Step into the climate changing room with the crossdresser.
I was surprised today following my yoga practice, when I glanced from my window to see two electric bikes pulling into my driveway on Huckleberry Close. The first rider I immediately recognised in his obscenely revealing spandex pants and hoodie as being Sebastian, my personal trainer. The second was most surprisingly Sylvester, my mechanic, who more typically arrives astride an enormous chopper (Ed. Phrasing).
There’s no mistaking that mass of hair and beard and generally Neanderthal posture. His usual mount is a Harley Davidson, and yet here he was, in the flesh, astride five hundred watts of city commuting electric bicycle.
I had begun to think that the green revolution was going to pass Huckleberry Close by leaving us untouched. However, it seems that recent advances in battery power and capacity have made it quite practical to get from the suburbs right into the city centre and back without fear of being stranded half way. It would appear that the scientific community have found a use for lithium other than rendering the mentally confused psychologically inert. Or, to use the correct medical terminology, ‘mentally hillarious’.
It’s a little known fact that our street has a claim to fame that sets it aside from other places. Most of the cooking sherry in the world is consumed in Huckleberry Close. Generally by Auntie Kitty. As a result change comes slowly.
However climate change is something I have learned to feel quite strongly about. As a parent I worry that we are handing our children something we could have taken better care of. Sylvester talked with me about this very subject as he strode into my kitchen.
“Do you think we dropped the ball?” he said.
“What do you mean,” I said pouring a large glass of orange juice for each of the boys.
“Well, I mean on climate change. Could we have done better?” said Sylvester. “I bought the electric bike to reduce my carbon footprint. I want to do my part. I feel like it’s part of our evolution as modern humans. ”
“You don’t have a carbon footprint,” I said. “You have a hoof print. And as far as evolution goes, Sylvester, I think you are living proof that it is definitely a two way street.”
Sebastian chimed in, “That’s not really very nice of you, Fiona. Sylvester’s doing something to help change things.”
I agreed and apologised.
“I don’t think we dropped the ball, exactly. After all, when I was all political I had my hands full. I mean, in the eighties I was trying to prevent us being annihilated with only four minutes warning. Facing nuclear Armageddon seemed a priority at the time. I never supposed…”
Sebastian cut in, “I suppose it’s the difference between being microwaved, rather than being slowly roasted alive.”
“Well, that’s a very colorful culinary analogy, I suppose.”
Then Sylvester added, “But the result is much the same.”
Which brings me to my point. I am a huge advocate of working from home. As I see both Sylvester and Sebastian glide away down the drive, I am left thinking of my wife’s friend Amanda. Each morning she drives her beige Prius into slow moving traffic for an hour and sits there watching the number plate of the car in front. And each evening she repeats the exercise coming home.
When I consider the term ‘impact on the planet’ in its most literal form, Amanda’s impact would be considerable, her being what I can best term ‘big boned’. There’s a picture to consider for a moment.
You may remember Amanda is the editor of Pig And Pig Farmer Weekly, the first publication to endorse Donald Trump in 2016. Her company is firmly routed in the 1970’s and so has not embraced working from home. She does however get to study the car in front of her for 2 hours a day and think about ways she can kill herself. The commute also gives her time to think of all the things she hates about her job, while watching the fuel gauge sink and remind her that she needs more gas.
Instead I advocate a path of working from home. I also find the argument that ‘I want to keep an eye on my staff’ is completely facile. First of all, I can see the server logs of my staff and know that they are working, having meetings online, and filing their status reports far more easily with a system set up for remote staff. Secondly, when the lazy buggers were in an office they all looked busy, but were so tired from the commute they actually achieved a lot less.
The key to this is not just to shift from working in the office to working the same way at home. Instead the move to the remote workforce needs to be about rethinking ‘productivity’, rather than ‘the workplace’. After all, the company is not in business to accommodate a workforce. It’s in business to serve its clients.
So, it comes down to a few simple things.
· Accessible systems and tools built to work remotely (such as MS Office 360 or Google Docs).
· Workforce accountability via online meetings and logged situation reports. (Slack etc.).
· Communication discipline.
If these tools are put in place and staff are trained to think in terms of goal achievement rather than attendance, the workforce starts to look very different. The company gets to focus on its core skill, rather than facilities management and maintaining high school like attendance records. Pretty quickly that horrible fixed cost of office rent (or worse, ownership) becomes a thing of the past along with all the associated liabilities, and profit margins go up. It’s highly likely that staff retention would improve, and probable that on the occasions staff do congregate together (in a shared workspace), they won’t hate the sight of each other and have to feign tolerance and inclusivity.
Frankly, and I say this aware that it may seem insensitive, the year I spent in a cubicle next to the weird young man with a lazy eye, unusual body odour, and a cleft palette — which made me think telephone sales was a very odd choice of career — was one year of my life I will never get back. If the company wants to create ‘workforce cohesion’ they should start a curling team.
Whether a company moves to a remote work format for financial reasons or environmental ones, the impact on climate change is positive. That works for me.
FD
http://FionaDobson.com
