The Causey Consulting Podcast

Bonus Episode: The Cat's Out of the Bag!

August 08, 2022
The Causey Consulting Podcast
Bonus Episode: The Cat's Out of the Bag!
Show Notes Transcript

On August 5th, the NY Post published, "Malcolm Gladwell slams working from home: ‘What have you reduced your life to?’"

The very first line reads, "Author Malcolm Gladwell thinks that remote work is hurting society and that a recession will likely drive employees who are 'sitting in their pajamas' back into the office."

I've been warning you for months now that Corporate America would use an economic downturn to its own advantage, including a demand for RTO. Welp, now we're here.

Link I discuss in this episode:

https://nypost.com/2022/08/05/malcolm-gladwell-slams-working-from-home/amp/

Need more? Email me: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/contact-causey/

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Welcome to the Causey Consulting Podcast. You can find it online anytime at CauseyConsultingLLC.com. And now, here's your host, Sara Causey. Hello, hello. And thanks for tuning in. I wanted to hop on and record a quick bonus episode to say The cats out of the bag. Now, some of the things that I have been warning you about on this podcast, as well as over on Patreon and on my public blog are finally being revealed. It's like the curtain is being pulled back so that you can see the Wizard of Oz now. And there's times in life where being vindicated sucks. And this is one of them. On August 5, in the New York Post, there was an article titled Malcolm Gladwell slams working from home, what have you reduced your life to? Hmm. Now, there's a flurry of work from home hit pieces slash return to Office fluff pieces coming out. And this is another place where I'm going to sit back and say, No, weren't y'all. I'm orange, all this was coming. You know, corporate America hasn't exactly buried its thesis that it really and truly wants you to come on back to the office. And I'm going to read from this New York Post article now. Author Malcolm Gladwell thinks that remote work is hurting society, and that a recession will likely drive employees who are sitting in their pajamas back into the office and quote, I'm not even going to go any further than that, for the time being. Please, please understand, he says a recession will likely drive employees who are sitting in their pajamas back into the office. Have I not been saying that for quite some time now? Have I not been warning you that corporate America would use an economic downturn to its advantage and that would very much include RTO. That's what they wanted. Now we're here. Doesn't matter the nomenclature, okay. It doesn't matter if you want to call it an economic contraction, a downturn or recession, a depression, bacon, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airlines. Whatever you want to label this economic downturn as it really is inconsequential. If you thought that corporate America would not use it to its own advantage. I don't know what to tell you. If you thought that some of these individuals have just been sort of sitting on the sidelines waiting for a reason to tell everybody you better calm all that big Get your butt back in that seat in that cube farm in that digital pan Opticon. Or else if you didn't see this coming, where have you been? What content have you been consuming? Who have you been hanging out with? Where are you getting your news from? What's going on? And I'm being sincere. I'm not trying to be a jerk and asking you that question. I'm I'm asking you sincerely. Like, if you feel that you're behind the eight ball, it's way past time to wake up. The good news is you can wake up at any point. The bad news is you just might have more ketchup to play than people who have been aware for all this time. You'll continue to read from this New York Post article now. The best selling author of Blink and the tipping point grew emotional and shed tears, as he told the diary of a CEO podcast hosted by Steven Bartlett that people need to come into the office, in order to regain a sense of belonging and to feel part of something larger than themselves. It's very hard to feel necessary when you're physically disconnected. The Canadian writer said, as we face the battle that all organizations are facing now and getting people back into the office. It's really hard to explain this core psychological truth, which is we want you to have a feeling of belonging and to feel necessary. And quote. In a lot of these RTO fluff pieces slash work from home hit pieces, you're going to notice the trend here of these words like belonging unnecessary. One of the things that I will ask on a public blog post this week is Why do those things need to come from your job? What is this American or Western world fascination that we have with every flipping thing and your life being defined by your job? Why can a sense of belonging and a sense of feeling necessary not come existentially from who you are as a person? Whether you want to believe that's a gift from God and gift from nature, a gift from whatever? Why does your sense of belonging and necessity have to come from your job? Why? Why can it not come from your family, your friends, if you're religious or not religious? I mean there are groups and social gatherings for atheists. Why can your sense of belonging and feeling necessary not come from things of that nature? Why does it have to come from a j ob? Isn't that curious? Do you not find that a bit disturbing? Because I do. I'll continue to read. It's not in your best interest to work from home. He said, I know it's a hassle to come into the office. But if you're just sitting in your pajamas in your bedroom, is that the work life that you want to live? Don't you want to feel part of something? Glad will add it. I'm really getting very frustrated with the inability of people in positions of leadership to explain this effectively to their employees. If we don't feel like we're part of something important. What's the point? He said? If it's just a paycheck, then it's like, what have you reduced your life to and quote, let me tell you something, buddy, boy, there are times in life when you have to work a J. OB, in order to get a salary and benefits because that's what you need in order to survive. Now I Okay. All right, I'm fixing to do it fixing to go into Michael Corleone, Mo and Connie drags up, Merle, I don't know, this author, I don't know what he lives on, it's not my place to make any judgments about him as a person. I'm strictly being critical of the content that I'm finding in this article by the New York Post. And, you know, I don't know if he's ever been working poor, I have. I don't know if he's ever been in a situation where he only had pennies left to his name. And that was it. I mean, I don't know. But when you're in that situation, and you need to work, you are living paycheck to paycheck. And in order to keep a roof over your head and food in your stomach you need to work, it may not be that you're living the dream and going to work may not be all about finding belonging and community and buying into the mission, it might be about being able to go to the grocery store, and feed yourself and your family, it may be being able to buy laundry soap or bath soap, you know, it feels really good after you've been outside digging in the dirt and sweating to come in and be able to take a shower soap. You know, sometimes we forget how important the basics are. Being able to turn on the faucet and have warm water come out and have a bar of soap to be able to get clean and wash the grime and the sweat off. Sometimes in life, the simple things can bring us a lot of joy. And I just find it arrogant and elitist for somebody to act like, well, if you're sitting at home in your pajamas and you're working on a laptop, then there's something just really beneath about all of that is not what do you want your work life to be like? Is that what you want it to be reduced to? And it's like, okay, all right. Sure. You know, I do think back to Gary stubble using the analogy of space dust, I have been critical before about these third party contingency based stepping agencies. Because so much of what you work on when you live that life. And I have been in the belly that beats let me tell you, I really have when, when so much of what you work on evaporates and turns into space dust, it is very frustrating. So I'm not saying that. exercises in futility can't be emotionally exhausting. After a while, if you're just putting up l after l after l you need a when you want to do something that actually comes to fruition that actually comes to completion. So I'm not trying to diminish any of that. I'm moreso being critical of this idea. This condescending in my opinion idea that if you're hanging out at the house in casual clothing, or pajamas and you're working on a laptop and you're not but in seat in an office, if we were on Patreon, I would have gotten a little bit more graphic there, I had to rein it back in. And I will turn this into a longer more fleshed out episode because I think that cult like tactics used in corporate America are becoming a lot more obvious, or at least they should be. So I want to do some whistleblowing on that. But it to me it's just condescending and arrogant to act like you know, if you want to work in casual clothing and be by yourself. You don't want to be bought into a mission. You don't want to come in and sit in a boardroom and be like one of us, one of us in a dress suit, then there's something wrong with you. There's something bad about that. Like, who the hell are you to make that judgment on anybody? Like, seriously, what what gives you the right to tell somebody who's perfectly happy working in jeans and a T shirt at the house that they're less than you? I'm gonna scroll down and keep reading. Gladwell is message would likely be well received by New York Mayor Eric Adams and San Francisco Mayor London breed leaders of two cities that were hardest hit by the Coronavirus pandemic. Both cities have urged workers and finance tech and other sectors to return to the office in order to support small businesses that rely on foot traffic. And quote, yeah, so aren't those two cities that have had a major mass exodus just saying continue to read Shake Shack. The fast food chain told investors that its sales missed Wall Street forecasts because the rate at which office workers are returning to their cubicles has slowed. While we will we well, it's your fault. You as the American worker, I'm about to mount fix and start singing pink houses again. It's a simple man, baby. It's gonna pay for the thrills and the bills and the pills and kill. It's your fault. It's your fault. It's your fault as the American worker that Shake Shack did not achieve its Wall Street forecast because you dirties SOPs did not go back into the cubicle. Who believes this? Who believes this? Oh, God, I'm getting a headache. All right. I'll continue to read Castle systems. The security company released a report which found that the Office occupancy in 10 major US metro areas, average 44% in the week, ending July 27. According to Bloomberg News. In San Francisco, an estimated 1/3 of the city's workforce is remote. City officials said that remote work costed $400 million in tax revenues last year. Wonder if that could be part of this bush. New York is second to San Francisco when it comes to Office vacancy rates earlier this year, Castle systems found that New York's office occupancy rate stood at just 36%. Tech companies and financial giants are hesitant to force employees back into the office for fear that workers could quit their jobs and favors in favor of others that offer more flexibility in quote, that will go on for a while. But I'm telling you, I'm telling you what he says right? What's what's put up there front and center. The first line of this article that a recession will likely drive employees who are sitting in their pajamas back into the office. People get ready. I think that's what's on the horizon. I really do. I really do. I think we're gonna see more companies become emboldened. You come on backers your job, but they're going to wait. That's the thing. They're not going to do it when we're getting these fluff piece job reports about unemployment. It's well, it's not 3.6% anymore. It's 3.5%. The recovery from the Coronavirus pandemic is complete, people are doing great. Now they're opening up more credit card accounts than ever household debt is at a high but you know, that's not a red flag. That's not a red flag because people still have jobs and so everything's fine. There. They're not going to just completely pull the curtain all the way back until things are really bad. I don't I that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. Like Dennis Miller has always said that you know that there's just my theories, just my opinions. I think what they will do is they'll wait until it's super obvious that unemployment is high. And then that's when it will be like the carrot and the stick. Right now. I think they're dangling the carrot in front of people. But soon, whenever it's revealed and unemployment is higher than what we've been letting on to y'all peons and plebs. Sorry about you, that's when we'll get the stick. That's when people will be told outright or to or it's your job, we don't care we don't care about your situation. Unemployment is high jobs are scarce there's a lot of competition for them so you know if you moment that salary and benefits then you're gonna have to come all back and all of this kind of glitter and veneer to me that's a lot of it is it's it's corporate cult speak that they're using as a veneer. Right now the belonging and the community and getting bought into the motion and all that all of that corporate cult speak is being used as a veneer. This is part of the carrot, come on back so you can belong. Come on back so you can have community come on back. So your meaningless little life will have purpose again by paying button seat in the office just going come on back. And then if you don't do it with the carrot, later on comes the stick. Can't give you advice. This is not advice of any kind. Just out here. Sometimes I feel like I'm on a desert island called common Cynthia. Called wake up wake up a Stan just just opining to staring at the wall opining for your entertainment. Stay say stay sane out there and I'll see in the next episode. If you want more. If you want a little bit more bang for your buck going over to Patreon put a couple of bucks in the kitty get you some uncensored information and have a great day. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you haven't already, please take a quick second to subscribe to this podcast and share it with your friends. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time.