I didn’t know I was part of a trend among the “well-heeled” but I clearly am.
I can’t criticize the trend because N is extremely happy. He says it feels like he’s on a permanent paid vacation. And he has the exact same number of friends and contacts with co-workers as he had before working remotely, which is zero. It’s been 4 years (since early COVID), and seeing the absolute joy this is giving him is irresistible. Of course, this means I’m now doomed to going daily to the office even when I stop being department Chair but it’s still worth it.
Clarissa's Blog 
Remote work is definitely a trend among people with the skills to demand it. Other groups, such as call centers, have very much returned to the office.
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“now doomed to going daily to the office”
I think there are gender stereotypes at play here…
Most men need a mission but they don’t necessarily need much company. They want to get on with it and other people on the job are nice or not, but for lots of men they’re just not that necessary which is one reason that very solitary jobs are overwhelmingly held by men (not many women want to be lighthouse keepers….).
For most women who work outside the home the social aspect is very important. The whole idea of a woman staying home for years with only small children for company seems very cruel.
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The problem with this arrangement is that many of the jobs where you sit in front of a computer in silence are going away. Computers are now excluding much of the human factor.
The female “care” jobs aren’t going away. We will have large numbers of men pushed out of productive and social life.
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“many of the jobs where you sit in front of a computer in silence are going away”
Conversation I overheard and barged into a couple of years ago at a social event where a professor was complaining a new major they’d created wasn’t as popular as they thought it would be.
Prof (to someone else): And there’s a big computer science component so it should be attractive to students…
Me (butting in): But students don’t care about that anymore! Students now know less about computers than they did before the internet!
Prof: But they need computer skills for jobs…
Colleague (also butting in): No they don’t. Employers train them on anything they need for the job and don’t really want them to know more…
Prof: …
” female “care” jobs aren’t going away.”
In commie times Poland had ‘fryzjer damsko-męski’ (almost always women) who did beauty salon things and also cut men’s hair. Most of those shut down and more western style beauty salons have popped up and so have barber shops where men go to be fussed over.
Jobs providing personal services and human contact have a future for sure.
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In German, a hairdresser is also Friseur! Fascinating. This was a completely new word for me. In Russian, it’s парикмахер , which is “a maker of wigs.” And the macher part clearly comes from the German “machen”, which is “to do”. This is why I expected the German word to be similar to the Russian.
“Damsko” has a direct equivalent in “дамский” like the German “Damen und Herren.” Of course, Herren sounds atrocious in Russian and always makes N laugh when I do my German exercises out loud. Another word that has him in stitches is “bleiben.” “Die Herren bleiben zu Hause” sounds like I’m swearing up a storm.
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““Damsko” has a direct equivalent in “дамский” like the German “Damen”
The adjective damski is usually used when referring to women as opposed to female, a bit like ‘ladies’ in US English ‘toaleta damska’ (ladies room) but ‘rodzaj żenski’ (feminine gender).
Dama as a noun exists too presumably from French (maybe through German but there are loans straight from French in Polish too).
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