Dirty hooks

I’m in the California mountains a ton, and the pattern is always the same: remote workers from The Magnificent Seven are up there playing hooky to get in some biking, climbing, etc., during work hours.

At first, I’d see some attempt at working up there. In the case of product managers, between climbs, they would respond to their Slack messages for a bit, then get right back to projecting their boulder. Fine by me.

But now, the brazenness is alarming. Techys are quite vocal that they are playing hooky, that they don’t care, and that they get away with it easily.

Remote work always seemed like the future in tech. After all, if you’ve ever schlep’d a couple hours a day for years just to sit in isolation at a screen, you’re familiar with the bewilderment.

Now the pendulum has swung too far. By my estimation, a Facebook techy playing hooky during work hours costs the company some USD2.8K a day. That’s a lot of tin, no matter how you cut it.

I think The Magnificent Seven need to rein it in and start pushing back on the entitlements of their rock-star employees. Sure, you need them. Sure, you want them on your side. But at what cost?