The coming culture war over returning to the office
WASHINGTON — “It felt so fresh. Everything was big to me again,” a Chicago-area woman named Amaiya Lockwood recently told the Washington Post. She wasn’t talking about finding true love, or a transcendent religious experience. Lockwood was thrilled at going to work in an office building.
Office workers are returning to office buildings across the nation, with millions more slated to do so in September. Federal agencies are supposed to have return-to-office plans ready by mid-July. But while some are as excited as Lockwood, others dread the moment they have to pack into commuter trains again or face the prospect of a sad desk lunch. “Employees Are Quitting Instead of Giving Up Working From Home,” read the headline of a recent Bloomberg article.
- Instead of heading back to the office in the wake of the Covid pandemic, employees may quit instead.
- In what’s being called the “Great Resignation,” 95% of workers are considering changing jobs, according to a report by Monster.com.
Before Covid, Blaze Bullock, 34, was on the road one week a month as a marketing consultant in the auto industry.
Then, when the country shut down, Bullock began working remotely. “Now they want me to start traveling again and visiting car dealerships,” he said. “I don’t want to do that at all.”
Bullock said he likes working from home and spending more time with his friends and family in Salt Lake City. “I realized this is the only way I want to live.”
The pandemic has caused a lot of people to reevaluate, particularly when it comes to work.