This is another reason why manufacturing needs to be brought back to this country and more jobs that require people to physically have to go somewhere to do something.
Not that remote work doesn't have its place. I work part-time from home doing home mortgage underwriting now with my wife and dog to keep me company. Bonus, we get some or all of our 4 grandkids at the spur of the moment a few times per week. But I'm a Gramps in his 60s so it works.
I think about the best job I ever had in my life in the 80s and 90s as a district manager for the Flint newspaper - the typical day had me report to the circulation office in the morning to drink coffee, answer phone messages, write up a schedule, and load up newspapers in my trunk (sometimes just 10 newspapers for skip deliveries and sometimes numerous bundles if I had a route to do). We had an office full of people and we shared some laughs. Then I would hit the road for the day, (sketchy neighborhoods, here I come) first stopping by my adult carrier's homes to do business and entailing picking up their bill money, contracting new carriers, terminating others (lawyers wouldn't let us say 'hire' or 'fire' paper carriers). Then more of the same with my youth force when they got home from school. Then back to the office for coffee, messages, etc. before going home around 6pm (ok sometimes the boys and I would go for a beer or two).
It was after my promotions and when I was taken out of the field and put in the office going to meetings all day that the newspaper industry started to collapse. Cause and effect I guess. I'm thankful I was born when I was and able to work outside the home when it counted. I wish we still made newspapers among other things. The state-of-the art multi-million dollar press hall was retrofitted and currently serves as Flint's Farmer's Market slinging vegetables instead of newsprint. But I feel sad for the data analyst above who probably never felt that adrenaline rush while working in the field and wondering if they were about to get shivved.
Best of both worlds. Working outside the home and the office!
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