> The longer we bemoan being forced to go to work in order to get paid, the more the rest of the population becomes convinced that the professional class is entitled and a bit spoiled.
I stopped caring about what random strangers think when I was in high school. The correct answer to this is to tell these random people who have no skin in the game to fuck off.
I think your answer basically proves his point that we are becoming a highly entitled group of people. We struggle to empathize with other workers and, I would say, companies and managers. We tell ourselves this very simplistic stories like "all managers are bad", "all office work is a waste of time", "I should just get tasks on my async proj manager tool". I am telling you, with this level of entitlement, just hope the tech industry keeps growing so the job market remains an employees' market.
But what is the point? If we can all agree that going to the office sucks, how is the "professional class" being forced back in the office make the other workers' day suck less?
I'd argue it's quite the opposite!
If I stay at home, I'm one less person compressing them in the metro, or helping gridlock the highways or taking up parking spaces (I live in the city where parking is scarce for pretty much everyone). If I can work remotely every day, I'm likely to leave my apartment in the city center and go live somewhere far away. That's one less person competing for housing.
We are also in the class that's driving housing prices up (via geographic arbitrage) and pricing out a lot of forced in-person workers (who actually live "far away" as you said, and not in the city center). And that does breed a lot of resentment.
So in some ways (i.e. housing prices), you working from home does directly make these people lives worse, as you are now their competition for real-estate.
> So in some ways (i.e. housing prices), you working from home does directly make these people lives worse, as you are now their competition for real-estate.
But if enough people like me move out from the city, there's a possibility that prices will go down in the cities, right? So that should help the people who need to be physically present at work.
Why is it when employees expect more it's "entitlement", but when managers do so it's just business as usual? Especially considering it's the employees creating the value.
I think it's fair to expect employees to exert the mental effort to empathize with the companies they work for when the companies show effort to do likewise.
Early in my career, a senior colleague used to reply to complaints with the simple statement "you only get the company/boss that you deserve".
By that, he meant that if you complained, you were always free to leave and find a better fit elsewhere. I learnt to appreciate that saying as I grew older.
If you think you deserve a better office space / coworkers / manager / CEO, then go look for it elsewhere. If you don't find it, then you are probably in the place you deserve, like it or not.
Yesterday morning I woke up and it was raining. I could hear that sloshing sound as cars streamed past outside carrying people to work and school. It's a sound I've hated for as long as I can remember because it means a miserable wet and grey morning with everyone seeming slightly depressed.
I didn't have to go outside that day, but I'll never forget how lucky I am and that other people still have to.
But what difference does it make? I can feel sorry for people all day but I can't stop the rain.
On the other hand, nobody listened to people like me who were saying open offices were bad for us and we can't concentrate properly in them. So much for empathy.
The real world is just high school with bigger stakes. You can "not care" all you want as long as you're quiet about it. But if you start badmouthing the bully or whining in class every day about not having enough time to eat lunch, you might improve things but there's a much higher chance it just turns out bad for you.
> The longer we bemoan being forced to go to work in order to get paid, the more the rest of the population becomes convinced that the professional class is entitled and a bit spoiled.
I stopped caring about what random strangers think when I was in high school. The correct answer to this is to tell these random people who have no skin in the game to fuck off.