If there is one thing I have taken away from this whole debacle it's for goodness sake have a stock of toilet paper. Look I always knew people were stupid. I have learned people feed on drama over the years, some people relishing the insanity..well relishing it until it starts to hit you in your wallet anyway, but I have to say the great toilet paper famine of 2020 surprised me. Impending doom on humanity aside..why isn't at least 40% of us already working from home? Even if you don't believe in global warming...you have to agree that using more resources and putting more cars and trains on the road every day can't be good for the environment. We all know that a company saves money when they don't have to pay for a huge building and keeping it hot in the winter and cool in the summer. They save money when they are not paying for desks and chairs and tiny little boxes to put people in. Not to mention they open their pool of possible employees to country wide when they make positions remote.
Why aren't more of us fighting for the right to work from home, saving us hundreds in gas money, commute time we are not paid for, a work wardrobe, lunches out and tons of other expenses that are part of leaving home every day to work...not to mention many of us spend almost no time in the place we work so long to pay for, our home.
'It is businesses that do not trust us to work from home at the end of the day. I say if you can't tell if someone is doing their job or not..then maybe that position isn't that important to begin with or maybe you aren't a very good company. Working from home is better for humans who were never meant to work in tiny cubes all day. It helps end 'office politics'. It's better for morale and can I tell you business owners a secret...you workers are spending more time talking and thinking of ways to not work at your office then they will once they are home, with FEWER distractions.
Now lets talk about school. WHY EXACTLY ARE MY TAX DOLLARS PAYING FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS TO GO TO SCHOOL EVERYDAY WHEN THEY CAN LEARN FROM HOME!!! Going to an actual building should only be mandatory for students who are non compliant and not logging in to their classes. What about free lunches you say. Well that is a whole conversation that as a libertarian I could have with you but keeping all things the way they currently are vouchers or even food boxes are a possibility. Can we also take a moment to discuss how this could lower instances of bulling. Sure social media can still be used to bully children but at least it wouldn't be physical. Perhaps we would never get high schools to 100% remote but a reduction in actual days where students are going to a physical building or a good reduction of the amount of students who need to go to a physical building is a great start.
Let's not even get started on college. If you aren't an athlete, in this day and age...there is almost no reason for you to physically be at your university. We talk about lowering the cost of college..this is how. A big portion of what students take out to go to school is for room and board!! Class costs should also go down as many of the school's buildings become obsolete.
So why aren't we doing this? We have the technology..so why aren't we fundamentally changing society to make this our reality? I have been a LONG standing advocate for remote work. Why aren't we working to reduce traffic in our cities and wasted tax funds? Why aren't workers clambering to work remotely for their own mental health and budget? I can only hope that the one good thing to come out of this terrible event is that people re evaluate how we engage in work and learning in society.
The fact is learning to be a more remote society will take a bit of an effort at first. Not everything will go smoothly and some people really will need to learn how to focus working from home, unlike others who will become more focused. This shouldn't stop us from making a more cost saving and mentally beneficial environment. Maybe if we start becoming a more remote society some of the current office buildings and schools could be turned into much needed low cost housing and ending the need for continued urban sprawl.
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