I no longer immediately support for WFH policies despite being a left-leaning and working class individual - Lemmy.World
lemmy.world
WFH - “Work from home,” as in: COVID-era policies of (mostly tech jobs) being administered outside of a central office building. ____ I was entirely in favor of WFH and the struggle of office workers up until recently. Although my career is functionally incompatible with the idea, I had sympathy for members of my class and supported them fighting against an archaic and unnecessarily authoritative policy of office attendance. BUT. WFH-ers and West/East Coast refugees have decimated historically low income communities by flooding to parts of the Southeast and Midwest with salaries that were meant to be competitive in an urban environment, where COL is always going to be higher, and pricing out/displacing local (oftentimes minority) populations. Anecdotally, I’ve seen rental prices more than triple in my hometown within the past four years, with no real wage increases for local groups in what can only be called gentrification. This isn’t my wording, see: VICE | Digital Nomads Are the New Gentrifiers [https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7bgv8/digital-nomads-work-from-home-gentrification] StudyFinds.org | Remote work fuels gentrification? How surge in digital nomads is pricing out local communities worldwide [https://studyfinds.org/remote-work-digital-nomads-gentrification/] You can’t have your cake and eat it, too, as the saying goes, and I just can’t defend the people who have destroyed local economies. Even if that animosity goes against class solidarity, which I do agree with, the damage WFH has done is too direct and too severe for me to support it. _____ Edit: I’ve spent the past hour thinking about this post and have thought of a more succinct way to express my argument: If I want the best for historically low-income communities, and the following are both true: >A) Gentrification is bad for historically low-income communities, and >B) WFH policies have facilitated gentrification, then it logicially follows that WFH is bad for historically low-income communities and that I should be opposed to WFH policies. This is the process rationale behind my argument.

I haven’t read everything yet. But, in my opinion WFH sorry about it, but it shouldn’t be the standard.

It’s a luxury really.

I’d say what really annoys the fuck out of me about the WFH topic.

Is HELLO ! NOT EVERYONE CAN WORK FROM HOME DUMB FUCK ! NOT EVER FUCKING INDUSTRY IS LIKE THIS, YOU LITERALLY HAVE TO BE THERE IN PERSON TO DO YOUR JOB.

People on oil rigs, truckers, warehouse workers, fast food and retail people and many other industries can’t have this option because you literally have to be at your job in person.

There’s no oil rig at your house. You can’t long haul pipe from Illinois to Connecticut sitting on your ass in your living room.

I just want to punch someone this makes me so annoyed. I’ve worked both blue collar and white collar jobs.

Work is work and I feel this constant bitching about wanting to work from home, is gunna create some weird sub group in the work force.

Listen.

You work in an office with AC and all that good stuff. I don’t want to hear you bitch and complain that you can’t work from home in your pajamas. While blue collar workers have to do physical labor in all weather conditions.

You already have it good working in an office.

Seriously Shut the fuck up