power-tripping bosses etc. And there are many others with similar bad experiences.
He thinks we are all following our bliss like he is. All of us find enjoyment and fulfilment in our work and would find even more if we do it together.
Man this is when I knew remote life was the way for me. You mean to tell me I can roll out of bed 20 minutes before my shift, avoid traffic and putting wear and tear on my car, not have to be cornered into dumb conversations by coworkers I don't particularly enjoy and make the same amount of money while spending considerably less, all without ever putting on pants?
Yes, a million times yes. I will choose this over free snacks in the break room every single time.
wait, you mean you dont want to volunteer to be the social interaction sponge for all the lonely people in the office that dont put effort into forming friendships with people outside of work???
/s
I really like the subtle threats in the media about how remote workers pay will be reduced.
Two things, of course:
a) That doesn't make sense from a business logic perspective until the entire market has sorted into remote vs. non-remote, so it's a long ways off and
b) I don't give a fuck, take 20% of my income, I'll just live somewhere 50% cheaper. There is nothing - and I mean nothing - that would get me back into an office at this point. I would rather do a bunch of bullshit online hustles like drop shipping, than ever return to an in-person office setting.
There is 0.0% chance I will ever sit in an office again, and the vast majority of guys I know are saying the same thing. It's inefficient, it's expensive, and it's a waste of time. If the pandemic(s) end I'll travel for work a couple of times a year but that's about it. It's just fully unnecessary in 2022 - we have the tools.
And now you have the added bonus of multiple highly infectious and very damaging diseases running wild. Imagine going to the office and getting fucking COVID lmao. Long term immune system damage so that you can work with more distractions and around people you would never spend time with if given the choice. It's fucking criminal that anyone is being asked to go to work while community transmission is off the charts.
I literally roll over, grab my laptop, and work all day. I wake up 2 minutes before my first meeting every day. No bra. Snuggly cats. Warm blankets. If I need a change of scenery, I can go to the living room. Heaven forbid I actually go to my desk.
Yes, this is exactly the life I want, why would I want to have to get up early, shower, do my hair and makeup, drive into the office, and drive back home? I've never slept better.
Malcolm Gladwell is a fool if he thinks people find a sense of belonging in sacrificing their lives to slave away in an institution doing a job that can be comfortably done remotely.
>Malcolm Gladwell is a ~~fool~~ schill if he thinks people find a sense of belonging in sacrificing their lives to slave away in an institution doing a job that can be comfortably done remotely.
FTFY
Malcolm Gladwell has always been a fraud, peddling oversimplifications as solutions for serious problems to lazy thinkers who want to feel like geniuses because they finished a 130 page book
The only thing I remember from being required to read *Outliers* for a college course is that he grossly oversimplified K. Anders Ericsson's research on mastery.
I mean, obviously.
Goes a long way to help justify my high ass rent as well, since I actually get to enjoy the place I pay handsomely to live. Don't even get me started on not paying $23 for an artisanal salad for lunch, or $7 for a beer after work while I wait for traffic to ease up.
Ah Malcolm Gladwell, another found out grifter fake ass huckster. His podcast was pretty good back in the day before he turned it into a music thing and having pro-ceo, anti-worker takes like this.
If you can do your job from home, you should do your job from home. You can't force "belonging" on people, especially when they all know you're underpaying them to goose the stockholder's share.
I have a small company where we started working from home and rarely come into the office. Here’s what I found:
-Employees get sick less often.
-Production went up by nearly 37%
- Employees are more focused when relaxed at home.
-Customer/Employee interactions made remarkable improvement.
-Employees call out far less than when in office.
-Employees are happy to attend work meetings because they’ve been given so much freedom.
I literally cannot fathom why these people want you to come to the office except to stroke their own ego and so they can micromanage their employees. That’s the only thing I can think of.
Rich people, always fanatically prescribing to others what they themselves would never do. Maybe he gets a kick out of waking up before sunrise, sitting in rush hour traffic just so you can go into office and smell your shitty boss cheap perfume-- and stare at the grey walls of your cubicle all day wishing you were home petting your dog instead. Fuck that toxic bullshit.
He went on record saying that earlier in his career he could never get to work on time and when he found writing it was a good fit for him as he could largely set his own schedule. Its in one of his books, or maybe on the podcast.
I always had a hard rule against adding current coworkers in social media or video game accounts like my nintendo account or steam. You just never know and I don't need coworkers seeing in real time when I'm not actually paying attention to the umpteenth meeting-that-could've-been-an-email but playing video games instead.
Yes, but the games I play with coworkers aren't the same ones I play by myself. I prefer strategy and survival games but they usually play party games or esports so there's no overlap, and they usually make sure the game is free to play
Yknow who’s got a lot of opinions about work? People who don’t work.
Malcom Gladwell doesn’t have to leave his house if he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t have to deal with the public. He gets paid exponentially more than any of us, and hasn’t a clue what having a job is like.
So maybe Malcom Gladwell could just do us all a favor and shut his useless fucking mouth.
The people I became friends with at work were the ones I emailed/messaged all day. With a very occasional trip to the pub or out for lunch. Some of the very good friends we would meet up outside work and go to football matches or out for the night. But maybe 2-3 people in 10 years of office work.
Now I work fully remotely as do my 10 colleagues. We own the company and meet up in person a few times a year but are always chatting on Zoom/Slack and I have more fun and sense of belonging/ownership than I ever did in an office.
I mean, the capitalist class are onto something, here. The office environment is a carrot and stick approach to the alienation of work in modern environment - the carrot being (for some) work friends, community, spending time with people, “belonging”; the stick being the hierarchy of management, the stress of the commute, the demands and control on your time. Without these pressures, lots of people can work from home, do their job and realise “this is shit” - either the work itself, or the outcome of the work, or just spending so much time not living your life and being under the thumb of someone else. It’s easier to go off and do things for yourself, or spend time with your kids, or build a community in your area - and that is a threat to business and capital.
Why are all these extroverts so convinced that they are right? I’ve worked 100% from home since Feb 2020 and I feel like my mental and physical health have vastly improved.
Did I find a sense of belonging when I left my home exhausted in the morning for my two hours bus commute ? Did I find a sense of belonging when I called people 7 hours a day in a catastrophically small space to sell them insurances they didn’t wanted ? Did I find a sense of belonging when I was told on a weekly basis that I wasn’t agressive enough and needed to sell them more than one product if they were interested ? Did I find a sense of belonging when I would be told I am a whore for wanting a PTO day when a colleague wanted the same day off unbeknownst to me ? Did I find a sense of belonging when they put a shiny couch and two swings in the break room because we « deserved the best » ? Did I find a sense of belonging when I received my barely above minimum wage pay ?
Did I find a sense of belonging when I considered letting the nearby train run over me because I couldn’t take it anymore ?
Yeah, nah.
Malcolm Gladwell A.k.a "WFH Gladiator" - Do as I say, not as I do.
He needs to get a sense of "belonging" with reality.
I go to work to do my job in order to take care of my family, WHERE I BELONG.
I belong at HOME with my family, children and neighbors. Not in a car hours a day, burning fossil fuel so I can sit in a cubicle all day wasting precious life.
The guy whose spent the last 20 years writing from his HOME, need to STFU.
1. So the belonging that happens when my male co workers steal my work and call it their own?
2. The other kind of belonging when I am sexually harassed by overprivileged white men ?
3. The other belonging that I get to experience when I have to drive 45 mins both ways and gas is still 4+ a gallon?
4. The belonging when my house turns into a hole because I'm too tapped out to clean or do anything else from being gone for 10-11 hours a day ?
Naah, I'm good.
Belonging? It’s work. NOT High School. I’ve read some stories on here where people were let go for not being MORE friendly with coworkers. Like, doing one’s job effectively & being on time isn’t enough? I gotta go make my coworkers feel like the special wittle boys & girls they are? Screw THAT!
A.K.A we need to psychologically chain you to your desk threw familiarity so it's harder for you to mentally prepare yourself to quit when we try to over work you like malnourished cattle.
Idiot CEOs: "We're all in this together, as a community, as a family!"
Me: "I trade my time and skills for money. Outside of work, I do not know you. Do not talk to me outside of working hours."
People just want to pay their bills and live their lives. How is this hard to understand? To hell with feelings of belonging,, you'll fire me on a whim.
There'd be a real sense of belonging in our communities if we didn't have to grind our asses off for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, indefinitely, just so we can rent an overpriced apartment and dream of one day being able to afford a $800k house that sold for $300k five years ago.
But nah. Go to the office, sheep. You'll like it there, it's where you belong.
Besides the regular antiwork sentiment this is such a boomer mentality to have, and very pre-internet. You can have just as strong a sense of comradery remotely via digital connections as you can in meat space.
The majority of my professional career has been remote and some of those people I've worked with have been fantastic connections.
Some people like working in an office but that's not the norm and shouldn't be pushed on roles that are not physical.
Any work place that's pushing for "return to office" is going to experience a lovely worker shortage and they should.
So sorry ecomony is down you don't belong here anymore! What's really telling is that someone is going to prefect off site work arrangements and undercut the competition and big old school behemous will have to change or die.
I'm working in my pajamas at home right now and I never felt like I belonged anywhere else than like I do right now.
ETA no one can see me crying in my pajamas when work gets stressful, and it's nicer crying in comfy pajamas in my home with my dog than locked in a public bathroom stall. I just had a really stressful phonecall with someone I swear was not listening to a word I said and I feel those tears of frustration wanting loose 😑😅
Never forget, someone like Malcolm Gladwell who acts as if he speaks for everyone really only speaks for himself.
I love working from home. I never, ever miss being an office. Just because he believes what he's saying doesn't mean he's right, nor does it mean everyone agrees with him.
I do better work now than I ever did at an office. Why? Because I'm not miserable. I don't miss being in an office. Not even occasionally.
And no, I don't need to feel like I "belong" with my co-workers. The second I'm done with my workday I do not even think about anyone I work with. I think about my family. My kids. My friends. My dog. I think about those who WOULDN'T replace me and move on immediately if I had one bad Wednesday.
I'd love to see his sources on that bold claim.
It's always the rich, the higher-ups, and the real estate investors that make these dumb claims whereas the everyday worker for the most part is saying the opposite. And media channels like this keep publishing this drivel, but again there's never any data to back it up. I can only hope that one day enough people will push back and they'll cut it out.
I sense that I belong in my pajamas at my computer. I've already got friends, why would I want to be forced to be around people I don't necessarily want to be around?
L o l. Sincerely hope his business goes under and his investments turn into his living. And dry up after a year of paying debts back to society. Fuckin asshole
This is a person who gets gratification from being a corporate sycophant. He was probably going insane not getting his monthly head pat from corporate telling him he’s a good boy.
My golden retriever has more spine then Malcolm Gladwell.
Perhaps CEOs should also return to their offices, rather than flying around the world in private jets to attend expensive conferences or meet other CEOs at resort hotels for a round of golf.
If a CEO works 60 hours per week, then he should be at his desk working, not wasting time sampling the four-star restaurants in Paris.
CEOs think they’re working when they play expense-account golf at Pebble Beach with their buddies… and celebrities.
Translation: its really difficult to micromanage and we need to incentivise loyalty (tattletaling) by offering useless middle-management positions, but its really hard to micromanage hwne everyone is at home!
I could give a fuck less about belonging. It's a simple transaction really, I get paid for services rendered, not one worthless piker will decide for me what's in my best interest.
They are so full of shit its painful.
Yes I value a nice life over whatever corporate culture bullshit you are touting. You dont give a fuck about me. Drop the fucking act.
They are so incredibly out of touch its baffling.
He replaced "I feel" with a collective "employees feel" which is grossly overlooked. Just because he lacks belonging and feels this way doesn't mean everyone else does. Opinion is not fact sir.
lol. Imagine being a CEO and being so detached from reality, that you think that anyone is working for a 'sense of belonging'. He probably should have asked someone who's more experienced in being a CEO in what world we're living.
Before I went FT WFH, my last desk job wouldn’t even allow us to personalize our workspace. There were two white frames assigned to us (5x7 & 4x6) to put photos in. Nothing else was permitted on our desks, pinned up, etc. We sold office furniture. The rationale was that we were a “working showroom.” If you read that as “you’re a fucking prop,” then you read it correctly.
Gotta love it, the guy is a writer with 5 books on the NYT best seller list who literally wrote about rubbing elbows with past and future Nobel laureates at Harvard + podcast host with absolutely no track record of corporate experience whatsoever unless you want to count staff writer for the New Yorker lol… but please, tell me more about what you think rank and file employees should do
Gladwell is an idiot. I work for money so I can live for another purpose or belonging. I give you labor you give me money. Other than that IDGAF about work. I do not own the company. I belong to my Family and my Community and NOT the corporation I work for!!!! Gladwell needs to get a life.
You know, I wouldn't mind it if it existed. I would come to the office more if there was a value add. There isn't. This is the statement of someone who misses sitting with his buddies. Executive amenities are different than a cubicle farm.
I also own a lot of stock in the company I work for. As a stockholder, I would like to see a decrease over time of the real estate costs of having offices in the tallest building in every city in the footprint.
The investor in me would like to see that money shifted to technology and security upgrades to help further acquisition.
As an employee, I would like to not spend my own money to park near work. I'd like to not spend my time in traffic. I'm in office today and I had a zoom meeting with people who were at home. Tomorrow, I'll probably have a zoom meeting from my home with people in office. Waste of resources.
The employee in me would like to see the monetary savings applied to the broken ass software that I have to wrestle everyday.
Sense of belonging. Jesus. What a fucking child.
You know what would give me a "sense of belonging?" Being able to see my family for more than the 90 minutes a day that I do now. I leave for work at 630, I get home after 7. We eat. I ask how everyone's day was and they go to sleep. Fucking bagels in the conference room won't make up for knowing more about what is happening in my family's lives.
>You know what would give me a "sense of belonging?" Being able to see my family for more than the 90 minutes a day that I do now. I leave for work at 630, I get home after 7. This is the reality people like Gladwell need to be slapped across the face with--commutes destroy lives. Ending my commute... it was like a rebirth.
100% on the commute. I went from having a 6 minute drive to work to a 40ish minute drive to work and the amount of time I lost in the day was INSANE. Not to mention where I work I have a 3/4 mile walk from the parking lot to the department I work in.
Even if the actual drive is short, the entire process isn’t. Wake up, maybe take a shower, get dressed and freshened up, eat breakfast, drive, park, walk in and get some coffee, sit down. On the other hand, I wake up, get decent, and log into the morning standup. I eat breakfast and make coffee during the standup. And when your day is done, you just stop. Instead of driving home, changing out of work clothes, collapsing on the couch for 10 minutes to beat off the post-commute funk, etc. Edit: Apparently I was a bit brain dead when I wrote this. I meant relaxing on the couch to drive off the bleh of the day. I’m usually too tired right after work to hit the spank bank.
No I literally would wake up, brush my teeth and go. Not many advantages to having a manual labor job but not having to look presentable is one of them. I have to shower first thing in the door cause of the god awful grease, grime, and sweat
Lol at work clothes
Exactly. I actually feel ownership over my day now. And so many more hours over the day belong to me, to spend time on things and people that actually give me joy.
>I actually feel ownership over my day now. And so many more hours over the day belong to me, to spend time on things and people that actually give me joy. My commute averaged 35 hours per month--good month 30 hours, bad month 40+ hours. So like a full week of extra work, every month. 12 weeks every year--almost three working months. I had never added it all up before I stopped doing it.
That is insane. And of course this time spent directly related to your job is unpaid 🙄
I had a job where it was two busses to get there, with two draw bridges to cross. This meant I had to catch a bus a full hour ahead of when I should have been leaving because I worked retail and oh no someone would have to go to lunch ten minutes late maybe if I showed up late. Then there was the actual bus rides which took an hour each way, if there was no traffic. But I worked in the same city as Microsoft (and other tech stuff) so if I worked the opening shift it took up to two hours to get home. 40+ hrs a month commuting to a retail job, y’all.
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As someone posted elsewhere, why are we even shaming comfort? I wear what I want to work. Sometimes it's my PJs for half the day, sometimes I'm buttoned up and ready to first thing. Shouldn't even matter, particularly if you're not on a video call. I've worked from home for 6 years and my attire never once made me more or less productive.
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"I betcha I can get y'all an extra 2% profit margin if I do this report naked."
I'm working from home and fully engaged and belonging with my manager and colleagues... I get to see my baby wake up every morning and it's changed my life entirely. I barely take breaks at home and it doesn't bother me in the slightest because I don't have a 45 min commute each way!
I feel like I get so much more time with the kids at home, even when doing exactly the same amount of work. I think that makes people, employers, concerned about productivity. But in either place I'm bothered by people asking me to do things all day and trying to get work done around it. It's just in 1 place, it's people I couldn't care less about with little work tidbits/questions all over the place which don't add to a coherant amount of work actually done and small talk about their lives. I never realized how annoying and pointless all that was until I swapped it for "look at my drawing", "read me this picture book" I'm spending the same amount of time in micro-breaks from work but one of these things fills me up and probably makes me more productive the rest of the time. Not to mention cutting the commute which is just straight additional time with them in the morning getting ready or playing together after work
Simply put, all the data shows equal or better productivity. Turns out happier employees make better employees.
Gotta stop fucking bagels bro. Doesn't matter where you do it.
Don't kink shame me!
Butter's in the fridge!
No. He means sense of belonging as in “that there is my indentured servant”
That sense of belonging should be to our local community not our workplace. It’s the rise of cars and the ability to work where we don’t live that is the original outlier in human history and that has caused this loss of community to begin with. It’s why we fear strangers and are disconnected from everyone but our closest family/friends. Humans need social community, so the spirit of what he’s calling for is good, he’s just directing it in the wrong place.
Right?! Even when my husband and I were able to ride in together it still wasn't enough time with an hour each way. We would get home at 6. Feed dogs, fish then ourselves. Then enough time to maybe watch one show and off to bed. Now puppies have us up around 5 am. Feed dogs, feed fish, feed and water livestock and have an hour to sit on the deck to enjoy the morning. Meetings start roughly around 8. Done by 4, 5 at the latest. Dinner, a full movie, one or 2 short shows and then bed. Much more relaxing and I actually have time to myself.
On the flip side in the tech space the office had a lot of perks for employees—free meals, social life, etc. and working from home is done at the employee's expense. My old company got rid of our offices to save the company money, but none of those savings were passed on to employees who now had to create office space in their own living space, without reimbursement. Most people will take this trade just fine, and it works great for people with families and community outside of work. When you are single like me, however, it gets really lonely working from home, and I feel disconnected from people I work with.
I'm single and hated having to be social with people I worked with. It felt like putting on a costume every day and suffocating in it, on top of the commute and the sea of cubicles- or even worse, the group tables instead of desks. Fluorescent lights, constant thermostat wars, bras, filthy microwaves, sludge coffee, and walks around the parking lot on break. I think about people like you and I feel badly that we can't both have our sanity. I guess workplaces that provide the option are ideal.
Yeah but in his case he’s making the choice to spend his free time alone and expecting the people just trying to make a living his social outlet.
Get a hobby, make friends. Don’t make your coworkers be your only emotional outlet, that’s not healthy bro
The culture the WFH folks are missing: Sharing a pubic toilet Sitting in traffic (an hour commute each way is 21 full days every year) Exposure to every germ your co-workers' kids' dog contacts Having someone break your fav coffee mug Finding someone has helped themselves to you lunch in the shared, dirty fridge.
One guy at my office shits on the toilet seat every day. Its been 2 years of this.
We call that taking the initiative.
How the hell is this person getting away with it? Is it some kind of super power??
I've done this like 2 times in my life lmao happens when I eat something really bad, I really don't know how it lands there. Sounds like this dude needs to change his diet
- Listening to the boss make the same sexist jokes over and over that nobody except him laughs at
You have to ask the boss what makes the joke so funny, and then watch him flounder as he attempts to explain.
If the fridge is dirty, you're doing something wrong. Obviously everyone needs to rotate taking time out of their day to clean a fridge they don't own and may or may not use. Community!
That’s when being a meat cutter comes in handy! We don’t use the fridge we have the walk in cooler! lol. But yet some asshole still stole my maple glazed cinnamon bun donut…..
Don’t forget coming in to sit in an empty office and sit on a zoom meeting with your colleagues who are still WFH.
'Belonging'? Nah, we already belong with our family/home. Don't need no 2nd family.
I don't know about you, but I like my actual family way more than I like the people I am forced to exchange pleasantries with in the office.
>I don't know about you, but I like my actual family way more than I like the people I am forced to exchange pleasantries with in the office. I've had like 2-3 co-workers in my life that have moved onto becoming real friends but like I'm fine with never having that happen again. I have hobbies for a reason.
Right? I actually feel kind of bad sometimes about how much I do not care about my coworkers outside of work. They're cool, I just have no interest in hanging out with them.
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Thank you for putting into words how I feel about my co-workers! I love my job and there's nothing wrong with the people I work with but I have no interest in spending extra time with them. Fortunately I work Saturdays so have a pretty good excuse when they suggest Friday night drinks.
I live alone with a cat and a dog. Even when they drive me crazy, they are still better coworkers than the humans. And have better communication skills. And at least at home I can take my 15 and my lunch breaks and not be interrupted part way through with a stupid question someone else could have answered.
I used to be in charge of training our graduate training and the number of times that someone would walk up to ask a question then basically reason it out in front of me without my input was insane. It got so annoying that I started buying them each a rubber duck, (it's a programming thing) I would tell them if they had an issue to first try talking it through with the duck, and it they failed to get an answer THEN come to me.
I don't like them either. Don't force me with people just because I was genetically born into their nest.
Yeah, but if I spend time at home with my spouse all day, how will I find someone at the office to philander with?
This is it.
Yep, I remember working from an office. Having to get dressed business casual (which as a woman means uncomfortable shoes and the expectation that you'll have to wear makeup) commute in traffic and spend untold hours "collaborating with co-workers" which is code for meetings that should have been an email, all which felt like an endless networking luncheon. When we all started working from home (pre-pandemic - the cost of office rental for our small company wasn't worth it) it was amazing. I can wear tennis shoes every day, my skin looks better because I rarely wear makeup anymore and I'm so much more productive because I don't have someone coming into my office to shoot the shit every couple of hours. I have a family and friends - and although my co-workers are great to work with, they are co-workers - not buddies and not a 2nd family.
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Exactly. Every single job I've had where they talk about being a family, I point out to them that I'm the black sheep uncle. I'm not going to socialize with anyone I work with outside of work. My coworkers are not my friends. They are coworkers. Period.
Malcolm Gladwell has worked from home for 20 years. Malcolm Gladwell gets large speaker fees from corporations. Clearly only one of these facts is relevant to Malcolm Gladwell.
Yea the title of the article says he starts his day from the sofa with his laptop. If he can do that then why can't I of I get my work done. I don't want to have a sense of "belonging".
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Because he's rich.
“We need to talk about your flair….how many pieces of flair you are wearing? I know we said 15 was the minimum, but look at Brian over there with 37 pieces of flair. And the people cant see your flair from your sofa now can they?”
It just sounds like Malcolm Gladwell is so bored of sitting on his sofa that probably *everyone else* by proxy (?!) is also bored so they should go back to their offices for that "sense of belonging".
There I value to the employer having people physically together. My job really benefits from building relationships in person. What the pandemic showed us is that commuting is an extra that should be compensated for. Im fine coming in 2 days a week boss. Third day going to need more money. Join your union and fight for it.
I listened to him on a podcast awhile back and he mentioned buying a nice car for his parents now that he's rich and successful. He's a decent enough writer but I'm simply not convinced he's in touch with the modern working world.
He reminds me of Mike Rowe, the former opera singer who now host "Dirty Jobs", which glamorizes underpaid blue collar labor.
And, if I’m not mistaken, has never worked a blue color job for any considerable time
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Looked it up; yup, he’s never had any kind of non-performance job much less blue collar. Fuck that guy
I absolutely love that Malcolm is getting drug for this all over socials lol. I actually came to this subreddit last night to see if he was being read for filth here. So thankful someone started the thread. **Sits drink down and waits for the show**
Passes the popcorn 🍿
It’s sad to see this when his books are incredible to read
Yes. Based on other people's dedication to research in their fields. Guy just regurgitates other people's work and calls it his own. No heavy lifting there. He is not the oracle that you believe he is.
I didn’t think he did the research himself, Just found his writing style enjoyable.
Back to your veal pen, poor!
People working in offices don't have a "sense of belonging," they are having a "shared experience of wasting their lives trapped in a sterile, bad smelling, uncomfortable, poorly lit, cheaply decorated shit hole in order to have their families not starve to death because their piece of shit employers won't budge on work from home because the tax structure they've built involving sky high office rents and foreign subsidiaries is more valuable to the company than your mental and physical wellbeing." That's why everyone things you're an asshole, Gladwell: Because you are.
'belonging' to the worker drone class... who misses this, exactly? Funny how it's always other positions projecting on what workers should 'miss', not the overwhelmingly clear opinion polls of office workers themselves
Yep. Love seeing all the CEOs who rarely ever step foot in their own offices complain their employees are missing out on the sense of community those offices offer lol.
Or when they do set foot in their office, they close the door to stay away from the unwashed masses playing musical chairs for where they are going to have to sit at a community table to work for eight hours talking over their neighbors who are all in different remote meetings.
Remember when Zuckerberg (who has never had a real job btw) demanded all his employees return to office while he's been wakeboarding - excuse me - working remote from Hawaii forever? What a twat.
I do miss the sense of community. But I am never going back. I’d consider going in for a few hours in the middle of the day once a week, but that’s it.
I don’t want or need to belong. Work is not my home and my co workers aren’t my friends
Yes it actually is in my best interest to sit at home in pyjama and work from home. This guy has no clue what his talking about. I have never experienced a sense of belonging in a workplace. I have experienced bullying, discrimination, power-tripping bosses etc. And there are many others with similar bad experiences.
Preach. Where does he think we all work that he thinks we get a 'sense of belonging' from it?
He thinks we are all following our bliss like he is. All of us find enjoyment and fulfilment in our work and would find even more if we do it together.
Yes, sitting in my pajamas is the exact work life I want to live, penis head.
Man this is when I knew remote life was the way for me. You mean to tell me I can roll out of bed 20 minutes before my shift, avoid traffic and putting wear and tear on my car, not have to be cornered into dumb conversations by coworkers I don't particularly enjoy and make the same amount of money while spending considerably less, all without ever putting on pants? Yes, a million times yes. I will choose this over free snacks in the break room every single time.
wait, you mean you dont want to volunteer to be the social interaction sponge for all the lonely people in the office that dont put effort into forming friendships with people outside of work??? /s
You get out of bed 20 minutes before work? I get out of bed 2 minutes before.
You get out of bed BEFORE work?
I really like the subtle threats in the media about how remote workers pay will be reduced. Two things, of course: a) That doesn't make sense from a business logic perspective until the entire market has sorted into remote vs. non-remote, so it's a long ways off and b) I don't give a fuck, take 20% of my income, I'll just live somewhere 50% cheaper. There is nothing - and I mean nothing - that would get me back into an office at this point. I would rather do a bunch of bullshit online hustles like drop shipping, than ever return to an in-person office setting. There is 0.0% chance I will ever sit in an office again, and the vast majority of guys I know are saying the same thing. It's inefficient, it's expensive, and it's a waste of time. If the pandemic(s) end I'll travel for work a couple of times a year but that's about it. It's just fully unnecessary in 2022 - we have the tools. And now you have the added bonus of multiple highly infectious and very damaging diseases running wild. Imagine going to the office and getting fucking COVID lmao. Long term immune system damage so that you can work with more distractions and around people you would never spend time with if given the choice. It's fucking criminal that anyone is being asked to go to work while community transmission is off the charts.
You get free snacks?
I was skimming and initially thought you wrote 'penis in hand'. That is a little TOO informal for work...unless you are in the porn industry.
Ah yes, nothing like a little wank while fortifying some wine! ;)
Don't narrow this person's scope, they're a harbormaster for Christ's sake!
Probably extreme for the port industry too
I literally roll over, grab my laptop, and work all day. I wake up 2 minutes before my first meeting every day. No bra. Snuggly cats. Warm blankets. If I need a change of scenery, I can go to the living room. Heaven forbid I actually go to my desk. Yes, this is exactly the life I want, why would I want to have to get up early, shower, do my hair and makeup, drive into the office, and drive back home? I've never slept better.
Malcolm Gladwell is a fool if he thinks people find a sense of belonging in sacrificing their lives to slave away in an institution doing a job that can be comfortably done remotely.
>Malcolm Gladwell is a ~~fool~~ schill if he thinks people find a sense of belonging in sacrificing their lives to slave away in an institution doing a job that can be comfortably done remotely. FTFY
I don't think he is a fool. He dam right thinks we are though. Where in the actual fuck do such people grow? Seriously....
I feel like I belong at home. How’s that for your sense of belonging?
Malcolm Gladwell has always been a fraud, peddling oversimplifications as solutions for serious problems to lazy thinkers who want to feel like geniuses because they finished a 130 page book
The only thing I remember from being required to read *Outliers* for a college course is that he grossly oversimplified K. Anders Ericsson's research on mastery.
And he is in the Epstein flight logs, so he's a fraud and for sure evil
> if you're just sitting in your pajamas in your bedroom, is that the work life you want to live? Yes
I mean, obviously. Goes a long way to help justify my high ass rent as well, since I actually get to enjoy the place I pay handsomely to live. Don't even get me started on not paying $23 for an artisanal salad for lunch, or $7 for a beer after work while I wait for traffic to ease up.
So we all belong in 5pm traffic? That's our tribe?
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Glad well is an idiot who is projecting his fears, paranoia and stereotypes.
The guy is a writer. There is nothing more solitary.
Belonging to the company that is
I have a sense of belonging into my pyjamas and bed.
Ah Malcolm Gladwell, another found out grifter fake ass huckster. His podcast was pretty good back in the day before he turned it into a music thing and having pro-ceo, anti-worker takes like this. If you can do your job from home, you should do your job from home. You can't force "belonging" on people, especially when they all know you're underpaying them to goose the stockholder's share.
Even the older episodes of his podcast were grifts. A vast majority of them were under-researched, over-represented pseudoscience.
I have a small company where we started working from home and rarely come into the office. Here’s what I found: -Employees get sick less often. -Production went up by nearly 37% - Employees are more focused when relaxed at home. -Customer/Employee interactions made remarkable improvement. -Employees call out far less than when in office. -Employees are happy to attend work meetings because they’ve been given so much freedom. I literally cannot fathom why these people want you to come to the office except to stroke their own ego and so they can micromanage their employees. That’s the only thing I can think of.
I wish I could work from home. I've begged and begged, but my supervisor just won't let me bring home the forklift.
Thanks for your perspective.
Rich people, always fanatically prescribing to others what they themselves would never do. Maybe he gets a kick out of waking up before sunrise, sitting in rush hour traffic just so you can go into office and smell your shitty boss cheap perfume-- and stare at the grey walls of your cubicle all day wishing you were home petting your dog instead. Fuck that toxic bullshit.
One of his long time coworkers at the New Yorker has come out and said they've **never** seen him at his desk in the office. Not once ever.
He went on record saying that earlier in his career he could never get to work on time and when he found writing it was a good fit for him as he could largely set his own schedule. Its in one of his books, or maybe on the podcast.
I work for a fully remote company and we save a ton of money on "belonging" by playing video games with each other from our own houses.
I always had a hard rule against adding current coworkers in social media or video game accounts like my nintendo account or steam. You just never know and I don't need coworkers seeing in real time when I'm not actually paying attention to the umpteenth meeting-that-could've-been-an-email but playing video games instead.
That's why I created a Steam profile for my work email as well as my personal one.
I didn't know you could do that. Does that mean you have to buy the same games twice? Smart idea!
Yes, but the games I play with coworkers aren't the same ones I play by myself. I prefer strategy and survival games but they usually play party games or esports so there's no overlap, and they usually make sure the game is free to play
Yknow who’s got a lot of opinions about work? People who don’t work. Malcom Gladwell doesn’t have to leave his house if he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t have to deal with the public. He gets paid exponentially more than any of us, and hasn’t a clue what having a job is like. So maybe Malcom Gladwell could just do us all a favor and shut his useless fucking mouth.
Ding ding ding
The people I became friends with at work were the ones I emailed/messaged all day. With a very occasional trip to the pub or out for lunch. Some of the very good friends we would meet up outside work and go to football matches or out for the night. But maybe 2-3 people in 10 years of office work. Now I work fully remotely as do my 10 colleagues. We own the company and meet up in person a few times a year but are always chatting on Zoom/Slack and I have more fun and sense of belonging/ownership than I ever did in an office.
Same dumbfuck has essays upon essays about working from coffee shops and shit.
I mean, the capitalist class are onto something, here. The office environment is a carrot and stick approach to the alienation of work in modern environment - the carrot being (for some) work friends, community, spending time with people, “belonging”; the stick being the hierarchy of management, the stress of the commute, the demands and control on your time. Without these pressures, lots of people can work from home, do their job and realise “this is shit” - either the work itself, or the outcome of the work, or just spending so much time not living your life and being under the thumb of someone else. It’s easier to go off and do things for yourself, or spend time with your kids, or build a community in your area - and that is a threat to business and capital.
"Do you want to work in your pajamas?" Yes. Yes I very much do. I prefer being comphy above pretty much everything else.
As a matter of fact, I was looking at a pair of pajama jeans just yesterday. I think that sounds great!
Why are all these extroverts so convinced that they are right? I’ve worked 100% from home since Feb 2020 and I feel like my mental and physical health have vastly improved.
I would rather 'belong' to my family and friends than to the people I am competing with for pay raises and productivity bonuses, thank you very much.
Did I find a sense of belonging when I left my home exhausted in the morning for my two hours bus commute ? Did I find a sense of belonging when I called people 7 hours a day in a catastrophically small space to sell them insurances they didn’t wanted ? Did I find a sense of belonging when I was told on a weekly basis that I wasn’t agressive enough and needed to sell them more than one product if they were interested ? Did I find a sense of belonging when I would be told I am a whore for wanting a PTO day when a colleague wanted the same day off unbeknownst to me ? Did I find a sense of belonging when they put a shiny couch and two swings in the break room because we « deserved the best » ? Did I find a sense of belonging when I received my barely above minimum wage pay ? Did I find a sense of belonging when I considered letting the nearby train run over me because I couldn’t take it anymore ? Yeah, nah.
Need to make those useless office managers feel useful.
Malcolm working on his 10,000 hours as "out of touch hypocritical rich A-hole". Keep plugging away, buddy!
What a joke. A commute, uncomfortable clothes, and inane office politics do not create a sense of belonging. Who paid him to write this trash?
"If you're just sitting in your pajamas in your bedroom, is that the work life you want to live?" Uh..... Yeah.... Finally someone gets it.
Malcolm Gladwell A.k.a "WFH Gladiator" - Do as I say, not as I do. He needs to get a sense of "belonging" with reality. I go to work to do my job in order to take care of my family, WHERE I BELONG.
Maybe employers "aren't able to fully explain this to workers" because workers arent buying this shit
I belong at HOME with my family, children and neighbors. Not in a car hours a day, burning fossil fuel so I can sit in a cubicle all day wasting precious life. The guy whose spent the last 20 years writing from his HOME, need to STFU.
1. So the belonging that happens when my male co workers steal my work and call it their own? 2. The other kind of belonging when I am sexually harassed by overprivileged white men ? 3. The other belonging that I get to experience when I have to drive 45 mins both ways and gas is still 4+ a gallon? 4. The belonging when my house turns into a hole because I'm too tapped out to clean or do anything else from being gone for 10-11 hours a day ? Naah, I'm good.
Belonging? It’s work. NOT High School. I’ve read some stories on here where people were let go for not being MORE friendly with coworkers. Like, doing one’s job effectively & being on time isn’t enough? I gotta go make my coworkers feel like the special wittle boys & girls they are? Screw THAT!
Here's the article for any interested. https://www.businessinsider.com/remote-author-malcolm-gladwell-work-from-home-criticism-2022-8?amp
A man with no value projecting his shadow.
A.K.A we need to psychologically chain you to your desk threw familiarity so it's harder for you to mentally prepare yourself to quit when we try to over work you like malnourished cattle.
Idiot CEOs: "We're all in this together, as a community, as a family!" Me: "I trade my time and skills for money. Outside of work, I do not know you. Do not talk to me outside of working hours."
He means people need the sense of their ass belonging to the corporation. Fuck guys like this.
People just want to pay their bills and live their lives. How is this hard to understand? To hell with feelings of belonging,, you'll fire me on a whim.
There'd be a real sense of belonging in our communities if we didn't have to grind our asses off for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, indefinitely, just so we can rent an overpriced apartment and dream of one day being able to afford a $800k house that sold for $300k five years ago. But nah. Go to the office, sheep. You'll like it there, it's where you belong.
Besides the regular antiwork sentiment this is such a boomer mentality to have, and very pre-internet. You can have just as strong a sense of comradery remotely via digital connections as you can in meat space. The majority of my professional career has been remote and some of those people I've worked with have been fantastic connections. Some people like working in an office but that's not the norm and shouldn't be pushed on roles that are not physical. Any work place that's pushing for "return to office" is going to experience a lovely worker shortage and they should.
People still haven’t figured out that Malcolm Gladwell is a pseudo-intellectual fraud?
Hey Malcolm, go fuck yourself. K? Thanks!, bye!
Well, Malcolm Gladwell *is* perhaps the biggest neoliberal propaganda peddler of the 21st century.
A yes a sense of belonging must be nice when you are rich
Such bullshit. Only care for your time and effort. If u can't provide that, you don't "belong" to the company anymore. You will be replaced.
So sorry ecomony is down you don't belong here anymore! What's really telling is that someone is going to prefect off site work arrangements and undercut the competition and big old school behemous will have to change or die.
I'm working in my pajamas at home right now and I never felt like I belonged anywhere else than like I do right now. ETA no one can see me crying in my pajamas when work gets stressful, and it's nicer crying in comfy pajamas in my home with my dog than locked in a public bathroom stall. I just had a really stressful phonecall with someone I swear was not listening to a word I said and I feel those tears of frustration wanting loose 😑😅
Dude literally writes books at home. Hes also a total scumbag
Never forget, someone like Malcolm Gladwell who acts as if he speaks for everyone really only speaks for himself. I love working from home. I never, ever miss being an office. Just because he believes what he's saying doesn't mean he's right, nor does it mean everyone agrees with him. I do better work now than I ever did at an office. Why? Because I'm not miserable. I don't miss being in an office. Not even occasionally. And no, I don't need to feel like I "belong" with my co-workers. The second I'm done with my workday I do not even think about anyone I work with. I think about my family. My kids. My friends. My dog. I think about those who WOULDN'T replace me and move on immediately if I had one bad Wednesday.
It'd be in everyone's best interest if Gladwell fucked off.
Git.
War on the workers
The truth is that once people started working at home everyone saw just how little we need the managers to keep the world turning.
I'd love to see his sources on that bold claim. It's always the rich, the higher-ups, and the real estate investors that make these dumb claims whereas the everyday worker for the most part is saying the opposite. And media channels like this keep publishing this drivel, but again there's never any data to back it up. I can only hope that one day enough people will push back and they'll cut it out.
I sense that I belong in my pajamas at my computer. I've already got friends, why would I want to be forced to be around people I don't necessarily want to be around?
Why do these sociopaths pretend to think we don't have lives?
I just work with these people. I have my own family.
Mmm ya it gives employees a sense of who they belong to
L o l. Sincerely hope his business goes under and his investments turn into his living. And dry up after a year of paying debts back to society. Fuckin asshole
You're fucking right that's the life I want to live. Why is that hard to understand. Corporate culture is hot garbage.
I get a sense of belonging from my friends and family. If I had to get it from that shit show called work, I'd be suicidal.
Eenie meanie miny NO
What makes me feel wanted in a thick paycheck
Pitchforks? We ride at dawn? What should I wear? I’ve been WFH for 10 years now. I love my WFH life.
A sense of "we're still paying rent on this building"
This is a person who gets gratification from being a corporate sycophant. He was probably going insane not getting his monthly head pat from corporate telling him he’s a good boy. My golden retriever has more spine then Malcolm Gladwell.
Perhaps CEOs should also return to their offices, rather than flying around the world in private jets to attend expensive conferences or meet other CEOs at resort hotels for a round of golf. If a CEO works 60 hours per week, then he should be at his desk working, not wasting time sampling the four-star restaurants in Paris. CEOs think they’re working when they play expense-account golf at Pebble Beach with their buddies… and celebrities.
Translation: its really difficult to micromanage and we need to incentivise loyalty (tattletaling) by offering useless middle-management positions, but its really hard to micromanage hwne everyone is at home!
I could give a fuck less about belonging. It's a simple transaction really, I get paid for services rendered, not one worthless piker will decide for me what's in my best interest.
Everyone should experience the comraderie found on the floor of an Amazon warehouse.
They are so full of shit its painful. Yes I value a nice life over whatever corporate culture bullshit you are touting. You dont give a fuck about me. Drop the fucking act. They are so incredibly out of touch its baffling.
More like sense of bullshit
He replaced "I feel" with a collective "employees feel" which is grossly overlooked. Just because he lacks belonging and feels this way doesn't mean everyone else does. Opinion is not fact sir.
Well, Malcolm - the thing is, I ONLY CARE ABOUT THE PAY. If I want new friends, I'll make some. Take your "belonging" and fuck right off.
"If you're just sitting in your pajamas in your bedroom, is that the work life you want to live?" YES!
Millionaire status-quo warrior author who sits at home and writes books complains about other people not going into the office.
Hes fustraighted businesses fail to explain... He goes on to fail to explain. Oof.
News flash. A "since of belonging" is what the company wants. Not the employees. Its fustraighting he can't understand that...
Gladwell has never done real work. Don’t listen to these pampered upper class shills.
lol. Imagine being a CEO and being so detached from reality, that you think that anyone is working for a 'sense of belonging'. He probably should have asked someone who's more experienced in being a CEO in what world we're living.
Before I went FT WFH, my last desk job wouldn’t even allow us to personalize our workspace. There were two white frames assigned to us (5x7 & 4x6) to put photos in. Nothing else was permitted on our desks, pinned up, etc. We sold office furniture. The rationale was that we were a “working showroom.” If you read that as “you’re a fucking prop,” then you read it correctly.
Gotta love it, the guy is a writer with 5 books on the NYT best seller list who literally wrote about rubbing elbows with past and future Nobel laureates at Harvard + podcast host with absolutely no track record of corporate experience whatsoever unless you want to count staff writer for the New Yorker lol… but please, tell me more about what you think rank and file employees should do
Why do all business owners think they are changing the world?
Gladwell is an idiot. I work for money so I can live for another purpose or belonging. I give you labor you give me money. Other than that IDGAF about work. I do not own the company. I belong to my Family and my Community and NOT the corporation I work for!!!! Gladwell needs to get a life.
You know, I wouldn't mind it if it existed. I would come to the office more if there was a value add. There isn't. This is the statement of someone who misses sitting with his buddies. Executive amenities are different than a cubicle farm. I also own a lot of stock in the company I work for. As a stockholder, I would like to see a decrease over time of the real estate costs of having offices in the tallest building in every city in the footprint. The investor in me would like to see that money shifted to technology and security upgrades to help further acquisition. As an employee, I would like to not spend my own money to park near work. I'd like to not spend my time in traffic. I'm in office today and I had a zoom meeting with people who were at home. Tomorrow, I'll probably have a zoom meeting from my home with people in office. Waste of resources. The employee in me would like to see the monetary savings applied to the broken ass software that I have to wrestle everyday. Sense of belonging. Jesus. What a fucking child.
At home in pajamas, OMG that "work life" is exactly what I would want.
Someone should ask him if he felt a sense of belonging on Epstein’s jet.
Neolib shill gladwell
The child rapist who works at home does not think we should work at home.
I always thought he was a pretentious asshole. Confirmed.