Productivity vs. Control

I won’t belabor this point, because I think most rational people understand it without needing a Medium article to advance this particular ball down the field, but work is largely about control , or at the very least it’s about control, relevance, and status , and these are the core reasons executives and middle managers are flipping out about remote work and hybrid work. I wouldn’t say the power dynamic is totally shifted — most people need jobs because of health care (unfortunate), and also because of income (“this is the way things are, at least until blockchain pops off”), so the employer still has power. But what all is happening here is that managerial brains are getting fried, because the way they conceptualize work — and what they really need from work — has been totally threatened.

Here’s a very good newsletter on what’s currently happening , including this section:

The reason that there are so many bad managers — middle and otherwise — is that lots of people see management as delegation of work that you take credit for, mostly because that’s how many corporations function on a grand scheme. It’s framed palatably as contributing a small piece to a larger whole, but middle management’s truly noxious existence proves that people absolutely love it. The attraction to these positions isn’t what a true manager is — fostering talent, making the company better, getting more done, winning together — it’s about control and abuse.

These people are so prevalent because most companies aren’t okay with the obvious way to make people who are good at their jobs happy — paying them more money. Management titles are bargaining chips that work with people because they sound good to their friends and on LinkedIn, but those who are excited about them are usually not excited about the prospect of managing.

There are other gems in that newsletter. Check it out.

I’ve told this story in other blogs, but I used to work with a girl named Savannah who literally sat on Instagram all day, 8:30am to 5:30pm, but she sat 10 feet from her bosses. Her bosses, eventually, had to know that she does nothing all day. There was no output, and she’s constantly on her phone giggling. But it comforted the bosses that she was 10 feet away, even though they were getting no output whatsoever. You could have the most productive person in human history 350 miles away checking in on Zoom, but that wouldn’t be the point. The point isn’t the productivity. The point is the control.

You have to remember that a large quest of life is to prove yourself as relevant and good. This is why a lot of people still have children, even though the planet is overpopulated, and this idea of chasing relevance underscores the entire Platform Economy, honestly. Managers are often men, in their middle years, who checked the boxes — wife, kids, house, live near their aging parents, etc. — but still don’t feel relevant or happy. Their wife probably barely speaks to or touches them, in many cases. So their sliver of relevance is this little feudal bullshit they have back at Widgets Inc. They want to preserve that, and control that, not worry about whether someone is actually doing the work. The work? LOL. That’ll get done by some back-end automation suite. This is about what makes Tommy feel like a man.

It was never about the things they say it’s about. It’s always been about control.