There’s more to work than the work

Since the end of pandemic lockdowns, working from home (wfh) has become the next battleground between employers and employees. I so appreciate the flexibility wfh gives to those with care responsibilities and took advantage of it this week myself. But the office needs to exist too.    

A head of big business didn’t convince me, like the JP Morgan Chase CEO who in February sprayed at Gen Z workers he couldn’t get hold of on Fridays. Or hopeful PM Peter Dutton, who wants public servants back in the office full-time, or at least back to when wfh was the exception rather than the rule.  

It was Michael Schur, the guy behind workplace comedies Parks and Recreation and the American version of The Office. Without the office, he says, “there will be one less place on Earth where we have to negotiate with people we didn’t choose to negotiate with”. 

Schur nails the mixed bag of humanity the workplace creates. “Work family” might be naff corporatespeak, or a red flag for blurred boundaries between home and work, but it correctly identifies that, like family, none of us really choose our co-workers.  

Colleagues might expect shared interest in the work. But even with that common ground everyone is still a pain to work with.  

We have an “incurvatus in se” problem: we’re habitually curved inward on ourselves, preoccupied with our own needs and agendas, even as we’re working towards shared goals.  

Working remotely is great for deep work, but it also potentially amplifies the incurvatus in se issue, because it makes accidental collaborations harder and rules out random conversations while waiting your turn at the microwave. Office life suggests there’s more to work than the work, and something significant is lost when we figure we can go it alone without everyone else. 

This Thinking Out Loud was first published on Facebook.