A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.
rule #1: be kind
Of course it does!
When I get a complaint email I can yell at Myles to go fuck himself with a toilet brush, all whole sitting in my favourite chair and Myles will still wish me a good evening at the end of the work day.
What's not to like?
That's why they want to put a stop to it. You're not allowed to be happy.
A hard truth is that if you see an executive pushing return to office, you know one of two things about them. One of the following is true.
They are terrible at finance and don't understand the sunk-cost fallacy. They have to keep using that building they bought; they've spent so much on it and simply can't bring themselves to sell it.
They're a sexual molester. They're someone that uses the power of their position to coerce sex out of their employees. Fucking their employees is their primary motivation for not retiring early right now. You can't coerce your secretary to give you a blowjob over Zoom.
That's really it. They're either bad at business or they're a sexual predator. If you see an executive pushing return to office, be sure to ask them which one of these they are. Because they're definitely one or the other.
So
Honestly I think your first point is just a subset of something larger and even more basic - "we've always done it this way. Change is scawwy. Different bad. Are you implying I was wrong before?" Etc.
I propose that the mods should take this post down, or at least point to the original post, that cmu.fr has obviously plagiarized.
Here is what seems to be the original post: https://indiandefencereview.com/theyve-observed-teleworking-for-four-years-and-reached-one-clear-conclusion-working-from-home-makes-us-happier/
The big difference is that the original article actually points to the study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35379616/ where as the cmu.fr plagiarized version makes no reference whatsoever to the study. Just vague slop about "scientists".
That said, I think that even the original article miscaracterizes the paper. Here is the paper abstract:
Objectives: To investigate the impacts, on mental and physical health, of a mandatory shift to working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design: Cross sectional, online survey.
Setting: Online survey was conducted from September 2020 to November 2020 in the general population.
Participants: Australian residents working from home for at least 2 days a week at some time in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Main outcome measures: Demographics, caring responsibilities, working from home arrangements, work-related technology, work-family interface, psychosocial and physical working conditions, and reported stress and musculoskeletal pain.
Results: 924 Australians responded to the online questionnaire. Respondents were mostly women (75.5%) based in Victoria (83.7%) and employed in the education and training and healthcare sectors. Approximately 70% of respondents worked five or more days from home, with only 60% having a dedicated workstation in an uninterrupted space. Over 70% of all respondents reported experiencing musculoskeletal pain or discomfort. Gendered differences were observed; men reported higher levels of family to work conflict (3.16±1.52 to 2.94±1.59, p=0.031), and lower levels of recognition for their work (3.75±1.03 to 3.96±1.06, p=0.004), compared with women. For women, stress (2.94±0.92 to 2.66±0.88, p<0.001) and neck/shoulder pain (4.50±2.90 to 3.51±2.84, p<0.001) were higher than men and they also reported more concerns about their job security than men (3.01±1.33 to 2.78±1.40, p=0.043).
Conclusions: Preliminary evidence from the current study suggests that working from home may impact employees' physical and mental health, and that this impact is likely to be gendered. Although further analysis is required, these data provide insights into further research opportunities needed to assist employers in optimising working from home conditions and reduce the potential negative physical and mental health impacts on their employees.
Keywords: COVID-19; mental health; risk management.
So, long story short: this article is slop, copied from another piece of slop that mischaracterized a study. Overall: meh.
With that, survey data are some of the poorest quality data.
Well, it makes most of us happier. There was a minority of people who were very unhappy about remote working and who were eager for everyone to be forced back into the office. Not me, but there were some people.
I must say I am happiest with hybrid. As someone living alone I start to chew the furniture with my work happening in the same space as my leisure. I do love the flexibility, the fact that I can literally just make lunch and eat it rather than dealing with a wet lunchbox sandwich. But I do like to see other people, and an entirely remote lifestyle makes me go a little crazy
Too bad that happiness is banned in the USA..
To be fair the pursuit of happiness in and of itself is an uncatchable carrot used to push the capitalist agenda. Happy moments are like sprinkles on a doughnut, few and far between. Contentment is what we should really be shooting for.
Happiness breeds self esteem, self esteem breeds confidence, confidence breeds learning. Education, confidence, self esteem, and happiness are all antithetical to fear and obedience. We're much easier to rule if we're stressed out. Plus, the real reason for return to office is real estate value. It has nothing to do with worker morale or productivity.
What a silly thing to say. It's merely prohibitively expensive. I mean, reasonably priced and readily available for those that deserve it.