This work-from-home debate needs to die
Why do we still have to explain that not everybody has to be watched to be productive?
What is work, really?
We all have our own relationship to work, which is as unique as we are. It tends to combine some form of settling — because bills don’t pay themselves — and ideally some form of satisfaction because paying bills, while necessary, is not enough by itself to provide anyone with enough meaning to sustain life, if we are to understand the latter as “something more than just not dying.” Or, you know, not being in arrears with our utility bills.
Many of us want our work to matter. To make a difference.
I am primarily a writer and editor. It’s the perfect work for me. And it happens to be work that’s best done in an environment I find congenial, aka my home. Or wherever I happen to be. As I wrote last week, I am quite the expert in transit productivity, having long ago learned that “work” does not need to be geographically tied down to any place in particular. I work in planes, on trains, in hotels or while jogging.
I even work while I drive. I get my AirPods in my ears, pair them with the iPad Pro, and dictate all manner of notes and substantive content while I get from point A to point B.
Productivity, for someone like me, means “getting the job done, and done well.” I’ve been doing this from home (or wherever I happen to be) for 25 years. I do not understand why anyone would have difficulty understanding that for some people and some jobs, remote work is the best option.
Many individuals who work in the public service are in similar situations. And they want to be able to keep working the way they have been for the last almost three years without being made to feel like they’re the ones with the problem, thanks very much.
In my Citizen column this week, I say it’s time to end the debate over remote work in the public service and allow people who can work from home, and who prefer to work from home, to continue working from home for as long as it works for them.
That should be the end of the discussion.
Bonjour, madame Pellerin,
I wholeheartedly agree with you as do friends and family members who have yet, as public servants, to be turned against public service.
Their employer, the Government of Canada or Treasury Board etc, has a whole new cohort of insensitive or incompetent managers who either think they know everything, thus no need to consult, or don’t really care about the effect on staff and Canadians of their harebrained ideas such as saving coffee and muffin SMEs who have picked the wrong business model.
I believe it was around the time Pierre Trudeau was PM that the movement to private sector models running the public sector began with deputy ministers no longer devoting a career to agriculture for example, but acquiring experience in firing librarians and other smart staff for an MBA ticket to early retirement and private sector big bucks.
Donald Savoie summed it up quite well years ago.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/donald-savoie-how-government-went-off-the-rails/wcm/2b6041af-ee13-42f3-a484-3e09a33dbed2/amp/
Merci encore, madame et bonne journée.
Jean-Pierre Spénard
Ottawa
After a consult with GOC retiree who knows more about Canadian political history than I do, I was pointed towards an article on the U.S. Hoover Commission and how President Eisenhower was responsible for implementing many of the commission’s recommendations. I could not find any mention on whether they were good or bad in the public eye but taking a cue from your question, I would guess Americans were OK with them.
Why do I feel nothing can be done to change the current thinking on not being able to change things?
The above text is where I was headed Sunday evening as I was trying to find true to life (mine) examples of either non-caring, threatened, stupid or just plain jealous managers making life mainly miserable for Canadian citizens and communities.
Not making any headway, I just packed it in and went to bed hoping to find an answer to your question in the morning.
I can’t do it, because idiocy, stupidity, ignorance, cruelty are hard-wired into all of earth’s creatures in varying degrees. And that includes we humans.
C’est ce que je croyais.
History fans or others just looking for a good read can go through Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August or if that’s too fresh, then The March of Folly.
Ken Burns has documented similar subject matter with his films The Civil War and The Vietnam War.
And then…and then along came a recent piece in the Washington Post on Generation Z speak, a language which for me and other Baby Boomers is the equivalent of Klingon.
https://wapo.st/3jieEot
Perhaps the Generation Z management/ruler cohort’s contribution to the collective good will be brilliant, efficient and effective. Perhaps not.
I sure as hell will probably not understand a damn word of the Ministerial Press Releases whatever the Official Language!