Malcolm Gladwell, a Canadian author, has expressed his views on working from home, stating that the practice is ‘harming society’ and that any future recession would most certainly push people back into the office.
But Gladwell, the author of six best-selling books, has long talked about his own personal work-from-home habit – and has been observed working remotely in New York cafés and restaurants for more than a decade.
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Nonetheless, during an interview with The Diary Of A CEO podcast, the best-selling author and presenter of the podcast Revisionist History, which has millions of followers, offered his opinions.
During an intense 90-minute conversation, Gladwell said, “It’s difficult to feel indispensable when you’re physically isolated.”
‘As we confront the fight that all businesses are now experiencing to attract employees back into the office, it’s quite difficult to express this fundamental psychological truth: we want you to have a sense of belonging and to feel indispensable.
And we would want you to join our team. And it is quite difficult to do so if you are not there,’ Gladwell added.
Staff writer at The New Yorker Malcolm Gladwell has a history of candidly discussing his long-standing avoidance to The New Yorker’s workplace. Even before the epidemic decimated New York City’s commercial office market, he was used to working from his fancy West Village house or neighborhood coffeeshops.
In a 2008 interview with New York Magazine, the best-selling novelist confessed that he refused to go even a few miles to the affluent headquarters of the magazine, which was then located in Midtown, claiming his ‘aversion’ to the region.
In fact, the story detailed the extremes to which The New Yorker went to accommodate its superstar author, including sending couriers to his house to collect fact-checking documents.
Years before, in 2005, Gladwell gave an extensive interview to The Guardian in which he said that he “hates desks.”
‘I loathe desktops. Desks have been eliminated. I am more productive when I am comfortable,’ observed Gladwell.
My writing is described as “spinning.” I constantly say “I’m going to rotate” since I have a number of positions that I switch between.
At the time, Gladwell said that he alternated between a variety of cafés and eateries.
The waiters are all from Australia, and all day long they play The Smiths, which I believe to be fantastic. I often visit there on weekends. Additionally, I frequent eateries in Little Italy. I often visit these locations in the middle of the day, when I am permitted to remain.
They have these enormous windows and leave them open so that passersby may stroll right past you. You feel the traffic; you’re in the thick of things, and I find it ironically comforting,’ he said.
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Instagram users were dissatisfied with a snapshot of Malcolm Gladwell working from home while seated at a desk.
Instagram users were dissatisfied with a snapshot of Malcolm Gladwell working from home while seated at a desk.
Despite having published the book Tipping Point, one Twitter user remarked that the author never left gratuities at the West Village café where he worked.
Devin McGee noted, “Malcolm Gladwell was a regular at the café where I used to work, but he never left a tip.”
He was also often seen by another coffee shop enthusiast.
When I lived in New York City and worked for TechCrunch in the 2000s, we had a limited number of local desks. I worked mostly from home and cafés. Who did I usually see writing and holding meetings at my favorite West Village cafe? LOL!’ Lora Kolodny tweeted.
In 2010, Gladwell wrote at the Wall Street Journal about his fondness for working in coffee shops and his hatred for people who did the same.
The trouble with writing in coffee shops is that everyone dislikes the kind of people who write in coffee shops, particularly the type of people who write in coffee shops. You see the man in the corner slumped over his laptop and, forgetting that you are also hunched over a laptop, you think, “Get an office!” As someone who writes for a career in coffee shops, I have struggled with this dichotomy for the majority of my adult life.
Then, Gladwell listed his favorite locations to work while recommending that others should not follow his lead.
If I’m working there, the last thing I want to see is you crouched over your computer in a pitiful manner.
Obviously, Gladwell may have been working remotely years before it became mainstream and popular, but the fact that it was becoming more prevalent in 2010 really irritated him.
According to sociologists, the coffee shop writer must be an oddity and not a trailblazer. You do not want to indicate to other laptop cowboys that this is the place to be. You want the group that will not accept you,’ he said in the Journal.
Social media users were not unaware of Gladwell’s blatant hypocrisy when he spoke on the lack of excitement for returning to the workplace when he himself seldom visited one.
“I cannot bear these damned hypocrites,” he said. Julie S. stated, ‘Gladwell was an aberration when it came to working remotely; I suppose that’s OK for best-selling writers but not for the rest of us plebes.
Working in a corporate office, I have never felt a part of anything or a feeling of belonging. It is a gift to be able to work from home and escape this harmful atmosphere. Malcolm Gladwell can go to hell, particularly considering that he too works from home. Theodorable tweeted “a**hole.”
Martin Robbins commented, “It was likely a separate Malcolm Gladwell (twin brother?) who wrote passionately and often about working from coffee shops.” Regarding the remainder of the population, though, Gladwell proposed an alternative strategy.
According to the author of Blink and Outliers, employees must return to the workplace in order to reclaim a “sense of belonging” and a feeling of being a part of something greater than themselves.
“Working from home is not in your best interest,” he concludes. “I understand it’s inconvenient to come into the office, but if you’re lounging in your jammies in your bedroom, is that the kind of work life you want to lead?”
According to Gladwell, a recession would certainly force people who are “sitting in their jammies” to return to work.
“Don’t you want a sense of belonging?” He queried. “I am becoming more disappointed with the inability of those in leadership positions to convey this to their personnel.”
“What’s the purpose if we don’t feel like we’re a part of anything significant?” If it’s simply a paycheck, then it’s as if you’ve reduced your existence to nothing.
Gladwell’s comments will certainly be well-received by the mayors of the nation’s largest cities, who are battling to get people to return to the workplace.
New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, and San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, have pushed employees in the IT and financial industries to return to the office, citing the positive impact their presence would have on small businesses that depend on office foot traffic.
Only two-thirds of the workforce in San Francisco has returned to their workstations. With a projected 36 percent return, office occupancy in New York stays even lower.
The continuing of remote employment, according to city authorities, resulted to a $400 million deficit in tax collections in 2021.
Shake Shack disclosed that it had missed its sales projections because office workers returned to their cubicles much more slowly than anticipated.
According to Bloomberg News, Kastle Systems, a security business, found that office occupancy in ten major metropolitan regions of the United States averaged 44 percent in the week ending July 27.
Last year, according to San Francisco City authorities, remote employment lost the city $400 million in tax income.
But financial and technology firms are in a precarious position because they fear mass resignations if they push employees back into the office.