You Want People to Come Into the Office… to Sit On Video Calls?

Companies are finding ways to destroy the COVID moment and its possible lessons for workplaces

You absolutely knew, in your soul, that companies would find a way to absolutely destroy the COVID moment and its possible lessons for workplaces, and that’s all now beginning to ratchet up into completely meaningless bullshit and misguided decision-making.

The first wave of travesty was “Everyone shall be WFH forever, if they can!” leading to “Well, we’re sorry you moved to Bozeman. Actually, we’re going to take back some of that salary too.” The second wave of travesty was all the stops and starts about returns and policies, though some of that travesty lies at the feet of local governments and their communication inefficiencies. The next wave of travesty is what the process of return looks like — and this process is well underway in some places, as I’ve seen stats that only 13% of Americans are still five days remote.

I recently rolled off — a fancy way of saying “I got piped!” — from a gig called Neuroleadership Institute, where the founder, God bless his soul, used to regularly show up 11 minutes late to a 50-minute call, harried as founders are, and launch into “what he’d be telling executives this week.” (The place did…