The commute does not compute

How are hackery and flakery going to look in a year’s time?

Better than they did a year ago, for almost sure, and if we get it right better than it was before all this.

From the hack’s standpoint however, there is an awful lot of fingers-in-the-ears stuff aimed at going backwards in time and judging success on office presenteeism.

This is depressing, showing a lack of both faith and imagination.

A question: what is the point in getting hacks back into the office if no one else is?

The banking correspondent cannot go into the City for meetings if the bankers are still in Surrey. We risk being in the entirely laughable situation of heading into the office to do Zoom calls.

Hack and flak land is already busy enough, why impose clear time-wasting strictures just because it makes the news editor, who is rightly chained to his desk anyway, slightly less grumpy?

I’ve done three work/social drinks in the City in the last two weeks and each of them reminded me what you get from face-to-face chats in (or outside) pubs. Gossip. Ideas. Enthusiasm.

They were only possible, time wise, because I’d done six hugely productive hours of work from home first.

From other more enlightened industries than journalism I keep hearing the phrase “don’t commute to compute”.

Watch us screw this up.