September 4, 2025 • 31 mins
We clock in to explore the great office exodus reversal, where companies are trading Zoom backgrounds for actual backgrounds and Gen Z is surprisingly leading the charge back to cubicle life.
Get show notes for this episode and check out past episodes of the Speaking Human podcast by visiting speakinghuman.com.
#Podcast #SpeakingHuman #VO #Branding #Marketing #Advertising #Business #SmallBiz #Brands #Ads #simplify #popculture #art #Brands #logos #minorleague #baseball #family
Get show notes for this episode and check out past episodes of the Speaking Human podcast by visiting speakinghuman.com.
#Podcast #SpeakingHuman #VO #Branding #Marketing #Advertising #Business #SmallBiz #Brands #Ads #simplify #popculture #art #Brands #logos #minorleague #baseball #family
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Specking Human.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Today, on Speaking Human, we clock in to explore the
great office Exodus reversal, where companies are trading zoom backgrounds
for actual backgrounds and gen Z is surprisingly leading the
charge back to cubicle life.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Speaking Human.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Welcome to Speaking Human, where we simplify the world of
marketing for humans. I'm Shad Calmly and with me as
my co host Patrick Jebber. How's it going out there, Patrick.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Everything's great working from home right now? You're working from
home right now?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Yeah, not me cubical.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Some might argue that we're just playing, we're not really
working when we're on the podcast, but I'd like to say,
you know, find some thing that you love and you
never have to work a day and you laugh.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Exactly what I was thinking. I was actually thinking, is
it all just one big cubicle?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, that's a that's an interesting concept to ponder.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Yeah, it's like the matrix. We're all just stuck in
the large cubicle. We think we're free.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
What if Earth really was just like we're not on
like a sphere, We're in a cubicle.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Yeah, and there's a bunch of other Earth like cubicles.
You know, there's like twenty of them in this just
one office.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
That would make a lot of sense, because sometimes I
do feel like life is work, you know what I mean?
Just life?
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Yeah, I bet you. The boss is also.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Like, oh god, Earth again with the Earth? Why are
they always so obnoxious?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Everybody else does what they have to do, and then there's.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Earth always trying to be round in a square cubicle.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
It's the story of Earth's laugh.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I know we're talking about work from home today a
little other since we you know, you did click on
this work from work forever as we like to call
it on the episode, I have a little trivia for you, though, Shad,
just to get us started, just to get the listeners
started thinking about what once was, what maybe still is
(02:31):
very close to home for some pun intended work from home.
Get it there, So you ready for this, Be ready
for a little trivia.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
I'm always ready.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Bring it all right. In twenty twenty, just you know,
scatterback a little bit a couple of years, kind of
remember it. Zoom the virtual not reality but virtual conferencing.
Zoom's daily meeting participants skyrocketed from ten million in twenty
twenty too, roughly, how many.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Can I get a multiple choice on this one.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, Okay, it's either A fifty million, B two hundred million,
C three hundred million, or D five hundred million. So
it went from ten million to what in twenty twenty?
Speaker 3 (03:21):
So this is from the beginning of the year to
the end of the year in a certain one.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
We don't know, just it roughly in the in the year.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Okay, So my choice is our fifty million, two hundred million,
three hundred million, and five hundred million. Yeah, I'm going
to say it went to I'm going to go with
two hundred million.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
You're very very very very very close. It's the other
one three million, hundred million, yep, I mean, which is
pretty insane. Even if it was two hundred million, it'd
still be insane. Going from ten million to two hundred million.
That's daily meeting parties too, So imagine that's like almost
the entire United States daily.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, and maybe at some point, maybe this is another episode.
But who benefited or got the biggest jump from the
twenty twenty event? What brands? I mean, Zoom's got to
be on the top of the list. Not that Zoom's
not doing well now, but man, they really got like
a surge to the heart in that moment, and yeah,
(04:27):
you know, would they have jumped so quickly? Would they
have got you know, accepted by so many organizations, you know,
would they have that? I think they were already on
their way up. But man, that really like accelerated their growth.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Oh yeah, by leaps and bounds, probably by five years.
Oh yeah. They may never have gotten to where they
are today if it wasn't for the event. All right,
So follow up question of that, which I think is
really interesting or kind of funny and comical, is do
you know which US city saw a surge and work
from home relocations during a certain global event that we're
(05:04):
talking about that it jokingly declared itself the zoom capital
of America. I could give you multiple choice on this too,
if you want.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
I'll probably take the multiple choice. My guess. You know,
at the top of my head, I'm thinking it's New York, Seattle,
you know, Silicon Valley, something like that.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Okay, choices are A Boise, Idaho, B Tulsa, Oklahoma, C Austin, Texas,
or D Bend, Oregon.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
So I was not even in the ballpark.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
You're like the Bahamas.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Give me those choices again. I'm thinking it's somewhere very
off the beaten path. Go ahead, give me him again.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
So A Boise, Idaho, B Tulsa, Oklahoma, CE, Austin, Texas,
or D Bend Organ.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
I'm gonna go with I'm thinking it's A or D.
I'm gonna go with D Bend, Oregon. Yeah, you were correct, Yes,
fifty to fifty.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
You made it. You came back.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
I did a who Wants to be a Millionaire? And
I narrowed it down.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
You're like, I like to call my lifeline. Isn't that
what they called it? The lifeline? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:18):
And then you call somebody and they'd be like, I
don't know the answer that, why'd you call me? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I thought that was really kind of funny that they
called themselves the zoom capital of America at that point.
I don't know why you I don't know, you know,
just because you had work from home relocations. I don't know.
It's a weird thing.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
But ks the playing that to me because so many
people were moving there.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah, it just jokingly declared itself that I think, you know,
this was a time too. We talked about this. We
had this conversation about work from home, you know in
episode one hundred and thirty of the podcast, and we
seemed pretty light at the time, but you know, there
was a lot going on. I think people were kind
of jokingly just trying to keep things, you know, like
(06:59):
it's it's okay, it's all right, you know, like, oh, yeah,
we're to the zoom capital of America. Like, but meanwhile
there's you know, uncertainty and chaos and you know a
little bit of that going on.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
So yeah, people were getting into some odd things though.
Stuck at home for a while, we just started doing
some weird things.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
You know.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
We like our world had changed and shifted and gone
upside down and we were just trying out some new things.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
I mean, all that stuff happened drastically, all at once,
which when you look back on it, you go wow.
You know at the time it felt like wow, but
it was just like it was a whirlwind. Yeah, it
was happening so fast you just didn't even have time
to react. Almost you were just like, ah, okay, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
I'm just jump on my peloton and just keep riding.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Man. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
That's a good you know segue in as we start
talking about you know, work from home and what was
going on back then and kind of what's going on now.
So let me take you back for a second, way
back to episode one hundred and thirty of this very
podcast which we recorded or I think it came out
(08:09):
in June of twenty twenty, where we talked about the
work from home trend fueled by a certain global event.
And you know, in that episode we were stipulating that
working where we live could that soon be the forever future. Well,
here we are five years in what feels like a
(08:31):
billion lifetimes later, and the tides have started to turn again.
The number of workers required to be in the office
regularly surged to seventy five percent in late twenty twenty four,
up from sixty three percent in early twenty twenty three.
This is according to Pew Research Center data. A more
(08:52):
recent survey from Cisco supports this, with seventy two percent
of respondents saying their organizations have mandates for working in
the office. Since the new administration took over, the federal
government has mandated all its employees returned to working in person,
and many major companies are taking a similar approach. Microsoft,
(09:14):
which employs one hundred and twenty five thousand people in
the US has had a flexible work arrangement since the
twenty twenty event and is now reportedly considering a stricter
return to office mandate. Also of interest is who wants
to return to the office versus who doesn't. A recent
Gallup poll found that only twenty three percent of remote
(09:35):
capable gen Z employees say they would prefer fully remote work,
compared with thirty five percent among each older generation, though
it is worth noting fully on site work remains the
least popular option across all age groups. So, Patrick, in
light of the new work from work trend, let's talk
(09:57):
about where we were five years ago and where we
are now based on some of these things I just shared.
Do we need to once again completely change the way
we think about work? Should we also change the upper
back tattoos we got in twenty twenty to now say
work from work forever instead of work from home forever.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
It's easy to change tattoos nowadays. You know you could
do that.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Yeah, And most of the words are staying.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
The same, Yeah, most of them. I also think I
kind of like work from work WFW. It has like
a symmetry to it, I think, you know, makes it
appealing to me at least a little bit get better
tat it would it would. So we had this idea
for the episode when we saw this survey and the
(10:47):
results come out that like younger people were like, I
prefer working in an office, and we're like, you know,
because this is a huge shift in mentality. In five years,
we went all at once to work from home, which
was a drastic shift. I'm gonna say drastic five thousand
times in this episode. But then, you know, over the
(11:08):
course of five years, we really didn't know what was
going to happen.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
You know.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
The first few years was very uncertain times, and then
just in the last couple of years, really a year
and a half even, maybe it's changed a lot. I
think that shift back and forth is like disorienting. I
think it is probably the best word I could use.
But I guess it's a really uh fascinating sort of
(11:32):
like test or like experiment, you know, like a confined
space of time. All these things happened like back and
forth so quickly that it's very strange and unusual to
watch it happen that quickly. I guess, what do you think?
Speaker 3 (11:49):
I mean, You're right, this thing we went through, it's
a very weird thing.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
It's like the blip you know in the Marvel movies.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, it's like.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
All these people just disappeared and now they're back and
just go on with the world as it was. You
never really process it. You just kind of like keep going,
and you're like feel like you're on this teeter todd
or trying to get a handle on where we are
with things, and yet you're never quite feel like things
are balanced again. Yeah, So I guess that's kind of
(12:18):
where we're at, teetering from this. We're like, are we
in this moment? Are we in this moment? Are we
out of this thing? I mean, where are we now?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
I feel like if anybody can relate to this, you know,
we're we're at to point now where we're sort of
far enough removed that you still are in meetings, you
still are having conversations even with your friends, and you
relate everything to this event that happened, and yet you
know you're kind of tired of even referencing it. Like
(12:46):
we're doing an episode about working from work and referencing
working from home, and even that feels like are we
hitting on a subject that people are going to be like,
oh my god, you know, I don't ever want to
even think about that again, you know what I mean.
But it is really, I mean, just psychologically something that
I think is just so interesting to just kind of
(13:08):
once in a while just look at it and go,
oh my god, all that happened, right, Like, all this
happened to us, And to your point, some of us
haven't really processed it properly, you know what I mean.
Like we're all like just like, Okay, well it's gone.
We don't want to really talk about it anymore. But
I mean, in some way, we're all still holding on
a little bit to like all kinds of elements like grief, despair,
(13:32):
things that like happened to us. But then also like
these nostalgic positive things like you know, spending more time
with our families during that you know, like being able
to work from home and giving us flexibility. Like positive
things came out of that, but most of it was
surrounded by like something that was very negative.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Yeah, and you kind of touched on a piece of it.
It's kind of weird too to just be like we're
going back, which to me is almost like people got
a taste of this and they're like us, it's pretty good,
and you're taking that completely off the menu. Seems like
kind of a crazy step. Are almost just erasing that
whole thing that happened.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Yeah, I think there, you know, there is to some
degree some positive things from working from home, right still
having that flexibility is really important, but to remove it
completely seems like, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Yeah, just seems like we're forgetting the whole like previous
five years and what we experienced. But even going you know,
going back to kind of the moment we were in
five years ago, and it felt like in that moment,
that timeline seemed like, oh, maybe it is and maybe
this is just what we're going to do from now on.
You know, maybe this is people who are never working
(14:41):
from home, we're suddenly working from home and it's like
this was impossible and now it's possible, And in that moment,
it's like this could be a thing. It's just kind
of one of those things. It seems crazy. Now we've
gotten to a point where it's like flipped a little bit.
But it just reminds me when you're in the moment,
when you're in any sort of present moment, how it
(15:02):
feels like this is just the way things are going
to be, yeah, And this is the way things are
always going to be. Then they're not. Yeah, So you
know what I mean. Like, for example, work from home
is like one example where like we're always going to
work in the office, and then we didn't. Yeah, and
then it was like work from home. Now we've got this,
We're always going to have this, and then things flip
(15:23):
again when you could think of other things, like you know,
we were talking about TV shows before being like ten episodes.
Now there was a time where people would be like
TV shows are always going to be twenty four episodes.
New episodes are always going to air in the fall. Yeah,
And then that was true for like decades until it wasn't.
But in the you know, in the moment that was happening,
it's just impossible to think of a scenario where it's
(15:45):
not like that. In that reality. It's like just so
hard to see another reality.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Yeah. Before work from home became a global event, working
from home was the dream come true scenario. It was
like the dream job, being able to control how you
spend your time during the day, And I mean, this
is what people wanted. It would be like the utopian
job sitch as the kids say nowadays, you know what
(16:12):
I mean, Like that what a great situation to be in,
to be like, Okay, I can work from home whenever
I want to. People be like, oh man, that's that's
a dream job. And then it became that for everyone,
and we thought that that was going to be like,
maybe this is it, this is the way our life
is going to be forever. Like I remember saying somebody recently,
I was at a movie theater and I still have
(16:32):
these little bits of these I never thought that day
would come again, where like we're not even thinking about it.
You know, it's gone, it's out of our collective memory.
Or maybe it's not. Maybe it's just sitting back there
in the back of your brain and you're like every
so often people are thinking, man, I never thought I'd
be sitting in a crowded theater again, and here we are,
(16:53):
you know, sharing plates of food at a restaurant. Never
thought that was going to happen again. Because this is
the thing, Like it's an event that happened to us
everyone all at once. They couldn't see outside of that bubble.
They just couldn't see outside of it. It was like,
this is it. This is the way it's always going
to be for all time now, you know. So why
we kind of joked a little bit three months into
(17:15):
this situation because I think they said it like June.
I think it came out right, So it's like March June,
we were still kind of like trying to figure out
what's even going on at that point. But we're like
work from home, you know, let's brainstorm ideas, whereas we
call them spitballing ideas on what those cool things would
be that would come out of that. And it's a strange,
very very strange feeling still, I think when we sit
(17:38):
here and analyze it.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Yeah, listening to us back then now, I was expecting
more of like everything has changed. I was surprised we
were not like that. We were more much more even
keeled in that moment than I thought we were going
to be. When talked about work from home, we were
talking about, you know, this is not for everybody.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Now.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Some people are going to hate this, some people are
going to like this, you know. And I think the
end result, and I think we both kind of landed
on the same place was not really this full workforce shift,
but it was a greater flexibility for people to work remotely,
even on some basis, you know, whether it's like a
couple of days a week or a day week, however
they're breaking it up. But I think that's kind of
(18:18):
where we landed, was like, the option is there for
more people to have the flexibility to do this if
they liked doing this.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
And you had even said people won't want to work
from home forever. I mean, you said that, and there
are there are those people, and I think that that's
a true, you know statement. I think for anything like
you're never going to get one hundred percent anyone that's
going to want to do something anything forever.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Interesting little tidbit because at the time it was just
announced or recently announced. Jack Dorsey, who used to run
Twitter two things crazy that are not true anymore, announced
that employees could work from home forever. I think that
might have been inspiration, I think to work from home
forever episode. But you know, like this idea that that's
(19:06):
none of that stuff is even true.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah, you're right. All of those three things you said,
none of them are sure anymore.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
A perfect case study of what we're talking about. I
did love, though, like our brainstorming session brought out some
really great things for those who might still consider working
from home, like you know Neo and Morpheus, you know,
your space on the supercomputer and virtual reality office. You
(19:33):
know that you you brainstormed that was pretty great. We
called it the Real Reality. Do you remember that?
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Yeah? I was impressed. You know, as long as we're
patting ourselves on the back here. We both had shared
ideas for kind of setting up like improp to makeshift
offices in or around kind of in your backyard or
something like that. I think yours was sort of a
fold up tent idea. You know, it starts really and
(20:00):
then you can fold out this whole tent office. And
mine was like an ORB kind of a thing. Yeah,
these are real things now, I mean not those exact things,
but you could buy like work pod backyard offices. So
I'm gonna say we invented those and demand ten percent
of all sales revenue.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
It'd be really crazy if you saw the WFT, which
was the work from tent or the ORB that's just
sitting out there on Amazon, you know, or wherever they're
selling it. Something. I just go back to your your
virtual reality space, which I really loved one of the things.
I'm quoting you here. You said, because we were talking
(20:41):
about real reality, like we'd call it the R and
R or something like that, you know, and you said
virtual always sounds lesser. That was a quote that you had,
and I was like, oh, that is so good because
it's it's still true, right, yeah, Like that is one
thing that it's actually still true. Virtual sounds lesser.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
One thing on that episode that still holds up.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Today, that increased flexibility. I think, you know, we determined that,
you know, that was the thing that was going to
come out of working from home, which I think is
you know, like you said, true.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
So circling back a little bit to you know, I
guess coming forward to now, Hm, what do you think
about this? You know, the Gallup poll and this generational
data with the younger people are the ones who are
more prone to want to come back to the office,
whereas your generation exer as your boomers, less likely to
(21:38):
want to come back, though you know, there's still a
contingent of those who said they'd like to be back
in the office.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
I do feel like I have a good understanding of
what this stems from. But you know, I don't know
if it's completely accurate. But older generations, we've worked from
work for you know, an extended period of time. We
know what that's like. We've gotten the experiences of that,
and you know know, for better or for worse, many
of us could take it or leave it, and to
(22:04):
varying degrees. And then the younger people like wanting to
be in an office setting. I think, you know, that's
it stems a little bit from like not enough experience
in the real world in those office settings, so they
want those experiences, right A and B. Really a lot
of them grew up in a time where they were
(22:25):
deprived of those real life experiences, you know, being in
an environment where you know, like some kids miss school
for a couple of years in their sort of like
development stage. So I think that's maybe where it kind
of pulls from or like that that desire comes from.
I don't know, that's my rudimentary analysis of that. What
do you think.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
No, I think that's true. I think all those things
make sense. The only thing I'd probably add and there
is like, you know, it generally just makes sense with
stage of life. You know, if I'm a younger person,
which I'm not, I want to be around people more.
There's like a social aspect to it. I'd want to
be going out to happy hours. I'd want to be like,
you know, talking to people. There's part of that that's
(23:05):
like valuable and fun at that age, but as a
generation exer with young kids, probably more valuable is the
ability to help your kids get to school or be
there when they get home, or take them places they
need to be, you know, take your dog for a walk,
other things like that, get to your parents' house, things
you have to do like that, those other kind of
obligations that have to do with stage of life. But
(23:29):
also you're right, you've done it, you've been through it,
you had that experience when you were younger, So those
other aspects, those social aspects might not be as valuable
worth noting, you know, all groups in this poll, you know,
hybrid was the number one for all of them by
a long shot. Yeah, you know, I think gen Z
(23:49):
it was like seventy one percent said hybrid. Gen Z
had the least amount of people who were like exclusively
I want to be exclusively remote.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Which makes sense, you know, and this goes back to
what we were saying, that's really the increased flexibility part
of it. I don't care who you are. I think
flexibility is definitely a benefit, regardless of the event that
led us there here. That flexibility is I think critical
in any person's life. We talked for decades on work
(24:20):
life balance, and that balance shifted quite a bit, and
some would probably argue to the detriment of life because
you know, when you were working from home, you were
really working from home. People's whole schedule shifted and it
wasn't necessarily I mean they were getting more time, but
they weren't really getting more time.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Well, and lines blurred, right, this is the thing that happens.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Yeah, Like where does work end? Yeah? And that's the
thing like that, that's the argument is like there was
no end and that may be caused, you know, maybe
some more of the negative side effects of working from home.
But the flexibility, Yeah, being able to like have that
I think is always going to be really important.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Yeah, And clearly from that poll, what it seems like
a lot of people want that being the case. You know,
you got to wonder why are some organizations mandating people
go back to the office when they weren't before. I
think there are some other factors at play here. So
a Forbes article titled the Real reasons Companies are forcing
you back to the office from this past March pointed
(25:24):
out ten reasons for this. I'll share a few that
popped out to be. Number two. It's easier to monitor
input what people are doing than output the value they
actually produce. Sit on that for a secua go through
a couple more. Number five to reinforce a traditional hierarchy
(25:46):
work structure, aka a pure power play. So some managers
believe that physical presence reinforces workplace authority and structure, allowing
leadership to maintain greater control the workforce. And number eight
to get people to quit voluntarily, which is useful during
(26:07):
a downturn. So they're suggesting all these could be in play,
you know at some companies right now.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Yeah, because of where we're at economically and like people's layoffs.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Definitely for like federal government, we know that was kind
of a doge tactic.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
So the first one was the input and output. That's
a really interesting like monitoring that when you have people
in house in the office, you know all of those
things are true, you do have some semblance of control
you're able to monitor better. Not that you can't do
those things in a work from home setting, But I
(26:46):
get some of that. I just don't know. I mean,
there's got to be some other things that are sort
of happening there too, you know, like are they sort
of correlating a downward sales? Are they correlating those things
to the work from home setting and those people not
being there. If that's the case, then think there's still
some sort of happy medium or like figuring out We
(27:08):
always said some people I think are built for the
office setting, Like this is what they need, right, They
need structure of being some other place, like I think
I even mentioned in that episode.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
You did use the comparison of going to the gym,
which I thought was really good. And some people need
to go to the gym. You know, they can't they
don't the discipline to work out at home, or it's
just not enough to you know, be in their own space.
They need to go somewhere, have that structure, that routine,
you know, get out of the house to do it,
(27:39):
which I think is a great comparison.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yeah, you know, this is a thing like I I'm
this type of person in life. It doesn't have to
be all or none. It just doesn't like there's got
to be some variation, some ability to just be able
to see the situation and adapt like for the person,
because I think sometimes it's individual based.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Yeah, I agree with that, and I think that's how
it should be. I think when we look at these
things on a on a hale or these like larger trends,
it's kind of like the pendulum swinging, you know what
I mean, usually always goes too far in one direction
and then corrects by going too far in the other direction,
when it generally should just be like hanging right there.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
In the middle.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
If only, if only, if only so. Yeah, all great things,
I hopefully as listeners, you know, because we battled with
not really battled. We didn't really battle, but we we discussed,
you know, the idea of work from work, you know
this episode and work from home and like, you know,
(28:41):
have it because really it's kind of a flashback episode
because we're kind of talking about where we were, where
we are, you know, the surveying, the pole sort of
spearheaded that. But let us know what you think of that.
Here's my takeaway. It's very simple today. My takeaway is
be careful what you wish for. It's the simple thing.
People say it all the time, but really that's the
(29:02):
key because way back in the day, we were like,
I'm going to be great to work from home all
the time, and then we got it, not in a
great in a great way, and then you know, now
we're going back into working from work and businesses mandating it.
No matter what you're wishing for, just be careful what
(29:24):
you wish for, because you don't know what the side
effects or the repercussions are, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
You don't know how you're going to get it.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
You don't know how you're gonna get it. It's like
I was thinking of the one with Brendan Fraser and
Elizabeth Hurley Hurley or she plays the devil right dazzle
the dazzled, Yeah, and every time he makes a wish,
she finds the loophole and whatever he wished for. I
don't know if that's completely like, you know, one hundred
(29:55):
percent like tied to this, but this is the idea
that I would just leave you with is in life,
just be careful what you wish for.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
You know. The other takeaway could be just work from work,
work from where you feel good. Hopefully you have the
ability to do that or find you know, something that
works for you. But work from work doesn't have to
mean work from the office. It could be work from
wherever you like working.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
If you're afforded that luxury.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Obviously, if you are afforded that luxury, most probably aren't.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I'll also say there's one constant in both of those,
just work.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
I mean, that's deep.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
All right, Well, you know that's it for today's episode
of Speaking Human. You can find current and past episodes
of the podcast on speaking human dot com.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
We'll be back in two weeks with another episode of
Speaking Human. Catch you then Humans
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Speaking Human
Specking Human.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Today, on Speaking Human, we clock in to explore the
great office Exodus reversal, where companies are trading zoom backgrounds
for actual backgrounds and gen Z is surprisingly leading the
charge back to cubicle life.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Speaking Human.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Welcome to Speaking Human, where we simplify the world of
marketing for humans. I'm Shad Calmly and with me as
my co host Patrick Jebber. How's it going out there, Patrick.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Everything's great working from home right now? You're working from
home right now?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Yeah, not me cubical.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Some might argue that we're just playing, we're not really
working when we're on the podcast, but I'd like to say,
you know, find some thing that you love and you
never have to work a day and you laugh.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Exactly what I was thinking. I was actually thinking, is
it all just one big cubicle?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, that's a that's an interesting concept to ponder.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Yeah, it's like the matrix. We're all just stuck in
the large cubicle. We think we're free.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
What if Earth really was just like we're not on
like a sphere, We're in a cubicle.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Yeah, and there's a bunch of other Earth like cubicles.
You know, there's like twenty of them in this just
one office.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
That would make a lot of sense, because sometimes I
do feel like life is work, you know what I mean?
Just life?
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Yeah, I bet you. The boss is also.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Like, oh god, Earth again with the Earth? Why are
they always so obnoxious?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Everybody else does what they have to do, and then there's.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Earth always trying to be round in a square cubicle.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
It's the story of Earth's laugh.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I know we're talking about work from home today a
little other since we you know, you did click on
this work from work forever as we like to call
it on the episode, I have a little trivia for you, though, Shad,
just to get us started, just to get the listeners
started thinking about what once was, what maybe still is
(02:31):
very close to home for some pun intended work from home.
Get it there, So you ready for this, Be ready
for a little trivia.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
I'm always ready.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Bring it all right. In twenty twenty, just you know,
scatterback a little bit a couple of years, kind of
remember it. Zoom the virtual not reality but virtual conferencing.
Zoom's daily meeting participants skyrocketed from ten million in twenty
twenty too, roughly, how many.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Can I get a multiple choice on this one.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, Okay, it's either A fifty million, B two hundred million,
C three hundred million, or D five hundred million. So
it went from ten million to what in twenty twenty?
Speaker 3 (03:21):
So this is from the beginning of the year to
the end of the year in a certain one.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
We don't know, just it roughly in the in the year.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Okay, So my choice is our fifty million, two hundred million,
three hundred million, and five hundred million. Yeah, I'm going
to say it went to I'm going to go with
two hundred million.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
You're very very very very very close. It's the other
one three million, hundred million, yep, I mean, which is
pretty insane. Even if it was two hundred million, it'd
still be insane. Going from ten million to two hundred million.
That's daily meeting parties too, So imagine that's like almost
the entire United States daily.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, and maybe at some point, maybe this is another episode.
But who benefited or got the biggest jump from the
twenty twenty event? What brands? I mean, Zoom's got to
be on the top of the list. Not that Zoom's
not doing well now, but man, they really got like
a surge to the heart in that moment, and yeah,
(04:27):
you know, would they have jumped so quickly? Would they
have got you know, accepted by so many organizations, you know,
would they have that? I think they were already on
their way up. But man, that really like accelerated their growth.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Oh yeah, by leaps and bounds, probably by five years.
Oh yeah. They may never have gotten to where they
are today if it wasn't for the event. All right,
So follow up question of that, which I think is
really interesting or kind of funny and comical, is do
you know which US city saw a surge and work
from home relocations during a certain global event that we're
(05:04):
talking about that it jokingly declared itself the zoom capital
of America. I could give you multiple choice on this too,
if you want.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
I'll probably take the multiple choice. My guess. You know,
at the top of my head, I'm thinking it's New York, Seattle,
you know, Silicon Valley, something like that.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Okay, choices are A Boise, Idaho, B Tulsa, Oklahoma, C Austin, Texas,
or D Bend, Oregon.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
So I was not even in the ballpark.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
You're like the Bahamas.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Give me those choices again. I'm thinking it's somewhere very
off the beaten path. Go ahead, give me him again.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
So A Boise, Idaho, B Tulsa, Oklahoma, CE, Austin, Texas,
or D Bend Organ.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
I'm gonna go with I'm thinking it's A or D.
I'm gonna go with D Bend, Oregon. Yeah, you were correct, Yes,
fifty to fifty.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
You made it. You came back.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
I did a who Wants to be a Millionaire? And
I narrowed it down.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
You're like, I like to call my lifeline. Isn't that
what they called it? The lifeline? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:18):
And then you call somebody and they'd be like, I
don't know the answer that, why'd you call me? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I thought that was really kind of funny that they
called themselves the zoom capital of America at that point.
I don't know why you I don't know, you know,
just because you had work from home relocations. I don't know.
It's a weird thing.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
But ks the playing that to me because so many
people were moving there.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah, it just jokingly declared itself that I think, you know,
this was a time too. We talked about this. We
had this conversation about work from home, you know in
episode one hundred and thirty of the podcast, and we
seemed pretty light at the time, but you know, there
was a lot going on. I think people were kind
of jokingly just trying to keep things, you know, like
(06:59):
it's it's okay, it's all right, you know, like, oh, yeah,
we're to the zoom capital of America. Like, but meanwhile
there's you know, uncertainty and chaos and you know a
little bit of that going on.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
So yeah, people were getting into some odd things though.
Stuck at home for a while, we just started doing
some weird things.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
You know.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
We like our world had changed and shifted and gone
upside down and we were just trying out some new things.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
I mean, all that stuff happened drastically, all at once,
which when you look back on it, you go wow.
You know at the time it felt like wow, but
it was just like it was a whirlwind. Yeah, it
was happening so fast you just didn't even have time
to react. Almost you were just like, ah, okay, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
I'm just jump on my peloton and just keep riding.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Man. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
That's a good you know segue in as we start
talking about you know, work from home and what was
going on back then and kind of what's going on now.
So let me take you back for a second, way
back to episode one hundred and thirty of this very
podcast which we recorded or I think it came out
(08:09):
in June of twenty twenty, where we talked about the
work from home trend fueled by a certain global event.
And you know, in that episode we were stipulating that
working where we live could that soon be the forever future. Well,
here we are five years in what feels like a
(08:31):
billion lifetimes later, and the tides have started to turn again.
The number of workers required to be in the office
regularly surged to seventy five percent in late twenty twenty four,
up from sixty three percent in early twenty twenty three.
This is according to Pew Research Center data. A more
(08:52):
recent survey from Cisco supports this, with seventy two percent
of respondents saying their organizations have mandates for working in
the office. Since the new administration took over, the federal
government has mandated all its employees returned to working in person,
and many major companies are taking a similar approach. Microsoft,
(09:14):
which employs one hundred and twenty five thousand people in
the US has had a flexible work arrangement since the
twenty twenty event and is now reportedly considering a stricter
return to office mandate. Also of interest is who wants
to return to the office versus who doesn't. A recent
Gallup poll found that only twenty three percent of remote
(09:35):
capable gen Z employees say they would prefer fully remote work,
compared with thirty five percent among each older generation, though
it is worth noting fully on site work remains the
least popular option across all age groups. So, Patrick, in
light of the new work from work trend, let's talk
(09:57):
about where we were five years ago and where we
are now based on some of these things I just shared.
Do we need to once again completely change the way
we think about work? Should we also change the upper
back tattoos we got in twenty twenty to now say
work from work forever instead of work from home forever.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
It's easy to change tattoos nowadays. You know you could
do that.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Yeah, And most of the words are staying.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
The same, Yeah, most of them. I also think I
kind of like work from work WFW. It has like
a symmetry to it, I think, you know, makes it
appealing to me at least a little bit get better
tat it would it would. So we had this idea
for the episode when we saw this survey and the
(10:47):
results come out that like younger people were like, I
prefer working in an office, and we're like, you know,
because this is a huge shift in mentality. In five years,
we went all at once to work from home, which
was a drastic shift. I'm gonna say drastic five thousand
times in this episode. But then, you know, over the
(11:08):
course of five years, we really didn't know what was
going to happen.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
You know.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
The first few years was very uncertain times, and then
just in the last couple of years, really a year
and a half even, maybe it's changed a lot. I
think that shift back and forth is like disorienting. I
think it is probably the best word I could use.
But I guess it's a really uh fascinating sort of
(11:32):
like test or like experiment, you know, like a confined
space of time. All these things happened like back and
forth so quickly that it's very strange and unusual to
watch it happen that quickly. I guess, what do you think?
Speaker 3 (11:49):
I mean, You're right, this thing we went through, it's
a very weird thing.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
It's like the blip you know in the Marvel movies.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, it's like.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
All these people just disappeared and now they're back and
just go on with the world as it was. You
never really process it. You just kind of like keep going,
and you're like feel like you're on this teeter todd
or trying to get a handle on where we are
with things, and yet you're never quite feel like things
are balanced again. Yeah, So I guess that's kind of
(12:18):
where we're at, teetering from this. We're like, are we
in this moment? Are we in this moment? Are we
out of this thing? I mean, where are we now?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
I feel like if anybody can relate to this, you know,
we're we're at to point now where we're sort of
far enough removed that you still are in meetings, you
still are having conversations even with your friends, and you
relate everything to this event that happened, and yet you
know you're kind of tired of even referencing it. Like
(12:46):
we're doing an episode about working from work and referencing
working from home, and even that feels like are we
hitting on a subject that people are going to be like,
oh my god, you know, I don't ever want to
even think about that again, you know what I mean.
But it is really, I mean, just psychologically something that
I think is just so interesting to just kind of
(13:08):
once in a while just look at it and go,
oh my god, all that happened, right, Like, all this
happened to us, And to your point, some of us
haven't really processed it properly, you know what I mean.
Like we're all like just like, Okay, well it's gone.
We don't want to really talk about it anymore. But
I mean, in some way, we're all still holding on
a little bit to like all kinds of elements like grief, despair,
(13:32):
things that like happened to us. But then also like
these nostalgic positive things like you know, spending more time
with our families during that you know, like being able
to work from home and giving us flexibility. Like positive
things came out of that, but most of it was
surrounded by like something that was very negative.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Yeah, and you kind of touched on a piece of it.
It's kind of weird too to just be like we're
going back, which to me is almost like people got
a taste of this and they're like us, it's pretty good,
and you're taking that completely off the menu. Seems like
kind of a crazy step. Are almost just erasing that
whole thing that happened.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Yeah, I think there, you know, there is to some
degree some positive things from working from home, right still
having that flexibility is really important, but to remove it
completely seems like, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Yeah, just seems like we're forgetting the whole like previous
five years and what we experienced. But even going you know,
going back to kind of the moment we were in
five years ago, and it felt like in that moment,
that timeline seemed like, oh, maybe it is and maybe
this is just what we're going to do from now on.
You know, maybe this is people who are never working
(14:41):
from home, we're suddenly working from home and it's like
this was impossible and now it's possible, And in that moment,
it's like this could be a thing. It's just kind
of one of those things. It seems crazy. Now we've
gotten to a point where it's like flipped a little bit.
But it just reminds me when you're in the moment,
when you're in any sort of present moment, how it
(15:02):
feels like this is just the way things are going
to be, yeah, And this is the way things are
always going to be. Then they're not. Yeah, So you
know what I mean. Like, for example, work from home
is like one example where like we're always going to
work in the office, and then we didn't. Yeah, and
then it was like work from home. Now we've got this,
We're always going to have this, and then things flip
(15:23):
again when you could think of other things, like you know,
we were talking about TV shows before being like ten episodes.
Now there was a time where people would be like
TV shows are always going to be twenty four episodes.
New episodes are always going to air in the fall. Yeah,
And then that was true for like decades until it wasn't.
But in the you know, in the moment that was happening,
it's just impossible to think of a scenario where it's
(15:45):
not like that. In that reality. It's like just so
hard to see another reality.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Yeah. Before work from home became a global event, working
from home was the dream come true scenario. It was
like the dream job, being able to control how you
spend your time during the day, And I mean, this
is what people wanted. It would be like the utopian
job sitch as the kids say nowadays, you know what
(16:12):
I mean, Like that what a great situation to be in,
to be like, Okay, I can work from home whenever
I want to. People be like, oh man, that's that's
a dream job. And then it became that for everyone,
and we thought that that was going to be like,
maybe this is it, this is the way our life
is going to be forever. Like I remember saying somebody recently,
I was at a movie theater and I still have
(16:32):
these little bits of these I never thought that day
would come again, where like we're not even thinking about it.
You know, it's gone, it's out of our collective memory.
Or maybe it's not. Maybe it's just sitting back there
in the back of your brain and you're like every
so often people are thinking, man, I never thought I'd
be sitting in a crowded theater again, and here we are,
(16:53):
you know, sharing plates of food at a restaurant. Never
thought that was going to happen again. Because this is
the thing, Like it's an event that happened to us
everyone all at once. They couldn't see outside of that bubble.
They just couldn't see outside of it. It was like,
this is it. This is the way it's always going
to be for all time now, you know. So why
we kind of joked a little bit three months into
(17:15):
this situation because I think they said it like June.
I think it came out right, So it's like March June,
we were still kind of like trying to figure out
what's even going on at that point. But we're like
work from home, you know, let's brainstorm ideas, whereas we
call them spitballing ideas on what those cool things would
be that would come out of that. And it's a strange,
very very strange feeling still, I think when we sit
(17:38):
here and analyze it.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Yeah, listening to us back then now, I was expecting
more of like everything has changed. I was surprised we
were not like that. We were more much more even
keeled in that moment than I thought we were going
to be. When talked about work from home, we were
talking about, you know, this is not for everybody.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Now.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Some people are going to hate this, some people are
going to like this, you know. And I think the
end result, and I think we both kind of landed
on the same place was not really this full workforce shift,
but it was a greater flexibility for people to work remotely,
even on some basis, you know, whether it's like a
couple of days a week or a day week, however
they're breaking it up. But I think that's kind of
(18:18):
where we landed, was like, the option is there for
more people to have the flexibility to do this if
they liked doing this.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
And you had even said people won't want to work
from home forever. I mean, you said that, and there
are there are those people, and I think that that's
a true, you know statement. I think for anything like
you're never going to get one hundred percent anyone that's
going to want to do something anything forever.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Interesting little tidbit because at the time it was just
announced or recently announced. Jack Dorsey, who used to run
Twitter two things crazy that are not true anymore, announced
that employees could work from home forever. I think that
might have been inspiration, I think to work from home
forever episode. But you know, like this idea that that's
(19:06):
none of that stuff is even true.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah, you're right. All of those three things you said,
none of them are sure anymore.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
A perfect case study of what we're talking about. I
did love, though, like our brainstorming session brought out some
really great things for those who might still consider working
from home, like you know Neo and Morpheus, you know,
your space on the supercomputer and virtual reality office. You
(19:33):
know that you you brainstormed that was pretty great. We
called it the Real Reality. Do you remember that?
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Yeah? I was impressed. You know, as long as we're
patting ourselves on the back here. We both had shared
ideas for kind of setting up like improp to makeshift
offices in or around kind of in your backyard or
something like that. I think yours was sort of a
fold up tent idea. You know, it starts really and
(20:00):
then you can fold out this whole tent office. And
mine was like an ORB kind of a thing. Yeah,
these are real things now, I mean not those exact things,
but you could buy like work pod backyard offices. So
I'm gonna say we invented those and demand ten percent
of all sales revenue.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
It'd be really crazy if you saw the WFT, which
was the work from tent or the ORB that's just
sitting out there on Amazon, you know, or wherever they're
selling it. Something. I just go back to your your
virtual reality space, which I really loved one of the things.
I'm quoting you here. You said, because we were talking
(20:41):
about real reality, like we'd call it the R and
R or something like that, you know, and you said
virtual always sounds lesser. That was a quote that you had,
and I was like, oh, that is so good because
it's it's still true, right, yeah, Like that is one
thing that it's actually still true. Virtual sounds lesser.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
One thing on that episode that still holds up.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Today, that increased flexibility. I think, you know, we determined that,
you know, that was the thing that was going to
come out of working from home, which I think is
you know, like you said, true.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
So circling back a little bit to you know, I
guess coming forward to now, Hm, what do you think
about this? You know, the Gallup poll and this generational
data with the younger people are the ones who are
more prone to want to come back to the office,
whereas your generation exer as your boomers, less likely to
(21:38):
want to come back, though you know, there's still a
contingent of those who said they'd like to be back
in the office.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
I do feel like I have a good understanding of
what this stems from. But you know, I don't know
if it's completely accurate. But older generations, we've worked from
work for you know, an extended period of time. We
know what that's like. We've gotten the experiences of that,
and you know know, for better or for worse, many
of us could take it or leave it, and to
(22:04):
varying degrees. And then the younger people like wanting to
be in an office setting. I think, you know, that's
it stems a little bit from like not enough experience
in the real world in those office settings, so they
want those experiences, right A and B. Really a lot
of them grew up in a time where they were
(22:25):
deprived of those real life experiences, you know, being in
an environment where you know, like some kids miss school
for a couple of years in their sort of like
development stage. So I think that's maybe where it kind
of pulls from or like that that desire comes from.
I don't know, that's my rudimentary analysis of that. What
do you think.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
No, I think that's true. I think all those things
make sense. The only thing I'd probably add and there
is like, you know, it generally just makes sense with
stage of life. You know, if I'm a younger person,
which I'm not, I want to be around people more.
There's like a social aspect to it. I'd want to
be going out to happy hours. I'd want to be like,
you know, talking to people. There's part of that that's
(23:05):
like valuable and fun at that age, but as a
generation exer with young kids, probably more valuable is the
ability to help your kids get to school or be
there when they get home, or take them places they
need to be, you know, take your dog for a walk,
other things like that, get to your parents' house, things
you have to do like that, those other kind of
obligations that have to do with stage of life. But
(23:29):
also you're right, you've done it, you've been through it,
you had that experience when you were younger, So those
other aspects, those social aspects might not be as valuable
worth noting, you know, all groups in this poll, you know,
hybrid was the number one for all of them by
a long shot. Yeah, you know, I think gen Z
(23:49):
it was like seventy one percent said hybrid. Gen Z
had the least amount of people who were like exclusively
I want to be exclusively remote.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Which makes sense, you know, and this goes back to
what we were saying, that's really the increased flexibility part
of it. I don't care who you are. I think
flexibility is definitely a benefit, regardless of the event that
led us there here. That flexibility is I think critical
in any person's life. We talked for decades on work
(24:20):
life balance, and that balance shifted quite a bit, and
some would probably argue to the detriment of life because
you know, when you were working from home, you were
really working from home. People's whole schedule shifted and it
wasn't necessarily I mean they were getting more time, but
they weren't really getting more time.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Well, and lines blurred, right, this is the thing that happens.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Yeah, Like where does work end? Yeah? And that's the
thing like that, that's the argument is like there was
no end and that may be caused, you know, maybe
some more of the negative side effects of working from home.
But the flexibility, Yeah, being able to like have that
I think is always going to be really important.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Yeah, And clearly from that poll, what it seems like
a lot of people want that being the case. You know,
you got to wonder why are some organizations mandating people
go back to the office when they weren't before. I
think there are some other factors at play here. So
a Forbes article titled the Real reasons Companies are forcing
you back to the office from this past March pointed
(25:24):
out ten reasons for this. I'll share a few that
popped out to be. Number two. It's easier to monitor
input what people are doing than output the value they
actually produce. Sit on that for a secua go through
a couple more. Number five to reinforce a traditional hierarchy
(25:46):
work structure, aka a pure power play. So some managers
believe that physical presence reinforces workplace authority and structure, allowing
leadership to maintain greater control the workforce. And number eight
to get people to quit voluntarily, which is useful during
(26:07):
a downturn. So they're suggesting all these could be in play,
you know at some companies right now.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Yeah, because of where we're at economically and like people's layoffs.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Definitely for like federal government, we know that was kind
of a doge tactic.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
So the first one was the input and output. That's
a really interesting like monitoring that when you have people
in house in the office, you know all of those
things are true, you do have some semblance of control
you're able to monitor better. Not that you can't do
those things in a work from home setting, But I
(26:46):
get some of that. I just don't know. I mean,
there's got to be some other things that are sort
of happening there too, you know, like are they sort
of correlating a downward sales? Are they correlating those things
to the work from home setting and those people not
being there. If that's the case, then think there's still
some sort of happy medium or like figuring out We
(27:08):
always said some people I think are built for the
office setting, Like this is what they need, right, They
need structure of being some other place, like I think
I even mentioned in that episode.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
You did use the comparison of going to the gym,
which I thought was really good. And some people need
to go to the gym. You know, they can't they
don't the discipline to work out at home, or it's
just not enough to you know, be in their own space.
They need to go somewhere, have that structure, that routine,
you know, get out of the house to do it,
(27:39):
which I think is a great comparison.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yeah, you know, this is a thing like I I'm
this type of person in life. It doesn't have to
be all or none. It just doesn't like there's got
to be some variation, some ability to just be able
to see the situation and adapt like for the person,
because I think sometimes it's individual based.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Yeah, I agree with that, and I think that's how
it should be. I think when we look at these
things on a on a hale or these like larger trends,
it's kind of like the pendulum swinging, you know what
I mean, usually always goes too far in one direction
and then corrects by going too far in the other direction,
when it generally should just be like hanging right there.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
In the middle.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
If only, if only, if only so. Yeah, all great things,
I hopefully as listeners, you know, because we battled with
not really battled. We didn't really battle, but we we discussed,
you know, the idea of work from work, you know
this episode and work from home and like, you know,
(28:41):
have it because really it's kind of a flashback episode
because we're kind of talking about where we were, where
we are, you know, the surveying, the pole sort of
spearheaded that. But let us know what you think of that.
Here's my takeaway. It's very simple today. My takeaway is
be careful what you wish for. It's the simple thing.
People say it all the time, but really that's the
(29:02):
key because way back in the day, we were like,
I'm going to be great to work from home all
the time, and then we got it, not in a
great in a great way, and then you know, now
we're going back into working from work and businesses mandating it.
No matter what you're wishing for, just be careful what
(29:24):
you wish for, because you don't know what the side
effects or the repercussions are, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
You don't know how you're going to get it.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
You don't know how you're gonna get it. It's like
I was thinking of the one with Brendan Fraser and
Elizabeth Hurley Hurley or she plays the devil right dazzle
the dazzled, Yeah, and every time he makes a wish,
she finds the loophole and whatever he wished for. I
don't know if that's completely like, you know, one hundred
(29:55):
percent like tied to this, but this is the idea
that I would just leave you with is in life,
just be careful what you wish for.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
You know. The other takeaway could be just work from work,
work from where you feel good. Hopefully you have the
ability to do that or find you know, something that
works for you. But work from work doesn't have to
mean work from the office. It could be work from
wherever you like working.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
If you're afforded that luxury.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Obviously, if you are afforded that luxury, most probably aren't.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I'll also say there's one constant in both of those,
just work.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
I mean, that's deep.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
All right, Well, you know that's it for today's episode
of Speaking Human. You can find current and past episodes
of the podcast on speaking human dot com.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
We'll be back in two weeks with another episode of
Speaking Human. Catch you then Humans
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Speaking Human
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