One of the grifts that keeps on grifting arising from COVID-19 hysteria is working from home. But the bloom is coming off that rose.
Take note, you 1.3 million federal workers who, according to CNN, are approved to “telework” – translation: avoid the office.
The same petty bureaucratic dictators who brought you six-feet social distancing (just because) and masks (same reason), who shut down the nation with the aim of hamstringing Donald Trump’s re-election prospects in 2020 by tanking the economy and opening the Pandora’s box of massive mail-in voting (these met desired aims) and shut down schools (never mind the consequences), along the way shamed employers into allowing employees to work from home to stem a pandemic not a whole lot more dangerous than a common cold or the flu.
It was the greatest ever real-world example of The Emperor’s New Clothes. The scam was perpetuated because of government lining up with all-powerful social media to crush anyone who had the intestinal fortitude to note the emperor was, in fact, naked.
This was the cornerstone outcome that set the inept Biden-Harris regime on its path to massive over-reach. The tone-deaf duo, and their elite puppetmasters, presumed that if the American populace was gullible enough to hand over constitutional rights for this COVID panic, they’d bow and scrape also on matters ranging from wide-open borders, illegal immigrants enhancing Democrat voter roles, transgender indoctrination and a general agenda somewhere to the left of Chairman Mao on the political scale.
I confess to having despaired that the genie was out of the bottle, the toothpaste was out of the tube, whatever metaphor you want to use to describe a situation that has reached critical mass and therefore was/is unstoppable.
Today, I’m happy to admit that I have come to believe that I was wrong. The left went too far and Donald Trump was just the man to cobble together a populist coalition intent on taking back control of the nation.
We won the election and we’re going to win the fight to drag the United States back into a state of reality.
This feeling was fortified at a luncheon arranged Wednesday to touch base with former co-workers. In all, eight of us (my son joined the lunch) convened at Main Moon Restaurant, discussing the state of our former (for some current) employer, The Johnstown Woke Gazette, and the national mood in general.
The topic turned to working from home. After I had left the local Woke Gazette, to work for Tribune-Review Publishing, I came to cover Penn State sports and often worked from home two days a week during football season.
It was very easy for my bosses to know I was not leaning on the oars despite being out of their immediate eyesight. All they had to do was look at the stories I composed. In the strange world of writing for newspapers, that output might not just include the items that ran the next day, but also weekend stuff for Saturday and Sunday editions, which often are put together in advance.
I actually worked longer hours from home – at least during football season – because the demands were such that it was necessary.
The Washington Post recently angered even more of its whiny, leftist staff by telling them that going forward they would be expected to show up at the office for work shifts. This after the paper refused to endorse Kamala Chameleon, producing the expected level of outraged whining.
The Post ownership did give the staff the option of resigning if they found the office demand too strenuous. Ironically, the Post edict comes hard on the heels of similar action from Amazon, which is owned by the same guy.
Working from home has failed for the same reason Communism fails wherever tried. That would be human nature. Some people work just fine without supervision and peer pressure, or the prospect of being rewarded for working harder than the rest of the staff. An unfortunately high percentage does not.
There also is something to be said for being around co-workers in that ideas can be kicked around, trends can be discussed, sources and methods can be shared.
Working in virtual isolation at home doesn’t provide this sort of interaction. It does, however, present the distractions of life.
I presume state workers get the same ability to not show up at the office as federal workers, and that could help explain why dealing with the state bureaucracy has become such an ordeal.
It certainly is true with the federal government. Try getting in touch with someone at the IRS, for example.
Trump’s Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative, headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, warms the cockles of my heart. I’m tired of hearing stories of $200 hammers or $70,000 conference tables bought on the taxpayer dime and just laughed off in the vein of what-can-you-do-about-it?
Here’s what you can do about it, lop off some heads. Musk very famously fired about 80 percent of Twitter staff when he bought that social media outlet and re-instated free speech. Cue the screaming and dire predictions. But it seems there was a lot of dead wood acting as censors, because Twitter continues to thrive – with about one-fifth the staff.
I suspect the government could be leaned down similarly, without any negative results.
Merely demanding workers return to work could prune the staff without the need to fire people. These entitled types likely would quit rather than having to resume giving an honest effort each and every work shift.
This is much the same as reports making the rounds that some illegal immigrants, shocked into reality by promises to deport them, are heading for the nation’s exits on their own.
We don’t care how it gets done – whether trimming government waste or sending illegals packing – just that it gets done.
As an aside, some of us lingered in the parking lot after lunch Wednesday, talking and inadvertently blocking two people looking to back out of their parking space.
All three of us – retired Woke Gazette employees, not present ones – were wearing MAGA hats and I had on a bright red Detroit Red Wings jersey one might have mistaken for something MAGA.
The man and woman in the car, apparently Chinese, rolled down the passenger side window as they backed out, smiled and told us, “Thank you for making America great again!”
We voted for Trump, expecting him to make good on campaign promises and do exactly that. I’m encouraged that he looks to be hitting the ground running.
Sam Ross Jr's site 