Alpha leadership died around 2015 from my perspective. My boss (director), very alpha, great dude, who I played a more of a bravo role to just started “playing the game” around that time. He was essentially neutered by longhouse corporate cancer and had to become a yes man to VP girlboss culture and rampant bullshit like BLM worship, DEI, getting vaxxed and everything else going on around then.
He kinda just checked out, as did a lot of us. So it seems that alpha leadership is irrelevant to longhouse corporate culture, outsourcing, H1B jeets etc. and is suffering from that reality. So who really cares if one is remote or not?
Not sure, I left corporate America in 2023 (as did my boss).
Pretty much. But the logic is even more accurate if the seniors are gammas. Alphas have plenty of places to be worshiped outside of the office. Gammas on the other hand...
They should get themselves an office with a hot secretary, come to the office in a suit every morning and pop in on people virtually in a floating screen. They can show up at their house every once in a while, and in a black Cadillac just for good measure.
Another component is there’s no women readily available for alphas to impress. Perhaps inadvertently, remote work is the digital cock-block that allows firms to keep alphas while offering protection against pesky #MeToo sexual harassment lawsuits. I don’t think I’ve encountered anything that closely examined how #MeToo influenced the corporate push for remote work. Officially, COVID was the official driver for it.
I’d be curious to see a meta-analysis of HR sexual harassment claims with primarily a remote-work workforce. If sexual harassment allegations are virtually nil in that setting, that’ll be an unspoken reason why various corporate entities support it. Amongst other reasons of course.
Had a similar discussion at a convention with a senior partner from a Big Four acctg firm. They found that most productive people wanted to be in the office 3-4 days a week, for structured environment, feedbaxk, and in-person ideas or feedback. The others went on a junior associate-to-door track. Remote work was good for a focused handfull.
In terms of rewards by Alphas or Bravos for good or key work, they had about an even split between bonus cash, shares, and time off across all ages, specifically extra time off to use when no deadlines or emergencies arose.
I recently met a pair of alphas who run a decent-sized firm. It's hard to imagine them managing things remotely, they would be miserable and the dynamic would be all wrong.
Work in an office, unless the alternative is homelessness.
I have had the freedom to work from anywhere for six years now and I will not give it up. I don’t care what makes a corporation more or less productive.
As to your question about Bravos, I am a Delta who has felt the pain of having no Bravo between me and the exhausting Alpha, even while working remotely. So yes, we still need the Bravos.
My problem is not the office but getting to there. If the office is within 15 minutes by foot from my house, which has been the case for the majority of my career, I've no problem with the office. Otherwise, yeah, there's just no way to make me loose 2 hours at minimum getting there and back again that I'm not paid for. This is just an absurd proposition when you think of it.
Once HR depts are eliminated, their spawn, the DEI/H1b hires are next. Remote work is becoming rarer, and managers will be looking at headcount, how much floor space they need to be renting. Commercial real estate hardest hit.
I was an assistant principal/dean of students (Bravo role) at a private catholic school during the imposed remote period, and aside from a 2 hour stop in the school around lunch to assist with the organization and distribution of food I did all my work from home. The school ran well, had a solid alpha who everyone respected sitting in the Principal/President role, and the student discipline bit basically stopped mattering, so I spent most of my time updating policies, reviewing student benchmark data, making sure everyone was in compliance with the state regulations, working on next years schedule and checking lesson plans.
I got bored REAL fast from work, so I just started developing new lesson plans for when I came back before realizing I couldn't tune up every lesson I had, and instead just started gardening.
I really enjoyed being remote, but not for work. In a Bravo role, remote is maddening, especially in a field as interpersonally reliant as teaching.
"How, for example, does the Bravo even operate in a remote structure?"
Not as well. I office at home, but the meat of the work I do is for intense, on-site projects, often with travel (litigation.) When I'm at home, I'm pretty much coasting in Delta mode (get an email, do task) and not well utilized. The work is feast and famine, so when I'm in feast mode I'm doing well, but in the at-home famines, I'm even less motivated to spend my time wisely sharpening my tools. It's something I have to be constantly mindful of (and too often fail at).
"Is the Gamma actually going to be less destructive when there is no one around to give him a quiet word of warning and there are no natural limits imposed on his ability to reach out to people 24-7?"
Is the Gamma actually going to be less destructive when there is no one around to give him a quiet word of warning and there are no natural limits imposed on his ability to reach out to people 24-7?
Believe it or not, yes. Gamma behavior is a reaction to rejection from the hierarchy. Remote communication with gammas is so much better.
I think you are right, Bodrev. Gammas become aggressive toward others when human interactions trigger them. If they are not in the office, they cannot constantly share their impressive knowledge over lunch and coffee breaks.
For example, one colleague claimed that Trabant cars from the USSR were made out of cardboard. That was so incredibly stupid that I simply could not help myself from saying, “I doubt it.” To his credit, though, he immediately looked it up and conceded the point. I was impressed by him in that moment.
Yeah, I think I got the hang of it. Even out of the office they will absolutely share their impressive knowledge at every opportunity, but what do I care? I can pretend to be interested on a 10 minute call where my face is not visible. Face to face I absolutely can't maintain the fascade for more than half an hour and the gamma will enter dick measuring mode. Remote I've been loosely working with a gamma expert for 6 months and a couple of times he was actually useful. Face to face my record is like 2 weeks without a major incident.
Been successfully self employed the majority of my life. Im a terrible employee. For myself , being an employee is like being locked in a straight jacket. Having the freedom to work whatever schedule I want , do deals with whomever and however makes the best sense w/out pleading my case..is the ultimate freedom. Plus..you make more money self employed. But, the freedom is priceless.
No doubt everyone is inspired by this ode to your own preferences. I know I am...
But seriously, perhaps one reason you find it difficult to work with others is because you regard every discussion on any topic as an excuse to make a tangential leap toward talking about yourself.
I'm genuinely curious: what do you think your comment has to do with the topic at hand?
Ive never found it difficult to work with others. I just have always found working as an employee very stifling. Probably due to ADHD and an ingrained entrepreneurial drive.
1) Boomers own most housing near the work place and it is too expensive
2) Women are required to be at work to pay for the outrageous Boomer entitlements, and it becomes easier to have children with remote work
3) Many of the jobs were never necessary anyway and legislated into existence. Part of this self-generated issue is being fixed with the AI and automation boom
4) The Bravo is too often replaced by a Girl Boss or Gamma, big corporations tend to be inefficient work environments with too much drama.
During the pandemic Boomers wanted everyone to be remote so they could be protected. Today, they want everyone back in because "when we were young..." and to boost the housing prices.
In my experience hybrid work is at least not a downgrade in performance. The corporate environment in general has too much of the Bravo energy either missing or relegated to processes, rules and corporate slop.
I concur with the assessment that it's high status men driving the return to office initiative, and Vox's assessment that the high status men do so out of awareness of human and male nature. In my department of a corporate office, a solid bravo manager is 100% remote. He's been pretty open about the difficulties of maintaining office culture and morale remotely. We recently had an issue with a low-status underling begging for more remote days who has not been doing their job for 3-6 months and almost cost the company 200k. Definitely cost us a minimum of 60k, have to wait and see what shakes out for end cost.
The whole situation is at least 3/4 if not 4/4 of the issues Vox listed, and is not the first of its kind.
"Is the Gamma actually going to be less destructive when there is no one around to give him a quiet word of warning and there are no natural limits imposed on his ability to reach out to people 24-7?"
And women, dear Lord don't forget the women. At KCLS they were holding the line on freedom of expression and viewpoint equity: A town hall on vaxxers and anti- with speakers from both sides, full-bore "the Constitution allows no censorship carve out for hate speech". Land acknowledgements were stopped cold turkey by innocent excitement in all-staff meetings about giving it back and leading building space from local tribes. Even Pride subversion stopped before the trans and the drag: Celebration of fake rainbows limited to neighborhoods already all-in on the gay.
Once the wahmens and the AWFLs were no longer distracted by managing the homeless & migratory dysfunctional challenge (badly), and the system went all-remote, the Summer of Satan bloomed. They may never recover.
Remote work has its pros and cons. I find it fascinating if done right. Unknown Worlds Entertainment, the Studio behind the Subnautica franchise is a „remote first“ company that works asynchronously. And their product is top notch. Must play definitely.
Alpha leadership died around 2015 from my perspective. My boss (director), very alpha, great dude, who I played a more of a bravo role to just started “playing the game” around that time. He was essentially neutered by longhouse corporate cancer and had to become a yes man to VP girlboss culture and rampant bullshit like BLM worship, DEI, getting vaxxed and everything else going on around then.
He kinda just checked out, as did a lot of us. So it seems that alpha leadership is irrelevant to longhouse corporate culture, outsourcing, H1B jeets etc. and is suffering from that reality. So who really cares if one is remote or not?
Not sure, I left corporate America in 2023 (as did my boss).
Pretty much. But the logic is even more accurate if the seniors are gammas. Alphas have plenty of places to be worshiped outside of the office. Gammas on the other hand...
They should get themselves an office with a hot secretary, come to the office in a suit every morning and pop in on people virtually in a floating screen. They can show up at their house every once in a while, and in a black Cadillac just for good measure.
Plenty of ways to project power.
Another component is there’s no women readily available for alphas to impress. Perhaps inadvertently, remote work is the digital cock-block that allows firms to keep alphas while offering protection against pesky #MeToo sexual harassment lawsuits. I don’t think I’ve encountered anything that closely examined how #MeToo influenced the corporate push for remote work. Officially, COVID was the official driver for it.
Good point.
I’d be curious to see a meta-analysis of HR sexual harassment claims with primarily a remote-work workforce. If sexual harassment allegations are virtually nil in that setting, that’ll be an unspoken reason why various corporate entities support it. Amongst other reasons of course.
Had a similar discussion at a convention with a senior partner from a Big Four acctg firm. They found that most productive people wanted to be in the office 3-4 days a week, for structured environment, feedbaxk, and in-person ideas or feedback. The others went on a junior associate-to-door track. Remote work was good for a focused handfull.
In terms of rewards by Alphas or Bravos for good or key work, they had about an even split between bonus cash, shares, and time off across all ages, specifically extra time off to use when no deadlines or emergencies arose.
I recently met a pair of alphas who run a decent-sized firm. It's hard to imagine them managing things remotely, they would be miserable and the dynamic would be all wrong.
I
Will
Never
Again
Work in an office, unless the alternative is homelessness.
I have had the freedom to work from anywhere for six years now and I will not give it up. I don’t care what makes a corporation more or less productive.
As to your question about Bravos, I am a Delta who has felt the pain of having no Bravo between me and the exhausting Alpha, even while working remotely. So yes, we still need the Bravos.
My problem is not the office but getting to there. If the office is within 15 minutes by foot from my house, which has been the case for the majority of my career, I've no problem with the office. Otherwise, yeah, there's just no way to make me loose 2 hours at minimum getting there and back again that I'm not paid for. This is just an absurd proposition when you think of it.
Once HR depts are eliminated, their spawn, the DEI/H1b hires are next. Remote work is becoming rarer, and managers will be looking at headcount, how much floor space they need to be renting. Commercial real estate hardest hit.
I was an assistant principal/dean of students (Bravo role) at a private catholic school during the imposed remote period, and aside from a 2 hour stop in the school around lunch to assist with the organization and distribution of food I did all my work from home. The school ran well, had a solid alpha who everyone respected sitting in the Principal/President role, and the student discipline bit basically stopped mattering, so I spent most of my time updating policies, reviewing student benchmark data, making sure everyone was in compliance with the state regulations, working on next years schedule and checking lesson plans.
I got bored REAL fast from work, so I just started developing new lesson plans for when I came back before realizing I couldn't tune up every lesson I had, and instead just started gardening.
I really enjoyed being remote, but not for work. In a Bravo role, remote is maddening, especially in a field as interpersonally reliant as teaching.
"How, for example, does the Bravo even operate in a remote structure?"
Not as well. I office at home, but the meat of the work I do is for intense, on-site projects, often with travel (litigation.) When I'm at home, I'm pretty much coasting in Delta mode (get an email, do task) and not well utilized. The work is feast and famine, so when I'm in feast mode I'm doing well, but in the at-home famines, I'm even less motivated to spend my time wisely sharpening my tools. It's something I have to be constantly mindful of (and too often fail at).
"Is the Gamma actually going to be less destructive when there is no one around to give him a quiet word of warning and there are no natural limits imposed on his ability to reach out to people 24-7?"
So true.
Is the Gamma actually going to be less destructive when there is no one around to give him a quiet word of warning and there are no natural limits imposed on his ability to reach out to people 24-7?
Believe it or not, yes. Gamma behavior is a reaction to rejection from the hierarchy. Remote communication with gammas is so much better.
I think you are right, Bodrev. Gammas become aggressive toward others when human interactions trigger them. If they are not in the office, they cannot constantly share their impressive knowledge over lunch and coffee breaks.
For example, one colleague claimed that Trabant cars from the USSR were made out of cardboard. That was so incredibly stupid that I simply could not help myself from saying, “I doubt it.” To his credit, though, he immediately looked it up and conceded the point. I was impressed by him in that moment.
Yeah, I think I got the hang of it. Even out of the office they will absolutely share their impressive knowledge at every opportunity, but what do I care? I can pretend to be interested on a 10 minute call where my face is not visible. Face to face I absolutely can't maintain the fascade for more than half an hour and the gamma will enter dick measuring mode. Remote I've been loosely working with a gamma expert for 6 months and a couple of times he was actually useful. Face to face my record is like 2 weeks without a major incident.
I am quite sceptical of the second paragraph, or how long the non-rejection lasts among the spam storm.
Gammas barely work at the office. Gammas working remotely sounds like a terrible idea because it is too easy to cheat and succumb to the delusions.
But, at least they will not be sitting in my seat.
Just give them time...
Been successfully self employed the majority of my life. Im a terrible employee. For myself , being an employee is like being locked in a straight jacket. Having the freedom to work whatever schedule I want , do deals with whomever and however makes the best sense w/out pleading my case..is the ultimate freedom. Plus..you make more money self employed. But, the freedom is priceless.
No doubt everyone is inspired by this ode to your own preferences. I know I am...
But seriously, perhaps one reason you find it difficult to work with others is because you regard every discussion on any topic as an excuse to make a tangential leap toward talking about yourself.
I'm genuinely curious: what do you think your comment has to do with the topic at hand?
Ive never found it difficult to work with others. I just have always found working as an employee very stifling. Probably due to ADHD and an ingrained entrepreneurial drive.
Vox is correct of course.
Remote work is big because
1) Boomers own most housing near the work place and it is too expensive
2) Women are required to be at work to pay for the outrageous Boomer entitlements, and it becomes easier to have children with remote work
3) Many of the jobs were never necessary anyway and legislated into existence. Part of this self-generated issue is being fixed with the AI and automation boom
4) The Bravo is too often replaced by a Girl Boss or Gamma, big corporations tend to be inefficient work environments with too much drama.
During the pandemic Boomers wanted everyone to be remote so they could be protected. Today, they want everyone back in because "when we were young..." and to boost the housing prices.
In my experience hybrid work is at least not a downgrade in performance. The corporate environment in general has too much of the Bravo energy either missing or relegated to processes, rules and corporate slop.
I concur with the assessment that it's high status men driving the return to office initiative, and Vox's assessment that the high status men do so out of awareness of human and male nature. In my department of a corporate office, a solid bravo manager is 100% remote. He's been pretty open about the difficulties of maintaining office culture and morale remotely. We recently had an issue with a low-status underling begging for more remote days who has not been doing their job for 3-6 months and almost cost the company 200k. Definitely cost us a minimum of 60k, have to wait and see what shakes out for end cost.
The whole situation is at least 3/4 if not 4/4 of the issues Vox listed, and is not the first of its kind.
It's damaging to both overall morale AND the Bravo's personal morale.
"Is the Gamma actually going to be less destructive when there is no one around to give him a quiet word of warning and there are no natural limits imposed on his ability to reach out to people 24-7?"
And women, dear Lord don't forget the women. At KCLS they were holding the line on freedom of expression and viewpoint equity: A town hall on vaxxers and anti- with speakers from both sides, full-bore "the Constitution allows no censorship carve out for hate speech". Land acknowledgements were stopped cold turkey by innocent excitement in all-staff meetings about giving it back and leading building space from local tribes. Even Pride subversion stopped before the trans and the drag: Celebration of fake rainbows limited to neighborhoods already all-in on the gay.
Once the wahmens and the AWFLs were no longer distracted by managing the homeless & migratory dysfunctional challenge (badly), and the system went all-remote, the Summer of Satan bloomed. They may never recover.
Remote work has its pros and cons. I find it fascinating if done right. Unknown Worlds Entertainment, the Studio behind the Subnautica franchise is a „remote first“ company that works asynchronously. And their product is top notch. Must play definitely.
These expert fields will become increasingly remote. There's just no people. You have to widen the search area.
On an unrelated note: it’s Monday! Where is my Gamma Hero story at?