Latest / Presented by Speaking Human / #197: Work from Work Forever?

Transcript

#197: Work from Work Forever? · Presented by Speaking Human

0:00
Speaker 1: Specking Human.
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Speaker 2: Today, on Speaking Human, we clock in to explore the
0:09
Speaker 2: great office Exodus reversal, where companies are trading zoom backgrounds
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Speaker 2: for actual backgrounds and gen Z is surprisingly leading the
0:19
Speaker 2: charge back to cubicle life.
0:24
Speaker 1: Speaking Human.
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Speaker 3: Welcome to Speaking Human, where we simplify the world of
0:35
Speaker 3: marketing for humans. I'm Shad Calmly and with me as
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Speaker 3: my co host Patrick Jebber. How's it going out there, Patrick.
0:44
Speaker 2: Everything's great working from home right now? You're working from
0:49
Speaker 2: home right now?
0:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, not me cubical.
0:52
Speaker 2: Some might argue that we're just playing, we're not really
0:56
Speaker 2: working when we're on the podcast, but I'd like to say,
0:58
Speaker 2: you know, find some thing that you love and you
1:01
Speaker 2: never have to work a day and you laugh.
1:04
Speaker 3: Exactly what I was thinking. I was actually thinking, is
1:08
Speaker 3: it all just one big cubicle?
1:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a that's an interesting concept to ponder.
1:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like the matrix. We're all just stuck in
1:20
Speaker 3: the large cubicle. We think we're free.
1:23
Speaker 2: What if Earth really was just like we're not on
1:26
Speaker 2: like a sphere, We're in a cubicle.
1:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's a bunch of other Earth like cubicles.
1:35
Speaker 3: You know, there's like twenty of them in this just
1:38
Speaker 3: one office.
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Speaker 2: That would make a lot of sense, because sometimes I
1:41
Speaker 2: do feel like life is work, you know what I mean?
1:44
Speaker 2: Just life?
1:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, I bet you. The boss is also.
1:47
Speaker 2: Like, oh god, Earth again with the Earth? Why are
1:51
Speaker 2: they always so obnoxious?
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Speaker 3: Everybody else does what they have to do, and then there's.
1:56
Speaker 2: Earth always trying to be round in a square cubicle.
2:05
Speaker 3: It's the story of Earth's laugh.
2:07
Speaker 2: I know we're talking about work from home today a
2:11
Speaker 2: little other since we you know, you did click on
2:14
Speaker 2: this work from work forever as we like to call
2:18
Speaker 2: it on the episode, I have a little trivia for you, though, Shad,
2:22
Speaker 2: just to get us started, just to get the listeners
2:25
Speaker 2: started thinking about what once was, what maybe still is
2:31
Speaker 2: very close to home for some pun intended work from home.
2:36
Speaker 2: Get it there, So you ready for this, Be ready
2:39
Speaker 2: for a little trivia.
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Speaker 3: I'm always ready.
2:41
Speaker 2: Bring it all right. In twenty twenty, just you know,
2:46
Speaker 2: scatterback a little bit a couple of years, kind of
2:49
Speaker 2: remember it. Zoom the virtual not reality but virtual conferencing.
2:56
Speaker 2: Zoom's daily meeting participants skyrocketed from ten million in twenty
3:01
Speaker 2: twenty too, roughly, how many.
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Speaker 3: Can I get a multiple choice on this one.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, it's either A fifty million, B two hundred million,
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Speaker 2: C three hundred million, or D five hundred million. So
3:17
Speaker 2: it went from ten million to what in twenty twenty?
3:21
Speaker 3: So this is from the beginning of the year to
3:24
Speaker 3: the end of the year in a certain one.
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Speaker 2: We don't know, just it roughly in the in the year.
3:30
Speaker 3: Okay, So my choice is our fifty million, two hundred million,
3:35
Speaker 3: three hundred million, and five hundred million. Yeah, I'm going
3:39
Speaker 3: to say it went to I'm going to go with
3:43
Speaker 3: two hundred million.
3:45
Speaker 2: You're very very very very very close. It's the other
3:49
Speaker 2: one three million, hundred million, yep, I mean, which is
3:52
Speaker 2: pretty insane. Even if it was two hundred million, it'd
3:55
Speaker 2: still be insane. Going from ten million to two hundred million.
3:57
Speaker 2: That's daily meeting parties too, So imagine that's like almost
4:03
Speaker 2: the entire United States daily.
4:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, and maybe at some point, maybe this is another episode.
4:09
Speaker 3: But who benefited or got the biggest jump from the
4:15
Speaker 3: twenty twenty event? What brands? I mean, Zoom's got to
4:18
Speaker 3: be on the top of the list. Not that Zoom's
4:20
Speaker 3: not doing well now, but man, they really got like
4:23
Speaker 3: a surge to the heart in that moment, and yeah,
4:27
Speaker 3: you know, would they have jumped so quickly? Would they
4:29
Speaker 3: have got you know, accepted by so many organizations, you know,
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Speaker 3: would they have that? I think they were already on
4:36
Speaker 3: their way up. But man, that really like accelerated their growth.
4:41
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, by leaps and bounds, probably by five years.
4:45
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. They may never have gotten to where they
4:48
Speaker 2: are today if it wasn't for the event. All right,
4:52
Speaker 2: So follow up question of that, which I think is
4:54
Speaker 2: really interesting or kind of funny and comical, is do
4:58
Speaker 2: you know which US city saw a surge and work
5:01
Speaker 2: from home relocations during a certain global event that we're
5:04
Speaker 2: talking about that it jokingly declared itself the zoom capital
5:09
Speaker 2: of America. I could give you multiple choice on this too,
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Speaker 2: if you want.
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Speaker 3: I'll probably take the multiple choice. My guess. You know,
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Speaker 3: at the top of my head, I'm thinking it's New York, Seattle,
5:21
Speaker 3: you know, Silicon Valley, something like that.
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Speaker 2: Okay, choices are A Boise, Idaho, B Tulsa, Oklahoma, C Austin, Texas,
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Speaker 2: or D Bend, Oregon.
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Speaker 3: So I was not even in the ballpark.
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Speaker 2: You're like the Bahamas.
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Speaker 3: Give me those choices again. I'm thinking it's somewhere very
5:45
Speaker 3: off the beaten path. Go ahead, give me him again.
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Speaker 2: So A Boise, Idaho, B Tulsa, Oklahoma, CE, Austin, Texas,
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Speaker 2: or D Bend Organ.
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Speaker 3: I'm gonna go with I'm thinking it's A or D.
6:00
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go with D Bend, Oregon. Yeah, you were correct, Yes,
6:06
Speaker 3: fifty to fifty.
6:07
Speaker 2: You made it. You came back.
6:09
Speaker 3: I did a who Wants to be a Millionaire? And
6:12
Speaker 3: I narrowed it down.
6:13
Speaker 2: You're like, I like to call my lifeline. Isn't that
6:15
Speaker 2: what they called it? The lifeline? Yeah?
6:18
Speaker 3: And then you call somebody and they'd be like, I
6:19
Speaker 3: don't know the answer that, why'd you call me? Yeah?
6:22
Speaker 2: I thought that was really kind of funny that they
6:24
Speaker 2: called themselves the zoom capital of America at that point.
6:27
Speaker 2: I don't know why you I don't know, you know,
6:29
Speaker 2: just because you had work from home relocations. I don't know.
6:32
Speaker 2: It's a weird thing.
6:33
Speaker 3: But ks the playing that to me because so many
6:35
Speaker 3: people were moving there.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it just jokingly declared itself that I think, you know,
6:41
Speaker 2: this was a time too. We talked about this. We
6:44
Speaker 2: had this conversation about work from home, you know in
6:47
Speaker 2: episode one hundred and thirty of the podcast, and we
6:50
Speaker 2: seemed pretty light at the time, but you know, there
6:53
Speaker 2: was a lot going on. I think people were kind
6:55
Speaker 2: of jokingly just trying to keep things, you know, like
6:59
Speaker 2: it's it's okay, it's all right, you know, like, oh, yeah,
7:03
Speaker 2: we're to the zoom capital of America. Like, but meanwhile
7:06
Speaker 2: there's you know, uncertainty and chaos and you know a
7:10
Speaker 2: little bit of that going on.
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Speaker 3: So yeah, people were getting into some odd things though.
7:14
Speaker 3: Stuck at home for a while, we just started doing
7:17
Speaker 3: some weird things.
7:17
Speaker 1: You know.
7:18
Speaker 3: We like our world had changed and shifted and gone
7:20
Speaker 3: upside down and we were just trying out some new things.
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Speaker 2: I mean, all that stuff happened drastically, all at once,
7:27
Speaker 2: which when you look back on it, you go wow.
7:30
Speaker 2: You know at the time it felt like wow, but
7:33
Speaker 2: it was just like it was a whirlwind. Yeah, it
7:36
Speaker 2: was happening so fast you just didn't even have time
7:38
Speaker 2: to react. Almost you were just like, ah, okay, you know.
7:42
Speaker 3: I'm just jump on my peloton and just keep riding.
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Speaker 2: Man. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
7:49
Speaker 3: That's a good you know segue in as we start
7:52
Speaker 3: talking about you know, work from home and what was
7:55
Speaker 3: going on back then and kind of what's going on now.
7:59
Speaker 3: So let me take you back for a second, way
8:01
Speaker 3: back to episode one hundred and thirty of this very
8:05
Speaker 3: podcast which we recorded or I think it came out
8:09
Speaker 3: in June of twenty twenty, where we talked about the
8:14
Speaker 3: work from home trend fueled by a certain global event.
8:18
Speaker 3: And you know, in that episode we were stipulating that
8:21
Speaker 3: working where we live could that soon be the forever future. Well,
8:28
Speaker 3: here we are five years in what feels like a
8:31
Speaker 3: billion lifetimes later, and the tides have started to turn again.
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Speaker 3: The number of workers required to be in the office
8:39
Speaker 3: regularly surged to seventy five percent in late twenty twenty four,
8:44
Speaker 3: up from sixty three percent in early twenty twenty three.
8:48
Speaker 3: This is according to Pew Research Center data. A more
8:52
Speaker 3: recent survey from Cisco supports this, with seventy two percent
8:56
Speaker 3: of respondents saying their organizations have mandates for working in
8:59
Speaker 3: the office. Since the new administration took over, the federal
9:04
Speaker 3: government has mandated all its employees returned to working in person,
9:09
Speaker 3: and many major companies are taking a similar approach. Microsoft,
9:14
Speaker 3: which employs one hundred and twenty five thousand people in
9:17
Speaker 3: the US has had a flexible work arrangement since the
9:20
Speaker 3: twenty twenty event and is now reportedly considering a stricter
9:24
Speaker 3: return to office mandate. Also of interest is who wants
9:28
Speaker 3: to return to the office versus who doesn't. A recent
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Speaker 3: Gallup poll found that only twenty three percent of remote
9:35
Speaker 3: capable gen Z employees say they would prefer fully remote work,
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Speaker 3: compared with thirty five percent among each older generation, though
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Speaker 3: it is worth noting fully on site work remains the
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Speaker 3: least popular option across all age groups. So, Patrick, in
9:53
Speaker 3: light of the new work from work trend, let's talk
9:57
Speaker 3: about where we were five years ago and where we
10:00
Speaker 3: are now based on some of these things I just shared.
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Speaker 3: Do we need to once again completely change the way
10:07
Speaker 3: we think about work? Should we also change the upper
10:10
Speaker 3: back tattoos we got in twenty twenty to now say
10:14
Speaker 3: work from work forever instead of work from home forever.
10:17
Speaker 2: It's easy to change tattoos nowadays. You know you could
10:21
Speaker 2: do that.
10:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, And most of the words are staying.
10:23
Speaker 2: The same, Yeah, most of them. I also think I
10:27
Speaker 2: kind of like work from work WFW. It has like
10:32
Speaker 2: a symmetry to it, I think, you know, makes it
10:35
Speaker 2: appealing to me at least a little bit get better
10:38
Speaker 2: tat it would it would. So we had this idea
10:42
Speaker 2: for the episode when we saw this survey and the
10:47
Speaker 2: results come out that like younger people were like, I
10:51
Speaker 2: prefer working in an office, and we're like, you know,
10:54
Speaker 2: because this is a huge shift in mentality. In five years,
10:58
Speaker 2: we went all at once to work from home, which
11:01
Speaker 2: was a drastic shift. I'm gonna say drastic five thousand
11:04
Speaker 2: times in this episode. But then, you know, over the
11:08
Speaker 2: course of five years, we really didn't know what was
11:10
Speaker 2: going to happen.
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Speaker 1: You know.
11:11
Speaker 2: The first few years was very uncertain times, and then
11:15
Speaker 2: just in the last couple of years, really a year
11:18
Speaker 2: and a half even, maybe it's changed a lot. I
11:22
Speaker 2: think that shift back and forth is like disorienting. I
11:26
Speaker 2: think it is probably the best word I could use.
11:28
Speaker 2: But I guess it's a really uh fascinating sort of
11:32
Speaker 2: like test or like experiment, you know, like a confined
11:36
Speaker 2: space of time. All these things happened like back and
11:40
Speaker 2: forth so quickly that it's very strange and unusual to
11:45
Speaker 2: watch it happen that quickly. I guess, what do you think?
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Speaker 3: I mean, You're right, this thing we went through, it's
11:51
Speaker 3: a very weird thing.
11:52
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm.
11:53
Speaker 3: It's like the blip you know in the Marvel movies.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like.
11:56
Speaker 3: All these people just disappeared and now they're back and
12:00
Speaker 3: just go on with the world as it was. You
12:03
Speaker 3: never really process it. You just kind of like keep going,
12:06
Speaker 3: and you're like feel like you're on this teeter todd
12:08
Speaker 3: or trying to get a handle on where we are
12:10
Speaker 3: with things, and yet you're never quite feel like things
12:15
Speaker 3: are balanced again. Yeah, So I guess that's kind of
12:18
Speaker 3: where we're at, teetering from this. We're like, are we
12:20
Speaker 3: in this moment? Are we in this moment? Are we
12:22
Speaker 3: out of this thing? I mean, where are we now?
12:25
Speaker 2: I feel like if anybody can relate to this, you know,
12:28
Speaker 2: we're we're at to point now where we're sort of
12:30
Speaker 2: far enough removed that you still are in meetings, you
12:35
Speaker 2: still are having conversations even with your friends, and you
12:38
Speaker 2: relate everything to this event that happened, and yet you
12:43
Speaker 2: know you're kind of tired of even referencing it. Like
12:46
Speaker 2: we're doing an episode about working from work and referencing
12:50
Speaker 2: working from home, and even that feels like are we
12:53
Speaker 2: hitting on a subject that people are going to be like,
12:55
Speaker 2: oh my god, you know, I don't ever want to
12:57
Speaker 2: even think about that again, you know what I mean.
13:00
Speaker 2: But it is really, I mean, just psychologically something that
13:04
Speaker 2: I think is just so interesting to just kind of
13:08
Speaker 2: once in a while just look at it and go,
13:10
Speaker 2: oh my god, all that happened, right, Like, all this
13:13
Speaker 2: happened to us, And to your point, some of us
13:17
Speaker 2: haven't really processed it properly, you know what I mean.
13:20
Speaker 2: Like we're all like just like, Okay, well it's gone.
13:22
Speaker 2: We don't want to really talk about it anymore. But
13:25
Speaker 2: I mean, in some way, we're all still holding on
13:28
Speaker 2: a little bit to like all kinds of elements like grief, despair,
13:32
Speaker 2: things that like happened to us. But then also like
13:35
Speaker 2: these nostalgic positive things like you know, spending more time
13:39
Speaker 2: with our families during that you know, like being able
13:42
Speaker 2: to work from home and giving us flexibility. Like positive
13:45
Speaker 2: things came out of that, but most of it was
13:47
Speaker 2: surrounded by like something that was very negative.
13:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you kind of touched on a piece of it.
13:53
Speaker 3: It's kind of weird too to just be like we're
13:55
Speaker 3: going back, which to me is almost like people got
13:58
Speaker 3: a taste of this and they're like us, it's pretty good,
14:00
Speaker 3: and you're taking that completely off the menu. Seems like
14:04
Speaker 3: kind of a crazy step. Are almost just erasing that
14:06
Speaker 3: whole thing that happened.
14:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there, you know, there is to some
14:10
Speaker 2: degree some positive things from working from home, right still
14:14
Speaker 2: having that flexibility is really important, but to remove it
14:18
Speaker 2: completely seems like, I don't know.
14:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, just seems like we're forgetting the whole like previous
14:24
Speaker 3: five years and what we experienced. But even going you know,
14:28
Speaker 3: going back to kind of the moment we were in
14:30
Speaker 3: five years ago, and it felt like in that moment,
14:33
Speaker 3: that timeline seemed like, oh, maybe it is and maybe
14:36
Speaker 3: this is just what we're going to do from now on.
14:38
Speaker 3: You know, maybe this is people who are never working
14:41
Speaker 3: from home, we're suddenly working from home and it's like
14:44
Speaker 3: this was impossible and now it's possible, And in that moment,
14:48
Speaker 3: it's like this could be a thing. It's just kind
14:52
Speaker 3: of one of those things. It seems crazy. Now we've
14:54
Speaker 3: gotten to a point where it's like flipped a little bit.
14:57
Speaker 3: But it just reminds me when you're in the moment,
15:00
Speaker 3: when you're in any sort of present moment, how it
15:02
Speaker 3: feels like this is just the way things are going
15:04
Speaker 3: to be, yeah, And this is the way things are
15:06
Speaker 3: always going to be. Then they're not. Yeah, So you
15:10
Speaker 3: know what I mean. Like, for example, work from home
15:13
Speaker 3: is like one example where like we're always going to
15:15
Speaker 3: work in the office, and then we didn't. Yeah, and
15:18
Speaker 3: then it was like work from home. Now we've got this,
15:20
Speaker 3: We're always going to have this, and then things flip
15:23
Speaker 3: again when you could think of other things, like you know,
15:25
Speaker 3: we were talking about TV shows before being like ten episodes.
15:29
Speaker 3: Now there was a time where people would be like
15:30
Speaker 3: TV shows are always going to be twenty four episodes.
15:33
Speaker 3: New episodes are always going to air in the fall. Yeah,
15:35
Speaker 3: And then that was true for like decades until it wasn't.
15:39
Speaker 3: But in the you know, in the moment that was happening,
15:42
Speaker 3: it's just impossible to think of a scenario where it's
15:45
Speaker 3: not like that. In that reality. It's like just so
15:49
Speaker 3: hard to see another reality.
15:51
Speaker 2: Yeah. Before work from home became a global event, working
15:55
Speaker 2: from home was the dream come true scenario. It was
15:59
Speaker 2: like the dream job, being able to control how you
16:02
Speaker 2: spend your time during the day, And I mean, this
16:05
Speaker 2: is what people wanted. It would be like the utopian
16:08
Speaker 2: job sitch as the kids say nowadays, you know what
16:12
Speaker 2: I mean, Like that what a great situation to be in,
16:14
Speaker 2: to be like, Okay, I can work from home whenever
16:17
Speaker 2: I want to. People be like, oh man, that's that's
16:19
Speaker 2: a dream job. And then it became that for everyone,
16:23
Speaker 2: and we thought that that was going to be like,
16:24
Speaker 2: maybe this is it, this is the way our life
16:26
Speaker 2: is going to be forever. Like I remember saying somebody recently,
16:30
Speaker 2: I was at a movie theater and I still have
16:32
Speaker 2: these little bits of these I never thought that day
16:36
Speaker 2: would come again, where like we're not even thinking about it.
16:39
Speaker 2: You know, it's gone, it's out of our collective memory.
16:42
Speaker 2: Or maybe it's not. Maybe it's just sitting back there
16:45
Speaker 2: in the back of your brain and you're like every
16:47
Speaker 2: so often people are thinking, man, I never thought I'd
16:50
Speaker 2: be sitting in a crowded theater again, and here we are,
16:53
Speaker 2: you know, sharing plates of food at a restaurant. Never
16:56
Speaker 2: thought that was going to happen again. Because this is
16:58
Speaker 2: the thing, Like it's an event that happened to us
17:01
Speaker 2: everyone all at once. They couldn't see outside of that bubble.
17:05
Speaker 2: They just couldn't see outside of it. It was like,
17:07
Speaker 2: this is it. This is the way it's always going
17:09
Speaker 2: to be for all time now, you know. So why
17:12
Speaker 2: we kind of joked a little bit three months into
17:15
Speaker 2: this situation because I think they said it like June.
17:17
Speaker 2: I think it came out right, So it's like March June,
17:20
Speaker 2: we were still kind of like trying to figure out
17:22
Speaker 2: what's even going on at that point. But we're like
17:24
Speaker 2: work from home, you know, let's brainstorm ideas, whereas we
17:28
Speaker 2: call them spitballing ideas on what those cool things would
17:31
Speaker 2: be that would come out of that. And it's a strange,
17:35
Speaker 2: very very strange feeling still, I think when we sit
17:38
Speaker 2: here and analyze it.
17:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, listening to us back then now, I was expecting
17:43
Speaker 3: more of like everything has changed. I was surprised we
17:48
Speaker 3: were not like that. We were more much more even
17:50
Speaker 3: keeled in that moment than I thought we were going
17:53
Speaker 3: to be. When talked about work from home, we were
17:55
Speaker 3: talking about, you know, this is not for everybody.
17:57
Speaker 1: Now.
17:57
Speaker 3: Some people are going to hate this, some people are
17:59
Speaker 3: going to like this, you know. And I think the
18:02
Speaker 3: end result, and I think we both kind of landed
18:03
Speaker 3: on the same place was not really this full workforce shift,
18:07
Speaker 3: but it was a greater flexibility for people to work remotely,
18:11
Speaker 3: even on some basis, you know, whether it's like a
18:14
Speaker 3: couple of days a week or a day week, however
18:16
Speaker 3: they're breaking it up. But I think that's kind of
18:18
Speaker 3: where we landed, was like, the option is there for
18:20
Speaker 3: more people to have the flexibility to do this if
18:23
Speaker 3: they liked doing this.
18:25
Speaker 2: And you had even said people won't want to work
18:28
Speaker 2: from home forever. I mean, you said that, and there
18:30
Speaker 2: are there are those people, and I think that that's
18:33
Speaker 2: a true, you know statement. I think for anything like
18:36
Speaker 2: you're never going to get one hundred percent anyone that's
18:38
Speaker 2: going to want to do something anything forever.
18:42
Speaker 1: Yeah.
18:42
Speaker 2: Interesting little tidbit because at the time it was just
18:46
Speaker 2: announced or recently announced. Jack Dorsey, who used to run
18:51
Speaker 2: Twitter two things crazy that are not true anymore, announced
18:55
Speaker 2: that employees could work from home forever. I think that
18:59
Speaker 2: might have been inspiration, I think to work from home
19:01
Speaker 2: forever episode. But you know, like this idea that that's
19:06
Speaker 2: none of that stuff is even true.
19:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're right. All of those three things you said,
19:11
Speaker 3: none of them are sure anymore.
19:13
Speaker 2: A perfect case study of what we're talking about. I
19:16
Speaker 2: did love, though, like our brainstorming session brought out some
19:20
Speaker 2: really great things for those who might still consider working
19:25
Speaker 2: from home, like you know Neo and Morpheus, you know,
19:29
Speaker 2: your space on the supercomputer and virtual reality office. You
19:33
Speaker 2: know that you you brainstormed that was pretty great. We
19:37
Speaker 2: called it the Real Reality. Do you remember that?
19:39
Speaker 3: Yeah? I was impressed. You know, as long as we're
19:43
Speaker 3: patting ourselves on the back here. We both had shared
19:47
Speaker 3: ideas for kind of setting up like improp to makeshift
19:51
Speaker 3: offices in or around kind of in your backyard or
19:54
Speaker 3: something like that. I think yours was sort of a
19:57
Speaker 3: fold up tent idea. You know, it starts really and
20:00
Speaker 3: then you can fold out this whole tent office. And
20:02
Speaker 3: mine was like an ORB kind of a thing. Yeah,
20:06
Speaker 3: these are real things now, I mean not those exact things,
20:10
Speaker 3: but you could buy like work pod backyard offices. So
20:14
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say we invented those and demand ten percent
20:19
Speaker 3: of all sales revenue.
20:20
Speaker 2: It'd be really crazy if you saw the WFT, which
20:24
Speaker 2: was the work from tent or the ORB that's just
20:27
Speaker 2: sitting out there on Amazon, you know, or wherever they're
20:31
Speaker 2: selling it. Something. I just go back to your your
20:34
Speaker 2: virtual reality space, which I really loved one of the things.
20:38
Speaker 2: I'm quoting you here. You said, because we were talking
20:41
Speaker 2: about real reality, like we'd call it the R and
20:43
Speaker 2: R or something like that, you know, and you said
20:46
Speaker 2: virtual always sounds lesser. That was a quote that you had,
20:50
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh, that is so good because
20:54
Speaker 2: it's it's still true, right, yeah, Like that is one
20:58
Speaker 2: thing that it's actually still true. Virtual sounds lesser.
21:02
Speaker 3: One thing on that episode that still holds up.
21:05
Speaker 2: Today, that increased flexibility. I think, you know, we determined that,
21:10
Speaker 2: you know, that was the thing that was going to
21:12
Speaker 2: come out of working from home, which I think is
21:15
Speaker 2: you know, like you said, true.
21:17
Speaker 3: So circling back a little bit to you know, I
21:19
Speaker 3: guess coming forward to now, Hm, what do you think
21:23
Speaker 3: about this? You know, the Gallup poll and this generational
21:26
Speaker 3: data with the younger people are the ones who are
21:31
Speaker 3: more prone to want to come back to the office,
21:34
Speaker 3: whereas your generation exer as your boomers, less likely to
21:38
Speaker 3: want to come back, though you know, there's still a
21:40
Speaker 3: contingent of those who said they'd like to be back
21:43
Speaker 3: in the office.
21:43
Speaker 2: I do feel like I have a good understanding of
21:46
Speaker 2: what this stems from. But you know, I don't know
21:48
Speaker 2: if it's completely accurate. But older generations, we've worked from
21:52
Speaker 2: work for you know, an extended period of time. We
21:56
Speaker 2: know what that's like. We've gotten the experiences of that,
21:59
Speaker 2: and you know know, for better or for worse, many
22:02
Speaker 2: of us could take it or leave it, and to
22:04
Speaker 2: varying degrees. And then the younger people like wanting to
22:08
Speaker 2: be in an office setting. I think, you know, that's
22:11
Speaker 2: it stems a little bit from like not enough experience
22:14
Speaker 2: in the real world in those office settings, so they
22:17
Speaker 2: want those experiences, right A and B. Really a lot
22:22
Speaker 2: of them grew up in a time where they were
22:25
Speaker 2: deprived of those real life experiences, you know, being in
22:30
Speaker 2: an environment where you know, like some kids miss school
22:33
Speaker 2: for a couple of years in their sort of like
22:35
Speaker 2: development stage. So I think that's maybe where it kind
22:39
Speaker 2: of pulls from or like that that desire comes from.
22:42
Speaker 2: I don't know, that's my rudimentary analysis of that. What
22:45
Speaker 2: do you think.
22:45
Speaker 3: No, I think that's true. I think all those things
22:48
Speaker 3: make sense. The only thing I'd probably add and there
22:51
Speaker 3: is like, you know, it generally just makes sense with
22:53
Speaker 3: stage of life. You know, if I'm a younger person,
22:56
Speaker 3: which I'm not, I want to be around people more.
22:59
Speaker 3: There's like a social aspect to it. I'd want to
23:01
Speaker 3: be going out to happy hours. I'd want to be like,
23:03
Speaker 3: you know, talking to people. There's part of that that's
23:05
Speaker 3: like valuable and fun at that age, but as a
23:09
Speaker 3: generation exer with young kids, probably more valuable is the
23:13
Speaker 3: ability to help your kids get to school or be
23:15
Speaker 3: there when they get home, or take them places they
23:17
Speaker 3: need to be, you know, take your dog for a walk,
23:20
Speaker 3: other things like that, get to your parents' house, things
23:23
Speaker 3: you have to do like that, those other kind of
23:25
Speaker 3: obligations that have to do with stage of life. But
23:29
Speaker 3: also you're right, you've done it, you've been through it,
23:31
Speaker 3: you had that experience when you were younger, So those
23:34
Speaker 3: other aspects, those social aspects might not be as valuable
23:38
Speaker 3: worth noting, you know, all groups in this poll, you know,
23:44
Speaker 3: hybrid was the number one for all of them by
23:47
Speaker 3: a long shot. Yeah, you know, I think gen Z
23:49
Speaker 3: it was like seventy one percent said hybrid. Gen Z
23:53
Speaker 3: had the least amount of people who were like exclusively
23:56
Speaker 3: I want to be exclusively remote.
23:58
Speaker 2: Which makes sense, you know, and this goes back to
24:00
Speaker 2: what we were saying, that's really the increased flexibility part
24:04
Speaker 2: of it. I don't care who you are. I think
24:06
Speaker 2: flexibility is definitely a benefit, regardless of the event that
24:11
Speaker 2: led us there here. That flexibility is I think critical
24:16
Speaker 2: in any person's life. We talked for decades on work
24:20
Speaker 2: life balance, and that balance shifted quite a bit, and
24:23
Speaker 2: some would probably argue to the detriment of life because
24:28
Speaker 2: you know, when you were working from home, you were
24:31
Speaker 2: really working from home. People's whole schedule shifted and it
24:35
Speaker 2: wasn't necessarily I mean they were getting more time, but
24:39
Speaker 2: they weren't really getting more time.
24:40
Speaker 3: Well, and lines blurred, right, this is the thing that happens.
24:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like where does work end? Yeah? And that's the
24:47
Speaker 2: thing like that, that's the argument is like there was
24:49
Speaker 2: no end and that may be caused, you know, maybe
24:52
Speaker 2: some more of the negative side effects of working from home.
24:56
Speaker 2: But the flexibility, Yeah, being able to like have that
24:58
Speaker 2: I think is always going to be really important.
25:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, And clearly from that poll, what it seems like
25:03
Speaker 3: a lot of people want that being the case. You know,
25:06
Speaker 3: you got to wonder why are some organizations mandating people
25:10
Speaker 3: go back to the office when they weren't before. I
25:12
Speaker 3: think there are some other factors at play here. So
25:15
Speaker 3: a Forbes article titled the Real reasons Companies are forcing
25:21
Speaker 3: you back to the office from this past March pointed
25:24
Speaker 3: out ten reasons for this. I'll share a few that
25:27
Speaker 3: popped out to be. Number two. It's easier to monitor
25:31
Speaker 3: input what people are doing than output the value they
25:37
Speaker 3: actually produce. Sit on that for a secua go through
25:41
Speaker 3: a couple more. Number five to reinforce a traditional hierarchy
25:46
Speaker 3: work structure, aka a pure power play. So some managers
25:51
Speaker 3: believe that physical presence reinforces workplace authority and structure, allowing
25:56
Speaker 3: leadership to maintain greater control the workforce. And number eight
26:03
Speaker 3: to get people to quit voluntarily, which is useful during
26:07
Speaker 3: a downturn. So they're suggesting all these could be in play,
26:11
Speaker 3: you know at some companies right now.
26:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, because of where we're at economically and like people's layoffs.
26:17
Speaker 3: Definitely for like federal government, we know that was kind
26:20
Speaker 3: of a doge tactic.
26:23
Speaker 2: So the first one was the input and output. That's
26:25
Speaker 2: a really interesting like monitoring that when you have people
26:30
Speaker 2: in house in the office, you know all of those
26:33
Speaker 2: things are true, you do have some semblance of control
26:39
Speaker 2: you're able to monitor better. Not that you can't do
26:42
Speaker 2: those things in a work from home setting, But I
26:46
Speaker 2: get some of that. I just don't know. I mean,
26:48
Speaker 2: there's got to be some other things that are sort
26:50
Speaker 2: of happening there too, you know, like are they sort
26:54
Speaker 2: of correlating a downward sales? Are they correlating those things
26:59
Speaker 2: to the work from home setting and those people not
27:02
Speaker 2: being there. If that's the case, then think there's still
27:05
Speaker 2: some sort of happy medium or like figuring out We
27:08
Speaker 2: always said some people I think are built for the
27:11
Speaker 2: office setting, Like this is what they need, right, They
27:14
Speaker 2: need structure of being some other place, like I think
27:18
Speaker 2: I even mentioned in that episode.
27:19
Speaker 3: You did use the comparison of going to the gym,
27:22
Speaker 3: which I thought was really good. And some people need
27:25
Speaker 3: to go to the gym. You know, they can't they
27:27
Speaker 3: don't the discipline to work out at home, or it's
27:30
Speaker 3: just not enough to you know, be in their own space.
27:33
Speaker 3: They need to go somewhere, have that structure, that routine,
27:37
Speaker 3: you know, get out of the house to do it,
27:39
Speaker 3: which I think is a great comparison.
27:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, this is a thing like I I'm
27:44
Speaker 2: this type of person in life. It doesn't have to
27:46
Speaker 2: be all or none. It just doesn't like there's got
27:49
Speaker 2: to be some variation, some ability to just be able
27:54
Speaker 2: to see the situation and adapt like for the person,
27:57
Speaker 2: because I think sometimes it's individual based.
27:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with that, and I think that's how
28:02
Speaker 3: it should be. I think when we look at these
28:04
Speaker 3: things on a on a hale or these like larger trends,
28:07
Speaker 3: it's kind of like the pendulum swinging, you know what
28:10
Speaker 3: I mean, usually always goes too far in one direction
28:13
Speaker 3: and then corrects by going too far in the other direction,
28:17
Speaker 3: when it generally should just be like hanging right there.
28:20
Speaker 1: In the middle.
28:21
Speaker 2: If only, if only, if only so. Yeah, all great things,
28:26
Speaker 2: I hopefully as listeners, you know, because we battled with
28:31
Speaker 2: not really battled. We didn't really battle, but we we discussed,
28:35
Speaker 2: you know, the idea of work from work, you know
28:38
Speaker 2: this episode and work from home and like, you know,
28:41
Speaker 2: have it because really it's kind of a flashback episode
28:44
Speaker 2: because we're kind of talking about where we were, where
28:46
Speaker 2: we are, you know, the surveying, the pole sort of
28:49
Speaker 2: spearheaded that. But let us know what you think of that.
28:52
Speaker 2: Here's my takeaway. It's very simple today. My takeaway is
28:56
Speaker 2: be careful what you wish for. It's the simple thing.
29:00
Speaker 2: People say it all the time, but really that's the
29:02
Speaker 2: key because way back in the day, we were like,
29:07
Speaker 2: I'm going to be great to work from home all
29:08
Speaker 2: the time, and then we got it, not in a
29:11
Speaker 2: great in a great way, and then you know, now
29:16
Speaker 2: we're going back into working from work and businesses mandating it.
29:22
Speaker 2: No matter what you're wishing for, just be careful what
29:24
Speaker 2: you wish for, because you don't know what the side
29:29
Speaker 2: effects or the repercussions are, you know what I mean.
29:32
Speaker 3: You don't know how you're going to get it.
29:35
Speaker 2: You don't know how you're gonna get it. It's like
29:37
Speaker 2: I was thinking of the one with Brendan Fraser and
29:40
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Hurley Hurley or she plays the devil right dazzle
29:46
Speaker 2: the dazzled, Yeah, and every time he makes a wish,
29:49
Speaker 2: she finds the loophole and whatever he wished for. I
29:52
Speaker 2: don't know if that's completely like, you know, one hundred
29:55
Speaker 2: percent like tied to this, but this is the idea
29:58
Speaker 2: that I would just leave you with is in life,
30:01
Speaker 2: just be careful what you wish for.
30:02
Speaker 3: You know. The other takeaway could be just work from work,
30:06
Speaker 3: work from where you feel good. Hopefully you have the
30:09
Speaker 3: ability to do that or find you know, something that
30:11
Speaker 3: works for you. But work from work doesn't have to
30:14
Speaker 3: mean work from the office. It could be work from
30:17
Speaker 3: wherever you like working.
30:18
Speaker 2: If you're afforded that luxury.
30:20
Speaker 3: Obviously, if you are afforded that luxury, most probably aren't.
30:24
Speaker 2: I'll also say there's one constant in both of those,
30:28
Speaker 2: just work.
30:28
Speaker 3: I mean, that's deep.
30:30
Speaker 2: All right, Well, you know that's it for today's episode
30:34
Speaker 2: of Speaking Human. You can find current and past episodes
30:37
Speaker 2: of the podcast on speaking human dot com.
30:42
Speaker 3: We'll be back in two weeks with another episode of
30:45
Speaker 3: Speaking Human. Catch you then Humans
30:51
Speaker 1: Speaking Human