"Microaggressions at the office can make remote work even more appealing/Extended remote work during the pandemic has highlighted how much energy people of color, women, and people with disabilities expend dealing with microaggressions in the office."

A headline at WaPo. From the text:

In a Twitter discussion on office microaggressions, people said working at home has largely spared them from having to deal with such incidents as:

• having colleagues touch their hair 

• being mistaken for another colleague of the same race (a problem solved by having names displayed in video meetings) 

• overhearing insensitive commentary on or being pressured to discuss traumatizing news events such as racist violence or coronavirus outbreaks in their home country 

• fielding comments from passersby on their “angry” (actually focused) expressions....

Allowing people to work in an environment where they don’t feel the need to keep their guard up means “releasing that mental burden from people who are … getting paid to think"....

Notice the potential for a legal argument: Denying the work-at-home option constitutes race/sex discrimination. There's also new reason to see a failure to accommodate the disabled:

[One employee's] health improved at home, away from colleagues wearing asthma-triggering scents. Workers with disabilities may have been spared the stress of navigating building access and transportation challenges....

And there's the general fear of violence that can be framed as discrimination — and it's not even discrimination in the workplace that the employer could attempt to fix:

And given the documented rise in anti-Asian violence over the past year, Asian workers who reasonably fear for their safety while commuting on public transit might feel safer if they continue working from home....

I guess concern about "anti-Asian violence" is in vogue, but what about women? Obviously, women feel burdened by threats of violence when making their way from the home to the workplace and back again. I suspect that the option to work at home — for any work that can be done at home — has already become something that cannot be denied. Arguments that work needs to be done in person will be countered with the real-world evidence of how it was done at home during the lockdown.

ADDED: I'm saying it's already happened: The right to work at home has already come into being. No sooner did I say that then I realized: It's systemic racism! (And systemic sexism. And systemic ableism.) What has been created is an option to behave in a way that will be attractive to women and minorities and the disabled. 

As they take this option, for their own individual benefit, they remove themselves from the workplace, make themselves invisible, and cede the active arena to the white males — the able white males — as it was in the past! And it will all be done under the cover of supporting the workers in the groups that were once excluded from the workplace. And by "it," I mean: exclusion from the workplace!

Oh! White male supremacy is devious indeed! Here, we'll give you what you want. You'll be so much more comfortable here. At home!

"Those who are least engaged are very comfortable working from home. Those who are überly engaged with the company want to go to the office two-thirds of the time, at least."

Said Sandeep Mathrani, the C.E.O. of WeWork, quoted in "WeWork’s C.E.O. says ‘least engaged’ employees enjoy working from home" (NYT).

So even the "überly engaged" only want to go in 2/3 of the time?

Having people show up at the office is a good way to test dedication — make sure you've got the right kind of people working for you. Not these balky people — people with a life of their own, working intermittently — efficiently — and doing what-all with their extra time. In the office, claiming any time of your own takes craft and stealthiness. I mean how often do you have sex or take a nap or whatever? If you're really "engaged" with your work, you just lock in and go like a machine, until 8, 10, 12 hours fly by. Obviously, the boss wants the engaged worker, and don't you want to be one too? Don't you want the non-engaged gone from your workplace? Another way to phrase that is: Would you hire yourself?

"We are closed" is trending on Twitter.

Every restaurant posting a “we are closed” sign like this blaming lazy workers for refusing to take risky public-facing jobs for abysmal pay with no benefits will lose my business. Not just now, forever. pic.twitter.com/MXZpnGLfIF

— cassandracarolina (@cassandra17lina) May 13, 2021

*CEO makes 9 figure salary*
we are closed due to lazy ppl who prefer govt money :( pic.twitter.com/JjiTb8aytg

— FULLER GO EASY ON THE PEPSI (@takemegarth) May 10, 2021

“We are closed :( bc our employees figured out we are exploiting them and quit to find better jobs but we’re spinning the narrative that they’re lazy & just want unemployment even tho you can’t receive unemployment when you quit” pic.twitter.com/mswxirTjkI

— azula playing volleyball (@ilovecheerwine) May 13, 2021

“WE ARE CLOSED”

Potential employers offering minimal coins demand to talk to the Manager of Capitalism pic.twitter.com/bHxhYCmFaO

— ƒєммє ρнємємє ✿ ✿ ✿ ꕤ ꕤ 🏴‍☠️ (@femme_phememe) May 13, 2021

WE ARE CLOSED

NO ONE WANTS TO WORK ANYMORE

THERE DOESN'T SEEM TO BE ANYONE AROUND

I THINK WE'RE ALONE NOW

THE BEATING OF OUR HEARTS IS THE ONLY SOUND pic.twitter.com/jau0VYlTHk

— Logan🌻🌊 Bishop 🤙🏽🏳️‍🌈 (@slothdragon90) May 13, 2021

"[A]ll the job gains in April went to men. The number of women employed or looking for work fell by 64,000...."

I see, reading several paragraphs into "It’s not a ‘labor shortage.’ It’s a great reassessment of work in America. Hiring was much weaker than expected in April. Wall Street thinks it’s a blip, but there could be much deeper rethinking of what jobs are needed and what workers want to do on a daily basis" (WaPo).

The author of the analysis, Heather Long, presumes the difference is attributable to "child-care issues." But that goes counter to the notion that we've got "a great reassessment of work." Maybe the idea is that if we get the schools open and functioning once again as our childcare centers, then the difference between men and women will go away, and we'll be left with a gender-neutral problem — the great reassessment of work. 

But what is the great reassessment of work?

The coronavirus outbreak has had a dramatic psychological effect on workers, and people are reassessing what they want to do and how they want to work, whether in an office, at home or some hybrid combination.

A Pew Research Center survey this year found that 66 percent of the unemployed had “seriously considered” changing their field of work, a far greater percentage than during the Great Recession. People who used to work in restaurants or travel are finding higher-paying jobs in warehouses or real estate, for example. Or they want to a job that is more stable and less likely to be exposed to the coronavirus — or any other deadly virus down the road. Consider that grocery stores shed over 49,000 workers in April and nursing care facilities lost nearly 20,000.

Economists describe this phenomenon as reallocation friction, the idea that the types of jobs in the economy are changing and workers are taking awhile to figure out what new jobs they want — or what skills they need for different roles.... In some cases, the problem is a mismatch in skills....

"Maybe paying people more to be unemployed than to work has consequences? I've been out to eat with 2 waiters working an entire establishment."

"No one wants to work now. Same thing with Lyft and gig work. Bring back proof of looking for employment and curtail unemployment benefits when we have this many job openings. Helicopter money is temporary, not permanent."

That's a high-rated comment at "The Jobs Report: The Boom That Wasn’t/April’s anemic job creation was so out of line with what other indicators have suggested that it will take some time to unravel the mystery" (NYT). 

From the article: 

Employers added only 266,000 jobs last month, the government reported Friday morning, not the million or so that forecasters expected. The unemployment rate actually edged up, to 6.1 percent.... These numbers are consistent with the story many business leaders are telling, of severe labor shortages — that demand has surged back but employers cannot find enough workers to fulfill it, at least at the wages they are accustomed to paying....

Back in 2010, the Obama administration introduced one of the more unfortunate economic messaging concepts of recent decades, announcing that a “Recovery Summer” was underway. It became a punchline, because while the economy was expanding, Americans were still far worse off than they’d been before the 2008 recession, and improvement was coming very slowly. That’s one outcome the Biden administration desperately wants to avoid.

"Before covid-19 shut my office, I didn’t pay much attention to one of my most important workplace benefits."

"But nearly a year later, it’s a perk I can’t stop daydreaming about. Eight precious hours, five days a week, when I could forget the unfolded laundry, unemptied dishwasher and kid-related clutter from one end of the apartment to the other. In short, the luxury of being able to focus on my work.... If remote work is here to stay, will the proposed flexibility actually result in greater equity, employee satisfaction and retention — let alone provide the mental health benefits women need to do our jobs well? Smart policies — whether in the public or private sector — are those that consider intended and unintended consequences.... If [more women than men choose to continue to do remote work, more women] will miss out on the connections, networking and mentorship that lead to advancement. Meanwhile, they will experience increased loneliness and the stress that comes from feeling that the division between their work and their home life has eroded. So what should well-intentioned companies and managers do? If you think flexible work will boost equity, especially for parents, it is critical to consider what other policies and practices must be in place to advance this goal."

From "Hybrid and remote schedules threaten the progress we’ve made on gender equity at the office" by Sian Beilock, the president of Barnard College (in WaPo).

"We are deeply disappointed in this decision. We are not going to give up the fight to raise the minimum wage to $15 to help millions of struggling American workers..."

"... and their families. The American people deserve it, and we are committed to making it a reality." 

Said Chuck Schumer, quoted in "Biden’s minimum wage increase runs afoul of budget rules/The Senate parliamentarian has issued a ruling that could jeopardize the rest of the president’s $1.9 trillion Covid relief package" (Politico).

Speaking of reality, do you think he's really disappointed? I imagine he's relieved. He and his party have the benefit of looking as though they tried and the benefit of not having the potentially deleterious policy actually imposed on us.

"Hours after the Fulton County district attorney announced felony murder and other charges against the former Atlanta police officer who fatally shot Rayshard Brooks... a number of Atlanta police officers called in sick just before a shift change Wednesday evening."

"The city was left scrambling to cover absences as the Atlanta Police Department tried to tamp down rumors of a mass police walkout that spread widely on social media.... 'We do have enough officers to cover us through the night,' Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) told CNN. 'Our streets won’t be any less safe because of the number of officers who called out.'... 'This is not an organized thing, it’s not a blue flu, it’s not a strike, it’s nothing like that,' Vince Champion, a spokesman for the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, told NBC News. 'What it actually is is officers protesting that they’ve had enough and they don’t want to deal with it any longer.'... Champion added that many officers felt prosecutors had not publicly shared sufficient evidence to back up the charges leveled against Rolfe, in part because the district attorney only released a video still that appears to show the former officer kick Brooks rather than the full video itself.... Although the quick action in Atlanta has been praised by civil rights advocates and hailed as a victory for activists, some in the police department have decried the quick process. Bottoms said that morale in Atlanta’s police department was at a low.... 'The thing that I’m most concerned about is how we repair the morale in our police department,” Bottoms.... 'and how do we ensure our communities are safe as they interact with our police officers.'"

WaPo reports.

In the comments over there, somebody says:

They harassed the guy for 45 minutes and when he panicked and grabbed their taser, they shot him when he was running away. Then kicked him. Sorry guys, if you think that's what policing is, you should be calling in sick.

Why do these cops think someone like Dylann Roof should be gently apprehended (and given a cheeseburger) but a black guy should be harassed? And that he isn't expected to panic? And that those cops couldn't let him run, and go after him later?

That draws this sarcasm:

Cops should wait until 0.1 milliseconds before the stun gun barb pierces the cornea of the eyeball before shooting the perpetrator in the kneecap of their non-dominant leg to slow him down and then snuggle him into compliance.

"Millions of people across the nation are cloistered inside their homes.... Amazon is already struggling to meet demand, and some employees feel..."

"... they’re being unfairly endangered by working in warehouses filled with other workers. It’s unclear how deliveries could continue if the workers who sort, pack, and ship Americans’ goods start getting sick in droves.... [T]his is the first confirmed case of the disease among the company’s hourly warehouse employees in the United States. These workers make up the majority of Amazon’s 600,000-strong workforce.... The incident rattled some of the warehouse workers, who already feel they are being underpaid for a risky job.... On Monday, Amazon announced plans to hire 100,000 more warehouse workers to meet the growing demand, and the company added $2 to American warehouse workers’ hourly pay.... One worker told me that she wished she could just stay at home with pay, like so many white-collar Americans are doing now.... 'We’re putting our lives in danger.'"

From "Amazon Confirms First Known Coronavirus Case in an American Warehouse/Workers at the Queens, New York, facility say employees were expected to come in for their night shift after the case was identified. Amazon denies this" (in The Atlantic).

I wonder how many people will walk away from jobs like that (especially if they get enough money and protection from eviction from the government). At the same time, there are people who have lost jobs — notably, servers in restaurants and bars. Amazon is hiring. Will those jobs go unfilled or will newly out of work people snap them up?

Keeping Amazon going is enormously important to the millions of Americans who are sheltering in place. I have not set foot in any store since March 2d, but we have received orders from Amazon (including an order from Whole Foods Prime Delivery). If Amazon stopped working, we would look at our dwindling supplies with much more anxiety and alarm.

"Stepping into a Wing location feels a little like being sealed inside a pop-feminist Biodome."

"It is pitched as a social experiment: what the world would look like if it were designed by and for women, or at least millennial women with meaningful employment and a cultivated Instagram aesthetic. The Wing looks beautiful and expensive, with curvy pink interiors that recall the womb. The thermostat hovers around 72 degrees, to satisfy women’s higher temperature needs. A color-coded library features books by female authors only. There are well-appointed pump rooms, as well as private phone booths named after Lisa Simpson, Anita Hill and Lady Macbeth. There is an in-house cafe, the Perch, serving wines sourced from female vintners, and an in-house babysitting annex, the Little Wing, where members’ children may be looked after. The vibe is a fusion of sisterly inclusion and exclusive luxury: Private memberships run up to $3,000 per year, and the wait-list is 9,000 names long."

From "The Wing Is a Women’s Utopia. Unless You Work There/The social club’s employees have a story to tell about the company that sold the world Instagram-ready feminism" by Amanda Hess (NYT).

This sounds really funny, like something in a movie. Lisa Simpson, Anita Hill and Lady Macbeth — that got a big laugh from my imaginary movie-theater audience.

Anyway, what's the problem with the staff?

Most Wing employees I spoke with had ambitions bigger than their starting positions... Some staff members hired to work the front desk or run events saw their job duties inflated to include scrubbing toilets, washing dishes and lint-rolling couches.... When staff members tried to exercise their membership privileges, on breaks or after their shifts, members would hand them dirty dishes or barge in on them in the phone booth. Some screamed at employees about crowding in the space and cried over insufficient swag. A common member refrain was that it was anti-feminist not to give her whatever perk she desired....

This is all so pre-coronavirus. But it's interesting to get a nudge to remember what would could be fretting about if we didn't have this plague infesting our consciousness.

And the name of that in-house babysitting annex, the Little Wing, makes me think of a circus mind that's running wild — butterflies and zebras and moonbeams... and fairy tales....