This is the end of the office as we know it. For those who have moved past talk of curve-flattening and social distancing, the future of workplace culture has become the new topic du jour. With practically every professional sidelined at home, taking Zoom calls from their kitchens, it is hard to argue otherwise.
Some aren’t so quick to set aside the modern workplace. As Jennifer Senior put it in the New York Times, “those of us who spent most of their careers in offices will grow to miss them.” This includes recent graduates, who will miss opportunities to forge professional identities, single people, who will lose a place to meet a spouse, and productivity itself, which will no longer have opportunities for spontaneous “moments of felicitous engagement that spark the best ideas.”
I think that Senior, along with other office champions, are missing the point of the particular moment we are all in. Our conception of work, and the way in which we do it, could very well change as a result of this. But the elimination of the physical office does not imply a similar death of everything that has historically come with it. Instead, those things that we all hold so dear, the relationships and casual conversations – even the pettiness and office politics – will continue to live on, either in a virtual environment or in a new outgrowth from this crisis. Romances are forged in the office, sure, but that hasn’t always been the case, as the below chart shows. Just as online meetups have surged in recent years, so too could relationships forged in a variety of new creations, like a Boston Engineers Club (made up of virtual employees), or a Phoenix Running Club.
What perspectives like Senior’s reflect is an unwillingness to acknowledge the adaptability of our social identities. In 2018, 1.3% of Americans were farmers, lower than at any previous point in our country’s history. Weren’t there opportunities to meet spouses, develop personal identities and build social networks back then, when we were more likely to be tilling fields than typing on a keyboard? How can we look at such drastic societal change in the past and ignore the possibility for a similar shift in the future?
Times readers also seem to agree. As Kristin, from Portland, Oregon, puts it:
Nope. Sorry, but what has become crystal clear to me after two months of working from home is this: My workplace never shaped my identity, it suppressed it. And I don’t miss it for one single second. Going in to the office every day has never, ever been who I am. Working from home has allowed [me] to connect with what I really want and really value. I’ve recaptured three hours a day in time that I used to waste on getting ready for work, getting to and from work and being stuck at work for lunch. I exercise two hours a day. I spend an hour writing, and I’m now able to eat on my schedule, not my employer’s.
That’s just one reader, sure. But other comments highlight similar opinions, that remote work doesn’t eliminate the self, and it certainly isn’t, as Senior says, “another depressing sign that work has replaced religion as a source of meaning.” It’s the opposite. Eliminating the office provides all of us with more freedom to make our life how we want it and to choose how we find meaning. It’s a positive step towards separating the self from our work. I refuse to believe that we are incapable of creating new and better places to make friends than an artificially lit office building.