No More Free Lunch: Working at a Tech Company Will Never Be the Same
Remote work forever, voice-controlled everything in the office, and other new normals of the future
Turn on the news or dial in to an all-staff meeting and you’ll hear talk of “returning to normal.” Resuming, restarting, emerging, like a bear from hibernation, crawling out of our caves, yawning, stretching, and looking for toilet paper and soap.
The lockdown’s impact on your workplace varies depending on your job. For workers at computers all day, the difference between typing at home or typing at work may not be great, especially when salaries and benefits remain the same. For those who have lost their jobs and can’t afford to make rent, the situation is rather different.
We are living in a world of division, bifurcated along so many lines: Those who want to return as quickly as possible and those who don’t. Those who oppose the lockdown and those who support it. Those who are thriving in this environment and those who are struggling. Companies like Deliveroo, Uber, and Amazon embody this split: part of their workforce are highly paid staff developers with pensions, sick pay, and benefits who work from home. The rest are casual “contractors” who the company argues are definitely not employees, and who have no…
