But seriously, we need to stop telling people that one of the signs of a phishing email is poor writing, or the generic text because that is going away fast. The tools used to create the message are getting better and better.
Look at it this way, if you’re a client of one of these companies, who do you want doing your work, the associate who hasn’t slept more than 4 hours a night in weeks, or someone who’s actually rested? Who is going to do a better job for you? Who is going to be most cognitively effective?
Why do we keep grinding away at the expense of our own cognitive abilities then?
At first blush, the idea of scanning images synced up to iCloud for child sexual abuse materials against the hash list of known CSAM images seems like a good idea. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse myself, I want tech companies to takes some initiative to deal with this issue. They also want to scan images on kids’ phones using AI to see if kids are getting into any trouble with sending or receiving sexual material. Again, that sounds like a good thing. But, as the EFF points out, this all requires a backdoor, and backdoors, once created, almost never remain used for just one purpose.
You know, I think there is one thing that prevents this from being an even higher number. Health insurance.
If you’re young, looking for flexibility, and not really finding it, working freelance might look like a pretty attractive option. But, your health insurance costs might be pretty manageable, especially if you’re in relatively good health. Those of us who are older, or have some health issues that cause the price of getting a health insurance policy on our own to be rather high, might have a more difficult time making this decision.
I have had conversations privately, so some people already know this, but while I’m not necessarily for, or against, Universal Health Care, (I think it’s a really complicated issue that we refuse to talk honestly about, from both sides) if the US ever gets to that point, I will be planning my exit from Corporate America the next day.
Regarding technology flattening the organization, I would agree with Ed. Where I’m going to disagree is in assuming every workplace has figured that out and taken advantage of it.
Bad managers are still bad managers, even if they are remote. If the management style at your company is to measure work by, what Ed calls, the “appearance of work”, you’ve probably struggled with remote work. Or, you’ve got everyone in meetings, or at least available online all day, every day. On the other hand, if you’ve switched to remote work and also switched the way you measure your directs, you’ve probably been very successful and might even be willing to accept remote work permanently. It’s all about understanding that what we do with teams when they work in-person doesn’t work with remote teams and adjusting.
Remote work isn’t compatible with management that measures workers by the hours they spend at their desks or how many people like you. Those measurements kind of go out the window. So it would be best if you had new, better measurements. I’d argue that you need the measurement you should have always been using, but I digress.
As a manager, you are in the best position to notice, and help directs when they are struggling with mental health. Unfortunately, I’m also betting that any business management, or leadership, classes you’ve taken never mentioned mental health, let alone taught you much about it.