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Last week a low lock point came when I walked out of my apartment for the first time all day and found myself wearing a trainer on one foot and an Ugg boot on the other.
As far as I can tell, this happened because I carried the Uggs on my table all day and halfway out of taking them out to put the trainers out on the street, I was distracted by a work call. The coaches were as remarkable as the Uggs in terms of comfort that I didn’t realize I had only put one on before going out on the street.
In the annals of workplace clothing failures, it was clearly not good. Still, I still prefer it to what I’m afraid hides ahead.
As vaccine launches make public life seem normal again in more places, there is a growing risk that people like me will soon be told to give up slippers and other work comforts from home and return to work. the office five days a week.
Americans have created a two-word phrase that perfectly captures the fear it inspires: “hard pants.”
Technically, the term only means pants with non-elastic zippers, buttons or belts – the opposite of the soft elastic pants that remote workers have experienced over the last year or so.
But when people say they’ve had to “put on some hard pants again” to get into the office, I suspect they talk about all the other reasons why pollsters find that only a minority of employees can work. remote want to return to Seu full time.
I’m talking here about skipped breakfasts and the frantic searches for presentable but over-fitting clothes needed to rush an expensive seat on a disabled train. Not to mention arriving at a desk too noisy for work, where the only place to make a private phone call is the bathroom.
No wonder 75 percent of office workers in a major European survey published last week agreed that it should be illegal for bosses to force staff to work from an office.
Of course, some people, especially new recruits and younger workers, are eager to enter the same room as colleagues they barely know or need to learn.
I also look forward to seeing my fellow live meat again and miss what Apple boss Tim Cook called “activity buzz” in an email that sent last week telling staff they had to return to their company counters at least three days a week until September.
But I don’t know anyone who wants to go back to the five-day work week as it was. This means that an all-powerful confrontation is taking place between workers who want to be able to work from home at least one or two days a week and employers who want everything to be the same as before 2020.
It’s possible that a huge, sought-after company like Apple, flooded with job seekers, could dictate terms easily. Also a Wall Street bank like JPMorgan Chase, whose CEO Jamie Dimon said last month that remote work was not good for young people, corporate culture, generation of ideas or “those who want to hurry”.
Still, the pandemic has sparked a revolution in thinking about working remotely that will likely make it harder for many employers to demand a full-time office presence. “I have a feeling this won’t work,” says Nicole Sahin, chief executive of Globalization Partners, a U.S.-based company that helps companies navigate the overseas hiring process. “It will be difficult for them to recruit people if they require everyone to be in the office.”
For organizations in this category, there may be little choice but to dive into the waters of hybrid work, largely unknown, where staff change from home to office throughout the week.
Exactly how this should be done is one of the most important questions in the workplace. How affordable is it? What does it mean for office design? Can people keep their old desks or should the hot-desk become the norm? Should staff come in every same day or not? And that’s just the beginning. Few companies still know all the answers, but like it or not, they will have to find out very soon.
Twitter: @pilitaclark
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