I won’t belabor this point, because I think most rational people understand it without needing a Medium article to advance this particular ball down the field, but work is largely about control, or at the very least it’s about control, relevance, and status, and these are the core reasons executives and middle managers are flipping out about remote work and hybrid work. I wouldn’t say the power dynamic is totally shifted — most people need jobs because of health care (unfortunate), and also because of income (“this is the way things are, at least until blockchain pops off”), so the employer still has power. But what all is happening here is that managerial brains are getting fried, because the way they conceptualize work — and what they really need from work — has been totally threatened.
Here’s a very good newsletter on what’s currently happening, including this section:
The reason that there are so many bad managers — middle and otherwise — is that lots of people see management as delegation of work that you take credit for, mostly because that’s how many corporations function on a grand scheme. It’s framed palatably as contributing a small piece to a larger whole, but middle management’s truly noxious existence proves that people absolutely love it. The attraction to these positions isn’t what a true manager is —…
