Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

- As a lone single male, it pretty much meant I NEVER had to leave the house. Maybe once a month for groceries, but with doordash/instacart there were periods where I could spend 4+ months cooped up inside. And as the former implies, I also ate out a lot. costing money and health. think I gaied around 40 lbs from 2020 to now.

- Work/life separation breaks down, as I had no friends to console to, no family to worry about, and overall a feeling of nothingness outside of games/movies. Sometimes I'd simply fall asleep in my office at 11PM and wake up at 6AM slumped over. There's nothing/no one else to take my mind off of work

- grooming went off the wayside. I wore so little clothes I could spend 4-6 weeks between laundry, felt no need to shower for weeks, and overall lack of will to do anything more than make sure my face isn't a mess. Even then I also just let my hair grow way out. There's no really to care about how I look otherwise.

- house goes out of care. There's usually small things I'd do when I get home from work to at least keep the place from going on an episode of Hoarders, but boxes can stack up and dust gathered very easily when all I really did was walk from room to office to room.

It felt like being a NEET, but I was still working and not really even enjoying much media (I didn't really watch much anime since the pandemic and I used to be a seasonal watcher). Worst of both worlds?

I started this year trying to make myself go out at least once a week, but even pre-pandemic I was feeling this sense of loneliness. Even post pandemic I can feel the effects being worse off compared to 2019.

Co-workers? their boss? some entity of the company they are employed by?

Are these farmers/fishermen working solo? it could be their family, but generally in such a situation their family is also employing teenage labor in the form of offspring.

>You would just talk to your family when back at home.

how does that work when you have no family? In the classic times you'd also gather around at a bar to discuss the day with strangers. That doesn't quite work out so well in modern urban environments where even bars come in as groups.

I think traditional concepts of social class count for a lot less in the UK of 2023 than they did in the UK of 1973. But wealth counts for just as much, even more.

Were Rishi Sunak's parents "upper class"? And yet, he'd surely be a far more valuable social connection to have than Baron Forgettable who happens to be the King's fifth cousin. And I think that will remain true even when his prime ministership is over.

Oh I wish...

Were we to push that to the extreme, the only upper-class at Goldman Sachs would be retirees, either as direct shareholders or as beneficiaries of some pension fund. Even if they were lower middle-class Americans living in an old aging house they can’t afford to fix.

That would be the Value Extraction definition of Class.

Others would argue that class is more diffuse, and that one’s class depends more on their family's history, where they went to school, and who they know, than on how much they have. Which is a valid point.

That would be a Social Capital definition of Class.

I doubt however that anyone would consider a street-sweeping former Emperor (eg Piyin), or some penniless heir to some old industry dynasty as still belonging to any sort of upper-class.

Meaning the actual definition actually is some fluid mix of the two. That and probably some other definitions I’m not even aware of.

> In the modern economy, capital owners are reliant on a class of non-fungible white collar workers that bring their own human capital.

It’s nothing modern. Capital owners always have, since the first scribe, and probably before that (see Japan’s former hordes of perpetually desk-bound samurai).

Still, let’s entertain the argument. I’ll use, and I’m truly sorry for that, a tired analogy.

In the modern world, many people are reliant on many different types of usually non-fungible pets and somewhat fungible, depending on who you ask, animals, for many different purposes. Some of which bring their own highly sought-after hard-earned skills.

Let’s limit ourselves to the oh so tired dog analogy.

A person and their dog have myriad common interests. Those interests are, in many cases, in opposition to those of many other people and animals. Even more so when said dog is considered a family member, serves as a guard dog, as a shepherd dog, or is specialised in drugs detection.

Does that make them equal? Does that change anything to the fact that one is extracting value from the other, and often only pays them back in dog food, usually made from our food industry’s literal scraps and refuse?

So yes, I agree with you: there’s no simple and definitely no simplistic definition of class.

I am still convinced however that, in the specific and limited context of the comment I was replying to, the one I used was good enough.