The Slow Demise Into Meaninglessness Of White-Collar Work
<p>That chart above is from some new-ish Microsoft report on the future of work — I’ve read parts of the report, but not all of it, and I can only assume that the solution at the end of the report is “Buy Office Online” — and while it doesn’t <em>seem </em>that bad in terms of 57% vs. 43%, you need to also remember what “work” is. Ideally, you’re supposed to complete tasks and create things — services, products, experiences — for people, in exchange for money. That’s kinda the base-level description of the economy. Instead, it seems like most people nowadays are “communicating,” and if you’ve ever worked inside an office for 11 seconds, you know that the “communication” often isn’t very strong or coherent, so in the 57% of time you’re doing that (which I bet is higher), what are you <em>really </em>doing?</p>
<h2><a href="https://tedbauer.medium.com/can-we-improve-workplace-communications-please-fba543addeed?source=post_page-----fcaf18353eef--------------------------------" rel="noopener follow" target="_blank">Can we improve workplace communications? (Please?)</a></h2>
<h3><a href="https://tedbauer.medium.com/can-we-improve-workplace-communications-please-fba543addeed?source=post_page-----fcaf18353eef--------------------------------" rel="noopener follow" target="_blank">Communication in the workplace is a pretty messy deal. Line up 100 people from random companies and industries. Then…</a></h3>
<p><a href="https://tedbauer.medium.com/can-we-improve-workplace-communications-please-fba543addeed?source=post_page-----fcaf18353eef--------------------------------" rel="noopener follow" target="_blank">tedbauer.medium.com</a></p>
<p>I think you have a couple of different things at play here:</p>
<ol>
<li>With the advent of more tech in workplaces and SaaS and all that, some of the core functions became easier to do. The sheer invention of Excel probably made work 100x easier, even though Excel can be the devil. But, people still need relevance and they need to justify their income. So they increasingly spend more time “communicating” or “going back and forth,” i.e. “circling back” on things. Most of this is meaningless, but in your mind, it keeps you from getting canned.</li>
</ol>
<p><a href="https://tedbauer.medium.com/the-slow-demise-into-meaninglessness-of-white-collar-work-fcaf18353eef"><strong>Read More</strong></a></p>