Plain English with Derek Thompson - Work in America Is Broken—Can Remote Work Save Us

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0:00

Today’s episode is about the remote work Revolution.

If you are familiar with myself at the Atlantic, you might know that this is one of my favorite topics in the world, the future of work.

0:15

I think my most read article ever was an essay.

I wrote on what I called work is MM.

The idea that in a time of declining, religion work for many Americans has replaced religion, like many of us used to look to God for meeting or church for Community or religious ritual for Transcendence, but now a lot of us seek out these things.

0:37

Meaning Community Transcendence.

From our jobs and our careers.

And this is a topic.

I’ve been thinking about a lot during the pandemic.

I know a lot of people for whom the last 18 months exploded, their workaholism, like, when the pandemic forced him to stay home.

0:55

They just kicked work off the pedestal they’d always wanted to move to Texas.

They were like, you know, I’m going to move to Texas or they spent more time with their family or they developed a hobby.

Like, I personally got back in a piano and I spent the last 18 months, torturing the Birds with very loud, very amateur Renditions of early Coldplay, but something else has happened.

1:15

Like, I like to say that the boundary between work and Leisure in this country is very leaky.

Like Leisure leaks into work, you’re watching Youtube at the office and work leaks into Leisure.

You’re checking your email at the beach like that is clearly gotten worse when you’re working from home all the time.

1:36

The work Leisure leak is just a full-on flood.

What’d your couch is where you watch TV, but it’s also where you do excel.

It’s where you play with your kids, but it’s also where you write memos and so without guardrails and boundaries work from home isn’t liberating.

It just transforms your home into an office place that happens to have a bed quote.

1:55

The Dark Truth of remote work, is it promises to liberate workers from the chains of the office.

But in practice, it capitalizes on the total collapse of work-life balance.

And That’s a line from a new wonderful and provocative book out of office by an Helen Peterson and Charlie worzel.

2:18

And that is the big question before us today is the remote work.

Revolution, a real Revolution, or is it a blip on the screen that will soon?

Throw us all back in a daily commutes or third option has something?

Stranger happened where millions of workers have removed the office from our lives, only to invite an even worse.

2:39

Relationship with work into their living rooms.

I’m Derek Thompson.

This is plain English.

3:09

Today’s guest is an Helen Peterson.

And Helen Peterson is a wonderful journalist.

And the author of the newsletter culture study.

She is the author of several books including can’t even how Millennials became the burnout generation and out of office.

3:25

The big problem and bigger promise of working from home.

And Alan Peterson.

Congratulations on the book, and welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much.

I am really happy to be here before we get into the book.

I think would be useful for people to hear about your story.

3:41

You have been at the frontier of the remote work movement for a while you move from Brooklyn to Montana in 2017.

So, before we get to the book itself, why did you move?

And what was that?

Like, for both of you?

So I’m going to rewind even more than that and say that before I was a journalist living in Brooklyn.

3:58

Lanai was an academic.

So anyone who’s been an academic knows that or grad school knows that you are kind of working from home.

Right?

Like you would just have control of your schedule in a way that is now familiar for a lot of people.

And that taught me how to work from home really well, but also taught me how to work all the time which came in handy when I became a journalist and just had no separation between work and life.

4:26

And also, you know, going from one precarious Institution.

Academia to another one of digital journalism, served me well, but at the same time it was just like a bird out machine.

And at some point in 2017.

4:41

This is post Trump election.

I just I also vividly remember the subway just like it.

Was that summer wear it, everywhere.

You went and took 90 minutes.

We were like, let’s try something different and I had gone to report in Montana.

4:58

Before that.

And I’m from Idaho.

And I just remember feeling like when I was in Montana, like everything is easier.

I feel really at home here.

This is the landscape.

I like of my heart to be cheesy and convinced my partner.

Charlie.

Where’s L?

Who at the time was still at BuzzFeed to see if we could convince her bosses.

5:18

And they said, yes, because you both are Workaholics.

They like had, no, there was no doubt in their minds that we would still produce if we change.

Scenery.

So, they gave us a the go-ahead to move to Montana and try to cover our beads from a slightly different location.

5:38

And once we were there, there’s this safe.

No one.

No one moves to miss a little work and what that means is that you moved to Missoula because you want to live in Missoula, like you want to live with the beauty, the Bounty of The Great Outdoors right there and working is just a means to be able to fund your time outside.

5:58

I’d and we moved to Montana to work, which is not a great idea.

Right?

So, like, here we are looking at like the beauty out, our Windows, while working all the time.

We’re traveling a ton to for work.

So, I think that when the pandemic hit, we had already experienced a lot of the difficulties of allowing work to spread into every corner of your life, but also had started to adopt some defenses against that and We sold the book and you know, this from writing a book like sometimes you sell a book and you have an idea for what it’s going to be and then it turns into something bigger weirder than what you imagined.

6:38

And that’s really what happened with us.

So let’s move so much.

Chronologically through this pre covet pandemic and then we’ll do some predictions about the future of work at the end, which are always fun.

And always accurate, fun fact, no one has ever been wrong, predicting the future of work.

So, let’s start with the office.

6:55

Give me your strongest critique of the modern.

Office.

I think the office is a place that has long favored.

People who are comfortable in the office, which is largely white dudes without caregiving responsibilities or the ability to offload.

7:12

Those caregiving responsibilities onto other people.

Also, people who are neurotypical and people who don’t experience micro aggressions in the office, people who like hanging out with other people, people who take implicit cues that Can read those really easily people who aren’t disabled.

7:31

They like it is a very, very clear, sort of person at the office privileges.

Whereas, I think there is this understanding that somehow, the office is neutral, right?

That, like, what we had before was, how things were.

And so returning to how things were is a neutral movement.

7:47

Whereas, actually it’s returning to, you know, a situation, a scenario in, which there was a finger on the lever for a certain type of individual, Charlie loves.

The office, tries, my co-author on this, like he really thrives in the office and he wrote a newsletter earlier this year about, like, oh, part of the reason I thrived in the office is because I’m a white, dude, who like that works.

8:10

Well with other white dudes, that like knows how to leverage those connections.

And so, I think that that’s, that’s my biggest critique, but I want to hear yours too.

What’s your biggest critique of the office?

I do miss the office to a certain extent.

I however, in listening to your identity checklist.

8:29

Check it out of those boxes.

I am white.

I’m a guy, I did a child care responsibilities at home and I’m relatively extroverted.

Like, one thing that I really miss is being able to chop up ideas with people when they’re right there.

I’m, I’m really, really bad at telecommunications.

Like, I’m bad at at phone calls.

I get distracted by the physical world to really brainstorm with someone.

8:48

I kind of feel like I have to be physically with them.

But I also hate commutes, you know, commutes are just discouraged.

They are bad thing environment.

They are bad for mental.

Health are just bad bad bad.

So I guess what I kind of wish is that I had a teleportation device that could just like, take me to the office and we could cut out the intermediary.

9:04

Step of writing in the subway.

I do is there, is there something that you missed about the office?

I do think I did like that teleportation aspect, right?

I’ve just been in a different space that isn’t your space and having that delineation between workspace and non-work space.

9:19

And I think the future of hybrid work and you and I think we agree on this, is that it’s not like home.

Like I’m podcasting you.

Bedroom right now, so it’s not Home Spaces or office spaces and there’s nothing in between.

9:35

I think we still haven’t tapped the potential for third spaces and a so much of that has to do with really obstinate real estate Lisa’s, right?

Like people like trying to hold on to this idea that like the office is going to go back how it was before but also just covid precautions.

9:50

Like a lot of people are not comfortable going to a space and sitting there for eight hours on Mast, right?

And if so, that’s your option.

Ian and you’re like, okay, I could go to a third space where I could just stay in my house and not where I’m asked all day.

You’re going to stay home.

So that to me is like, you know, I miss different like a change of landscape.

10:11

A change of scenery that allows me to also feel like I have an end to my day and I’ve written a lot too about how there are different ways that you can do that.

You can create these on and off ramps off of your workday, but they take intention and deliberation.

Whereas like the commute was this defacto on and off ramp.

10:29

Actually, for most people was not even an on-and-off.

A particularly if you’re commuting by Subway or bus like you’re checking emails on your phone.

You were still working.

And also, you got home and like, did whatever thing you had to do at your house and then you probably worked some more so it wasn’t a clear delineation.

10:47

Any anyway, yeah.

So you start writing this book and the pandemic is in full effect.

Its 2020 you reaching out to people to understand their remote work experiences.

So, what were you hearing last year?

What surprised you about the way that people who were forced into the remote work experience?

11:06

We’re going through it.

Well, this is the difficult thing about writing a book that is about remote work for people who started during the pandemic because there’s really hard, you know, most people I knew had very difficult child care situations that made life difficult.

11:24

They were stuck in small apartments alongside their coat, like their Partners who are also working from home or they felt like they didn’t have this great space if they were living with roommates.

They’re terrified.

Like this is the first part of the book is like Whatever you were doing over the past few years.

11:39

Like that’s not the future of working from home that was working from home under duress during a pandemic.

But also we heard from people who said it made me realize, just how little time I actually have to do my job every week.

Right?

Like, this is really dependent, I think on your industry because there are people who work in nonprofits and other sorts of organizations that are chronically understaffed where they actually need more hours than they are contracted to do.

12:08

Week to do their jobs right there, just overworked and understaffed.

And then there are people who are like, I could do my job in 30 hours a week, 20 hours a week, if I concentrated.

But instead I’m here pretending that I am online and available and doing my job for this, many hours.

12:28

Like I am live-action role-playing doing my job for performance sake, but really my deliverables, if I just look at what I’m responsible for, delivering that could take.

Take me half of what I’m prescribed to work.

Right?

You pointing out that if you if your actual job takes about 25 hours a week to do.

12:46

Then in a pre covid pre-pandemic commute environment.

You have to go in the office and basically stay there, eight hours a day, nine hours a day anyway, because your boss is there and your boss is evaluating whether you’re working not just by looking at the product at the end of the week, but by looking at whether or not your butts in the seat, but when everyone’s butt is in their own houses, then you can actually just do that work in 2025 hours.

13:08

And then take those 15 extra hours, you just one and apply it to whatever else, apply to a hobby, apply it to childcare, apply it to bingeing Netflix.

If that’s what you want to do, but it essentially disentangle.

Is this question of how much of work is LARPing, your job.

13:24

As you said, live-action role-playing, your job just being present at work to impress people versus actually producing something that is called work at the end of the day.

Well, this is where we get to this tension.

We’re like, I was on a podcast, I was six months ago, with a CEO who is making the case to go back into the office.

13:43

And I brought up that idea of just how much more efficient someone is when they’re working in this capacity.

Like you can do your job in this.

These fewer amount of hours.

And CEO was like, well, that workers still owes me, those hours that’s wage theft.

Right?

13:58

That like.

And I’m like, no.

It’s the same amount of work.

It’s just that actually, if anything, they will be doing their work better because They will be more rested and restored from these hours that they’re not actually working.

Right?

But he’s like, no, the employee owes me that time, that’s such a bizarre way to look at work.

14:19

Because with that, with that CEO is basically saying is, I’m paying you to not have leisure time.

I’m not paying you to do a job.

I’m paying you to not have Leisure.

It’s like that’s actually is a terrible reconceptualization, or unfortunately, conceptualization of what work is.

14:35

So in terms.

Of how we’re remote.

Work stands today latest figures.

I saw indicated that about 10 to 11 percent of workers are still mostly working from home.

And that might sound small to some people like, oh, that means 90% of Americans aren’t aren’t doing remote work right now, but my whole thing about remote work has always been that small phenomena can have large effects. 11 percent of the economy is equivalent to the entire Workforce of the state of New York.

15:04

That that is an important component.

And of the labor force, so, let’s start with the strong, you know, Pro case.

And you know, if you believe the caveats for for later in, just a second, but the strong Pro case.

What is the promise of remote work?

15:23

Well, this is what’s kind of controversial is that I think the promise of remote work is that you can decenter work as the primary axis of your life.

And this is what we argue in the book is that it matters because it will allow you.

To have other parts of your life to cultivate person, like your own personality or relationship with others, your care for your community, you know, I when I talk to people our age about like Hobbies investment in their communities, actual time to volunteer.

15:53

That seems like something that is impossible.

Hey, they are dedicated first and foremost to their job and secondarily to Parenting and parenting, contemporary parenting takes up a lot of time and effort.

So if that, but there’s more to ourselves into our lives, right?

16:09

Like this is kind of an existential question that I think a lot of us are grappling with, and this time, they’re just more there.

And so, how can we excavate some time to excavate ourselves right?

To make that argument that there’s more there?

And having a more flexible schedule that allows you to not only have the rest that allows you to think?

16:30

Like, what do I actually like to do?

Who am I, what are my interests other than parents?

And working but also then gives you the time to make those sorts of commitments.

It’s really important.

You have a line in the book.

Well, I should say, I love books that have a sentence that begins the thesis of this book is and right there.

16:51

It was in your introduction.

The thesis of this book is, so I’m just going to read this this half paragraph because it’s a lovely encapsulation of what is a lovely Book quote, the thesis of This Book Is that remote work not remote work.

During a pandemic, not remote work.

During duress can change your life.

17:08

It can remove you from the wheel of constant productivity.

It can make you happy.

And healthier it can make your community healthier.

It can increase worker solidarity.

It can allow you to live the sort of life.

You pretend to live in your Instagram posts.

17:24

Liberating you to explore the non-work parts of your identity from actual hobbies and to from actual hobbies to Civic engagement.

This is a huge promise how much of fulfilling that promise is about something.

17:41

Our companies have to do.

Versus something we have to do like an interesting tension in something you just said is that, you know, you said I’m a workaholic right?

You love your work, but you also want remote work to dissenter work in your life.

18:01

But there’s a certain aspect of workaholism in which the worker his or herself is centering the work and has the power to Center the work.

So How much of the promise of the remote work Revolution?

18:17

As you see, it is about what, you know, companies and government have to, to have to do to change systems versus what we have to do to change our lives.

Great question, and it’s both, right?

Like, I think, in the United States, at least in our current moment, we have so much of the focus on who’s responsible for change focused on the individual.

18:42

Like, I even think about Like how people respond to politics, that they don’t like, is like vote, right?

Like make individual change.

Like what can you personally do to save the planet?

Recycle, like, individualized action is what you can control.

And I do think that a lot of people, whether we’re talking about, burnout workaholism, whatever, activity Behavior posture.

19:06

It’s it, it’s a personal, it’s a personal neuroses, right?

Like a lot of fun learning these ideas.

It Process.

It’s like, therapy.

I’m a learning them all the time.

It’s personal work.

It’s a personal project.

But at the same time, you have to have organizational buy-in societal buy-in to unlearn some of these ideologies as well.

19:29

Right?

So, and I think, this is where unions have been really handy in the past hand.

He’s like is not a strong enough word for what unions have been, but they like they mediate that process between the employer and the employee.

Joey.

So that it’s less about like we’re being nice to you or you know, it’s not about emotion and that capacity at all.

19:51

It’s like this is what it looks like to not exploit.

Our workers here, is this place.

This thing in place that is ensuring that that happens and absent Union activity which like they’re just the way that our labor laws are in place right now.

It is really hard to enact strong unions.

20:10

And you know, we make the argument that that should change, but if it And changed yet.

What can happen?

The organization itself can really put in things that are structural for all employees.

And like we, I have this kind of corny thing and a section of the book that I wrote about the difference between boundaries which are all about the person like the individual upholding, these boundaries between work and the rest of life and guard rails which Arc, you know, at least in the term?

20:43

Is of like a mountain pass out here in the west like they are federally maintained their organizationally maintained to protect everyone.

So like a boundary is like I personally don’t like to email past 8:00 p.m.

A guard rail.

That is upheld across the organization is no one should email past 8 p.m.

21:03

And if they do you delay sense.

So that no one is receiving an email past 8 p.m.

And also if you do it, it is not a chance to like prove that you were working harder than everyone else.

It’s actually something that we’re going to talk to you about because it is not our company culture, Connect the Dots here, because this is a really interesting point, but it’s not an obvious one unionization.

21:22

Mission might seem like a totally different phenomenon than remote work to people but you see them as intertwining.

How.

So actually think that, like part of what unions do first and foremost is underlined that the work that you’re doing is labor, right?

21:38

That like you’re not doing this because you want to be part of a family, you’re not doing it because you love your work but like you are a laborer and you deserve fair treatment under the law, right?

And that interlocks with This larger understanding of, like, my job is not my identity.

21:57

My job is something I do for pay.

It is important.

I value the work that I do, I value quality and precision and all these things that make me a good worker.

But like, I also deserve as a person to not be exploited, but sometimes it takes taking that step back from work as the primary axis of your life to understand that.

22:18

Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does.

We want laws and rules.

Guard rails.

As you call them that protect workers from overwork and exploitation and that is Paramount.

But we also need individuals to take responsibility for their lives.

We need individuals to be the author of the role of work in their lives and the emphasis in individuals is important because people are diverse.

22:41

We are different from each other.

We need different things.

That’s why our individual preferences are important.

Like, for example, remote work.

The introverts are, my life are loving this.

They’re like get me out of the office.

People are constant.

To pull me into never-ending dad jokes.

Thank God.

I can say home extroverts in my life.

22:58

Some of them at least are like breaking down the doors, the office building.

Like let me tell my dad jokes to a new audience.

Let me brainstorm with physical human beings.

Give me back my co-workers, but do you do this?

Do you think that your friends miss their co-workers or do they miss being around friends?

23:13

Right?

That’s a great question.

And it’s your right to suggest that the office is one Arrangement that we’re bringing people.

Who like talking to each other together but there’s lots of other arrangements to what they, what they miss.

23:30

Yeah, if I had to refine my statement, I would put it this way.

There are a lot of extra bits in my life.

That Miss a job that the office did.

Yeah, and it’s possible that there are other institutions or other places that could do that job, but because they work together for the same company.

23:49

They see the most efficient way to do that job as coming back.

Back to the office.

I’m wondering whether you’ve spoken to other people who, for whatever reason, have a psychological style, or work style life preference where they say, you know, remote work is just not working out for me, the way that it might be for other people.

24:12

Well, the first thing I would say is that there’s a lot of people, whatever.

I talk about these ideas.

I’ll get DMS from people who are like, I’m just really lonely.

And I really got it.

I think that that’s in part because the scenario that we’ve had over the last few years has been really lonely and the future, which is going to be more hybrid.

24:33

And if people are going to the office, it’s not going to be this like crappy worst.

Both work world’s scenario where they’re going at, they’re commuting in and then they’re sitting alone in their offices and zooming each other from Individual offices.

Like this bad for everyone, that there’s going to be the capacity to Work with friends and scenarios that really feel much more like going to the library when you’re in college, right?

24:58

That’s one of my favorite ways to work or going to third spaces with other people who are your employees, but are the actual people that you want to be around right or in adjacent Industries, which I think will actually promote the sort of cross-pollination.

That is so fetishized.

25:14

When we talk about actual office spaces, like the way to get ideas going isn’t necessarily to talk.

What is that your coworker who talked with all the The time, but maybe it’s to talk with like another person who’s doing a podcast, another person who’s doing work like for you and I as reporters, like, I love just running into random people who then tell me about how their office is going.

25:36

Right.

How they’re back to work scenario is going like those are the sorts of conversations that are really serendipitous and interesting for me, but then another thing, another group of people who I think are struggling with the hybrid schedule right now.

25:51

Even though it’s somewhat, how do I put this?

It is surprising is that, I know a lot of working moms who both need this word, this hybrid schedule right now or to stay in from home, but are also kind of going really, that’s about it, too.

26:11

Because Child Care is just not reliable or affordable yet.

And I don’t even just mean like full-time.

Childcare.

I’m talking about the fact that there’s a national Tell bus driver shortage.

So someone needs to drive their kid every single day at 3 p.m.

26:27

From the school to the Boys and Girls Club that sort of thing, right?

Like so they have to interrupt their day everyday for its chance, 20 minutes because that hasn’t become part of their flexible schedule yet, but they also like can’t imagine a way forward.

26:42

But what if they have to be in the office all day, how is the kid gonna get from one place to another?

Does this make sense like that?

Tension there, it absolutely does.

Yeah, it does.

And I you brought Couple things I want to should have put a pin in third spaces and adjacent industry is but I think we should talk about sort of the edge of the present here like the world.

26:58

That is emerging, which is the world of hybrid work.

I am concerned that hybrid work is going to be a bit of a disaster, a fixable disaster, but it is absolutely office.

Work was clean.

It had problems that it was clean.

27:15

What do you do?

You commute into the office?

And two-story remote work in a way, was clean the cause Us for it were horrific, but there was like a cleanliness to the decision to close down offices and push the entire knowledge economy to work from home hybrid.

27:31

I think it’s just going to be messy, messy.

Messy.

Tell me more about some of the problems that you’re already seeing in hybrid work and, and dig a little bit deeper into that wonderful piece that you wrote about worst of Both Worlds.

So I think one of the problems right now, with hybrid, as you have organizations, that are very focused on Making their offices.

27:54

Worthwhile, right there, like no one’s been in this office for a year and a half, you’re coming back in, I don’t care.

And then you have the employees who, for whatever reason, because of high risk people and their families because of Unwritten vaccinated kids.

So for whatever reason are like I still feel kind of unsafe in the office.

28:14

We’re all wearing mess.

We can’t be in a conference room together.

So we’re doing all of the crappy parts of the office and then all of the crappy part.

Zoom in work from home.

It’s really none of the benefits and all of the crap.

28:29

I also think the secondary thing that we’re seeing in that we’re going to see more of is massive step back, massive steps back in terms of gender equity in the workplace.

It’s so many women have dropped out of the workforce and are continuing to stay out of the workforce for precisely the reasons that we were just talking about in terms of child care.

28:49

And I think that without real intention, you’re going to see more women who are opting to work from home more in order to keep track of their various domestic responsibilities and caretaking responsibilities and more men who are like I’m out of here.

29:08

I’m going to the office and if you have managers, who still understand hard work primarily through the lens of presence.

Those men are going to the ppb, the people who are elevated, who get Choice projects, who are promoted.

29:25

And I think that that’s going to exacerbate the already existing step back that we’ve taken in terms of gender Equity.

Yeah.

I think I’ve used two points there, that are so important to emphasize.

Number one.

I think you’re right that there’s this.

There’s this worst of Both Worlds phenomenon where people are being asked to come into the office for the purpose of zooming from the office.

29:45

So you have the commute plus the Suboptimal experience of working and then also, you don’t want to companies to have an official hybrid policy.

Simultaneous, with an official, we’re going to promote people who are in the office, the most policy, right?

30:02

So it’s like the, the hierarchy is based on office presence, but there’s a general rule of hybrid worked like that.

Seems like frankly a sneaky way to accidentally not promote a lot of Mom’s, yes, or if you wanted purposely, not promote a lot of moms, but Like the outcome seems to me to be a lot of mom’s not getting promoted.

30:22

I want to ask about community community is a huge part of your book.

I know that you’re familiar with the Robert Putnam thesis, American sociologist, whose work, starting with the book.

Bowling alone has documented the decline of community in American Life.

30:37

He’s written that in the last half-century across the u.s.

We have declining Church attendance and Trust in government falling membership and chapter based associations, like bowling leagues, too.

Mining social trust.

And you know, when I think about, you know, what, what is he?

30:54

What is he talking about?

What is the word Community?

Actually mean the best definition I’ve ever heard?

Is that Community is where you keep showing up.

And for the first few Decades of the century, where most people in an age of declining Association, kept showing up was the office.

31:14

The office was like, the last Community standing.

Being in a graveyard of communities and now a lot of people are losing that and you can see this is a crisis or you can see it as an opportunity to build better spaces.

31:30

So I wonder what kind of better spaces if you’re - toward offices.

What kind of better spaces you and think we should start building.

So, I think one of the things that often happens when we think of community of our grandparents is, we think of these old fuddy-duddy.

31:47

Actions like the Elks club was the one of the big ones in my hometown or church or you know, the FFA like people were joiners, but they were things that feel very old and stayed to us.

I think like to make a stereotypical generalization of your potential audience like fantasy football is a form of community coming over to each others.

32:10

House to watch a football game is community, but often times when we are so obsessed with work, Work and it filters it into our weekend spaces, are nighttime spaces.

There’s less room to reserve for those sorts of those sorts of things.

32:26

Right?

And so whether that is a football game or making plans to actually hang out with people in your community and bringing around other randos that live in your neighborhood.

You’re like coming to the game at my house.

Like it’s a great low.

Pressure way to make the sort of low pressure connections that eventually turn into a safety net.

32:45

All right.

Of care and compassion.

There’s so many other different things.

You know, I live on a tiny Island.

Now on the coast of Washington where people have to rely on each other in the sort of way, and it’s been really revelatory for me.

You know, it’s actually part of the reason we made this move from Montana to here, was to practice, what we preach.

33:06

And so, part of that for me is showing up for kind of nerdy things.

Like, I’m going to the library association association meeting next Monday, at 4 p.m., And it’s got to be Kind of awkward at first and then they’re going to be like, oh, it’s so cool that someone under the age of 40 is here, but that’s the sort of thing that I never would have made the time for before eight.

33:30

I’ve been like, oh I need to work at that time.

All right, like, there’s always something that has to be done.

You can make excuses so readily to not participate to not make commitments.

But when your your schedule is more flexible, you can say, okay, you know, once a month at 4 p.m., I can do this thing once a week at 8, a.m.

33:51

I can block off his time on my calendar, to make the commitment to work at the food bank that I was going to before, but never felt like I could.

And so, I just gave money, right?

But are our actual presence, our actual person, like that is something that we can give of as well.

34:07

And when work isn’t the end, all, be all of our Lives.

It makes space for that.

Let’s say I’m a 30-year old worker, and I’ve been working mostly remote for the last 18 months.

And I am nearing a point or my firm is going to force me to go back into the office.

34:25

And I really, really don’t want to What do I do?

So first of all, your firm or your organization has already anticipated your request and if you really really don’t want to go back and your organization is pushing you back.

34:41

It might not be the right place for you.

And that’s okay, right?

You are allowed to change jobs.

Like we are not in a moment with office work in particular, where like the market is so tight, that like there’s no room to change.

Usually, you can start looking and that’s something that I feel like sometimes people never consider them.

34:58

Like they always are try to give advice on how to make a job work for you.

When maybe the relationship is.

So toxic, that you need to break up.

And then the other thing though, is if it is a relationship that you do want to make work and your manager is at least a human who is receptive.

35:17

Then you can have these conversations about like, look how productive I was.

Look how efficient.

Here’s some evidence of the quality of my work over the past two years.

When I was in this scenario, what’s a way that we can figure out what sort of work needs to be in person that demands presence and then that we can also figure out what sort of work is better, done alone efficient on my own time and Alan Peterson.

35:46

Thank you so much.

This is a real pleasure to talk with someone who is obsessed with this topic.

Like, I am indeed, very, very upset.

Great to talk to you and catch a ferry and be well.

Talk to you soon.

I Plain English with Derek.

Thompson is produced by Devon Mansi.

36:03

We will be back with our second episode.

This week.

On Friday.

We will see you then.