THE COMING PRODUCTIVITY BOOM:

The table stakes for any conversation around removing the office start with the average commute of an American, which last year hit over 27 minutes. I haven't met many people with a commute under 45 minutes, and a recent report said that commuters wait an average of 54 hours a year stalled in traffic. An estimated 128 million of the 150 million working Americans commute to work in a car, the rest predominantly using a lackluster public transport system. Intelligence firm Inrix showed a 30% or so drop in cars on the road in America from Covid-19 - with Italy showing a stunning 65% drop in traffic. This significant drop in transportation will likely have a part to play in the fight against global warming, and we now have a rare chance to take significant numbers of cars off the road by seeing the office for what it is - a paper tiger with assumed importance and effect on productivity.

The concept of face time is used to keep us in the office, with managers believing remote work dilutes people's work to numbers and documents - a sanitized and creativity-free wasteland. Ironically, that same appearance at the office is often used to evaluate people based on whether they're "nice" or "productive", which usually means someone looks busy or stressed out. An excellent piece by Michelle Ruiz of Vogue referred to Bill Gates's creation of the obsession around face time, citing a survey where employees at large American companies spent 54% of their time on email, meetings, administrative tasks and "interruptions". She calls face time "a mirage, the symbolic appearance of working (going to meetings, chatting with co-workers) but not actually getting much done".

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