Sunday Night Special 3: What Golden Age??

Crossover from today's blog post: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2023/11/19/what-golden-age/

Where is this golden age? Where was the party? Were middle class, working class, and working poor people all having some Great Gatsby soiree for the last three years? I don't f**king think so!

Links:

https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2023/11/19/what-golden-age/

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/10/remote-work-and-return-to-office-whats-next-for-workers-and-bosses.html

https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2022/05/14/the-digital-panopticon/

https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2022/10/21/productivity-theater/

https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2023/05/19/if-you-like-wfh-lord-elon-thinks-youre-a-moral-reprobate/

https://slate.com/technology/2023/11/elon-musk-antisemitism-twitter-x-advertising.html

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/black-ibm.html?_r=1

https://thejobmarketjournal.com/f/its-all-about-control-always

https://theintercept.com/2023/09/23/tim-gurner-speech-unemployment/

Links where I can be found: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2023/01/30/updates-housekeeping/

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

Transcript

Welcome to the Causey Consulting Podcast. You can find us online anytime at CauseyConsultingLLC.com. And now, here's your host, Sara Causey.

Hello, Hello, and thanks for tuning in. I'm recording this Sunday night special as a crossover to a blog post that I published earlier today titled, What golden age? I'm doing this because some people are frequent tuner interests of the podcast, but they don't frequently read my blogs, and vice versa. And I felt like this message was something that I wanted to get out. It was something that I wanted to disseminate across platforms. I'm really frustrated and fed up with this narrative. Whether we're talking about Mitch McConnell, the turtle telling us that people were flush with cash, whether it's individuals that are taking old information, and trying to rehash it as new data, saying that all men are lazy. All men between the ages of 25 and 55 are dope heads. They're sleeping on a friend's couch, they're living in grandma's basement. They're playing video games, and they're smoking doobies and they are refusing to work. We've all had this golden age, everything has been peaches and cream, but naughty, naughty peons, you're gonna have to go back to the cube farm party times over. And I'm looking around. And I feel like Brad in Fast Times: I'm waiting for the fun to begin. Where the hell is this party been? Where the eff is this golden age? It reminds me of like, when you're at a party, or you're at a bar with an obnoxious friend, and they're like, poking you in the ribs with the elbow. And well, I mean, but hey, man, let's let's be honest, you haven't really worked as hard at home as you would in the cube farm. Right? I mean, come on, speak for yourself. I fully acknowledge that whenever the hole started, and people were sent home. Yes, there was the freakout factor. And there were people who thought it was going to be quite temporary, like a two week miniature vacation. Yes, there were people that went home and baked sourdough bread. There were people that went to Lowe's or Home Depot and decided, well, we're home. So let's finally fix that leaky faucet in the bathroom. Let's finally plant a flower garden. Yes, there were people who did that. It's not everybody. And it's not for the entire length of the pandemic either. And I think to portray this notion, that middle class working class and working poor people have just had it so easy. They've been flushed with cash. They've just been sleeping on the job and watching Netflix all day and screwing off. But you know, it's time to pay the piper, it's time to come on back. I'm fed the hell up with that. I saw this article that was published on November the 10th on CNBC, and it's titled Why the golden age of remote work may be coming to an end. And like, well, first of all, no da, no, Sherlock. I have reported many times, both here on this podcast. And on my blogs, that remote work was not nearly as prolific as it was earlier in the it's just not. And when you post a job that's fully remote, God help you you're going to get thought rattled with applicants. And some of them will use the D word. Desperate, I am desperate to stay remote. You'll have people that make absolutely no sense for the Qualls, they have no relevant experience. They're just flat out not a match for what you're trying to find at all. Some of them will lie on their applications to get you to look at the resume and then you get there. And you're like, Well, you've clearly lied on your app to get me to look at this resume. Do you really think that that's going to engender any support for me? I mean, no, you've wasted my time and you've made me mad. But what it boils down to is you put a remote job posting up and people are desperate to stay remote. So I'm not I'm not making any qualms per se with the reporting. That remote work is coming to an end. Yeah, by and large it is. This is all news to me. If you're just now waking up to this reality, God help you because it's old news. But secondly, what golden age when people were sent home, because we thought we were all going to die. And you had people spraying Lysol on everything washing the outside of their groceries, having DoorDash put stuff on the porch To have totally contactless delivery, where was the party? Corporate America wanted to keep the wheels of progress turning dammit, they were not going to let white collar workers that could be sent home with a laptop to really have a two week paid vacation? No, hell no. You got handed your laptop. And potentially on top of that a company provided cell phone or some way to dial into a VoIP network. And you were told to keep going. You were you were told pretty clearly this is not a paid vacation. Yeah, you're getting to work from home, but you're still damn well expected to work. And we're going to be looking at your metrics. We're going to be observing performance. Yes, this is scary. Yes. unprecedented times. Yes. We know you're nervous. We know that people are upset. And if you do get the will Don't worry, you can keep your job. It's been mandated that we have to keep you here. So we're gonna do that. Don't worry about that. But in the meantime, work. Work dammit work. Like, where was this party? Where was this golden age? Like everybody was just how did the house like The Great Gatsby having big opulent parties and drinking champagne cocktails? Maybe the ultra high parolee wealthy people were doing that. But you know, normal middle class working class and working poor people were not. And let's don't forget, there were people who were not involved in white collar work, they couldn't be simply handed a laptop. And a company provided cell phone, all of which, by the way, full of spyware, full of tracking for them to make sure they observed every time you got up to take a pee break. There were people that didn't have that option. They were just told you're non essential. Go home. There's no paycheck. There's no severance, just good luck team. Well, we'll send you a small amount of STEMI money. And then later on Mitch McConnell will play pretend that the pittance of a STEMI you got is enough to like, I don't know build a leaning tower of Pisa for yourself. But good luck. Hope it works out. I'm sure that those people that had no job to go to, and the last did a hell of a lot longer than any two weeks to flatten the curve. I'm sure they would love to hear that when they were struggling and freaking the eff out. They were in a golden age. They were having one big party. Right. In this CNBC article we read remote work was thrust upon us basically by the pandemic said Nicholas bloom and L button and say he seems to be everywhere. This economist from Stanford, anytime that they want to stick a microphone in somebody's face to talk to them about remote work, I seem to find his name everywhere. I'll start over. remote work was thrust upon us basically by the pandemics and Nicholas Blum, professor of economics at Stanford University. Before the pandemic remote work was pretty rare. All managers and professionals were basically fully remote for much of 2020. And then it turned out it's worked really well in quote, yeah, here's the deal. I don't think that remote work was thrust upon the general public. I don't know a lot of people that sat back and said, dammit, dammit, straight to hell, I don't want to take a laptop and go home in the face of some global death, flu.

I think remote work was more so thrust upon corporate America. I think for them, it was the path of least resistance to send you home with a company furnished laptop and a cell phone absolutely loaded with spyware so that they can monitor every effing thing you did at the house the whole time, rather than try to go against governmental stay at home orders. Now, I'm not going to say there weren't bosses who tried to do that. There were bosses who tried to do that. It's just by and large, most of corporate America said, Fine, we'll we'll play this game with our politician cronies. We'll send you a laptop and company provided cell phone and tell you to just stay home and make sure that you continue to work, because we're not going to be at such obvious tension. It's such obvious loggerheads with the government. Let's just be real about that and call it what it is. I don't think that remote work was basically thrust upon John and Jane Q Public and they really had some objection to it. I think it was thrust upon corporate America. And I think they went along with it because it was the path of least resistance. Also from the same CNBC article we read, finding fully remote work is getting challenging new research from indeed found that job postings are declining faster in metropolitan areas where many jobs can be done remotely. Some of the pushback remote work is driven by concerns about productivity sent Cory Ken tinga, Senior Economist at LinkedIn, there have been some experimental studies that show that there are some productivity The impacts potentially from remote work. But those studies are also experiments, right? It's unclear how they apply to the broader labor force, unquote. And productivity has nothing to do with it. It never has. I have written about this in my blogs I've talked about on this podcast many times, things like the digital pan Opticon. It's all about control, compliance and obedience. Yes, surveillance is a part of that, which is why they want to load this company provided technology with a shitload of spyware so that they know exactly what you're doing at all times. I don't give you advice, and I don't tell you what to do. I have written before that, in my opinion, if you freelance if you own and operate your own business, use your own tech, do not accept a damn bit of tech from a client, don't do it, you have no idea what in the hell they have put on that. You don't know if they're gonna watch what you did. And then ask somebody else who works for a third of what you do to try to duplicate it. Not to say that they successfully could or would, but I'm just saying you don't know what kind of shady crap could be going on. They could be listening to everything that you say, watching every time you get up to urinate and the toilet, no, just No, if you manage to escape the cube farm, you don't want to bring that same toxic toxic environment back into your own home office. Just just my Food For Thought you have to make your own decisions. But that's my opinion on the matter. If you do work for somebody else, and you're in a situation where you have to take their laptop, you have to take their cell phone, I would not ever for 10 seconds assume that they were not using it as a tool of surveillance. I would not do or say anything on that laptop or on that cell phone or even in the same room with that equipment. Even if it's turned off. Remember the things that Snowden told us. Even if this technology is turned off, and the batteries taken out, there are certain powers that can access it to do whatever the hell they want. I myself would not do or say anything on that technology or even in the same room with that technology that could potentially get me fired. No way. There's it's just too risky. Nor would I have it in a sensitive area like a bedroom or a bathroom. No way. Absolutely no way. No way. But the other key component here is obedience. Yes, surveillance is a part of it. That's one reason why they want to drive you back into the cube farm. Get your button here, your sales manager, your boss, the CEO, whoever, whoever it is that you report to, can more easily corral all of you. And plus, they just enjoy seeing the peons, doing what they're told to do. Obedience, it's about obedience. Are you going to go along to get along? Or are you going to be a problem? How? If we order you to come back? Are you going to do it? Are you going to play the corporate pantomime and do the productivity theater and judge up our egos? Or are you going to pee in our Cheerios? Like what are you going to do? And in a blog post from October of 2022, that I call it productivity theater. I wrote, in my opinion, the digital presenteeism and the JESUS IS COMING look busy mentality is what these crappy bosses want. Why? Because if you are joining a Zoom meeting that you know will be worthless and you're jumping through silly hoops online to prove yourself you are being obedient. I've said it more times than I can count. There are companies who value that compliance more than anything. They want control and surveillance, periodic data. Trying to make the argument to those types, regardless of how well made and well reasoned it is that you don't need to be present in a meeting that has nothing to do with your job. Or your job will not go well. They don't care. They want your butt in that seat or your face on that camera because it's what you were told to do. Period. Over on the job market journal on October 3, I published a blog post titled it's all about control, always. And in that post, I quote from an article published on the intercept on September 23. I'll drop a link to both. From the intercept we read. Tim Garner, an Australian real estate Titan and multimillionaire made international news last week by being recklessly honest about his desire for unemployment to spike and regular workers to suffer. Girnar has been understandably condemned for this across the globe and has now issued a week vague apology. What truly deserves attention is why Governor feels the way he does and how it's precisely explained in an essay written in 1943 titled political aspects of full employment in IT polish economist To me, Shah kaliki Me hold me I'm trying to think and polish. Just I'll just say Michael collecting argued that government spending could ensure a permanent economic boom with both low employment and increased business profits. Crucially, however, Cholesky predicted that business executives would hate having what everyone else sees as a good economy because it would allow regular people to be less subservient to them. For the business class, no amount of money can replace the daily joy of watching your inferiors grovel when in your presence and quote, that's it right there. That is it. It's not about productivity. As I have told you many, many times it's about compliance control obedience, do what you are told, period. I feel like some of this gaslighting of the suppose a golden age Hey, you guys have been having too much fun at the house. You've been using those robotic mouse clicker things and going to sleep and watching Netflix. You've been bragging about working multiple jobs, on your Snapchat and your tick tock. Now it's time to pay the piper and go back. Not it's headache inducing? Are there people who have done those things? Or those people who have used one of those automatic? Mouse whatever you call them mouse jiggly things? Yeah, sure. There have been. Are there people who have gotten two or three full time jobs and just sat at a large desk with those laptops open trying to play job? Ping pong? I'm sure there are is that the majority of people in white collar work? Isn't a majority of people that are middle class working class working poor? No. I don't freaking think so. When you think about like trying to raise a family, trying to work one job, who the eff has the time to have three or four full time jobs spread out in front of them and carry on some deception. Not everybody has that. And not everybody has the desire to do that. I think some of the people who did succumb to that temptation, they needed the money for one thing, and for another they were pissed off with the system and I don't blame them for being aggravated with the system. It's not rigged in favor of us. Also in the CNBC article, as the world began to open up, though, corporate America shifted its stance on remote work. Some companies have even threatened to fire workers who don't return to the office for a certain number of days. The laptop classes living in la la land, Tesla CEO Elon Musk told CNBC David Faber in a sit down interview in May 2023. It's messed up to assume that they have to go to work but you don't. It's not just a productivity issue. It's morally wrong in quote, a lot, a lot to unpack there. I really wish that we would quit giving Lord Elon any attention at all. I cannot stand this guy. I would not trust Him as far as I could throw him. And yet he's just always a talking point. Good, bad or indifferent. He's just always there like some ubiquitous plague. But let's Okay, let's let's think about this. It's messed up to assume somebody else has to go to work, but you don't.

Presumably, what he's talking about there is it's messed up to assume that other people have to go sit in an office, but you don't. But if we take it at face value, he's saying, You don't have to work. You just sit at home. And you don't work. Well. Other people do have to go to work. It's not just a productivity issue. It's morally wrong. So this individual who was photographed with GE is Elaine Maxwell, and who has been subpoenaed in the temporary Epstein banking case, thinks you are a moral reprobate, if you want to continue working from home post pandemic. That guy? Yeah. And then in the news, of course, recently, because again, we can't stop talking about this jackass. He's happy to endorse bigotry. I'll drop a link to all of that. I'm not going to get into all of it here how he liked some tweet and added a reply that was anti semitic. And I'm like, Okay, wait a minute. This guy is giving me a lecture. I'm not an anti Semite. I've never been photographed with Jesus lane, and I have no dealings whatsoever with Jeffrey Epstein. This guy wants to tell me that I'm some moral reprobate because I like to work remotely. First of all, if you just you can just f ride off guy. But then secondly, you want to put a chip in my brain. You can go straight to hell. Don't Don't pass go don't collect too. under dollars just go straight on the hill. I just No, just No, I don't want anything to do with somebody that's even on the fringes, even if they're just biting on the fringes of Nazi ideology. I want nothing to do with you that that line of thinking is so destructive. It's so diabolical, it just it just ruins people. It really does. It's is it terrible, terrible ideology. And then, you know, to just further cement the fact that we're living in a freaking clown world, IBM pulls its advertising on AIX. And I'm like, Well, where was their outrage during Hitler's reign, you know, go and read the book, IBM and the Holocaust. The author himself said, it's a difficult book to read, because it was a difficult book to write. People need to know these things, they absolutely need to know these things. So I'm like, you'll have to just excuse me, if I choose to not give a flying F about what some bigoted billionaire with a god complex has to say about work from home versus RTO, I don't give a damn. In my mind, if if somebody is trying to tell you, on the one hand, that remote work is going to last forever, there's going to be some big nationwide strike against RTO. And it's going to succeed, or you have some billionaire knob head, who's trying to convince you that you're just an awful moral reprobate, if you like working from home. And everybody needs to go back, whatever, whatever we are dwelling in in those extremes, just proceed with caution. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, you will have some people who continue to work remotely. And I think a lot of those people will be individuals who worked remotely before the pandemic, I'm already seeing that. You'll have some people that are working for companies that have just said, Look remote works best for us. We want to keep this going. I think that that will be the minority. I think hybrid work and then just a full Monday through Friday. RTO is the way of the future. You have these mayors saying that they want people to go back downtown, to cross pollinate. It's not right to just be in your pajamas at home all day. That's not a real life. You need to be spending the tax dollars because if you don't, little kids and low ladies will suffer because the social programs are not getting there Do I mean they're going to guilt trip you any way that they can, you're gonna have to get back in the cube. That's what they want you to do. But for me, this idea that we've all been in some big party for the past three years, people have been living in a golden age. No effing way. No way. I think back to when I read Alyssa Cortes book squeeze, why our families can't afford America. She published that book in 2018. That's long before that, and the proliferation of remote work. There are people who never recovered from the Great Recession. And there are people that weren't doing well, even when Orange Man was in office, even when he was up there touting his record highs of the stock market and people are doing great. And the economy is on this massive upswing. There were still people who were not doing well. You can't imagine that people who weren't doing well then are somehow miraculously doing well now, in the face of all of this inflation and higher levels of unemployment. I just don't I can't make that make sense. For me. It's not partisan. It's not about Orange Man versus senile old man. It's not about donkey versus elephant or red versus blue. It all boils down to these politicians mercilessly screw us. They the system of crony capitalism that we have is not rigged in favor of John and Jane Q Public. It just isn't. So I think this idea of it's been the pandemic was one big party, you know, also offensive to me, as someone who dealt with the ramifications of the long and subsequent heart problems. It hasn't been one big freakin party. It's been a nightmare. You know, there are people that say I can't even remember if something happened in 2020 21 or 22. The past three years have been such a blur. It's like a blender of activity. When was this when was that? It's been a weird freakin time. And so to posit this notion, and it's been a golden age. We've all had it so good people that got sent home with a laptop. They just got to sleep all day. There are lazy people. Indeed. Of course, there are people who did take a laptop open Get up and go to sleep. And they're the same people that when they get back into cube farm, they'll be lazy as hell when they come back to an office to, you're always going to have some people that are going to behave that way. But to say that that's the majority of people I think is very unfair. And to make any kind of accusation that everybody's been at home sleeping, everybody's been having a party, and it's all been great in a time of a complete and utter shitstorm. I just find that so incredibly ridiculous. Honestly, for me, it's so ridiculous, it's offensive. Stay safe, stay sane. And I will see you in the next episode. 

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