Microsoft CEO: Work is no longer a place you go to | TechRadar
http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of- ... to-1308609



'And I'll be telling the shareholders that, right before they sack me!'

This point of view is entirely based around what a person does for their job.
For him, he might not be able to easape from work even when on the loo, but I very rarely have to deal with anything work related when I am off-shift.
And on the occassions that I do have to deal with work stuff, it's usually just the other person on my team with a query about a call that is dealt with in 5mins.

I do know someone who is nearly always in work-mode, even when he is not actually being paid for what he's doing. I keep telling him to switch-off and let the ones getting paid for the work do the job, but he never listens.

Mark

I used to do that. Now work phone is off after 5 and at weekends


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Quite so. What he's actually saying is 'work is now from when you wake up to when you go to bed'. Sod that.

Actually, based on what is reported therein, he makes absolutely no statements about time. He merely states that "work" is an activity, not a place.

Where can I find a transcript of the entire speech so I can find these time-related statements you're getting upset about?

Most of our customers don't have a choice.

You'd look a little bit odd, walking down the High Street with an industrial spine saw in the hand, waiting for dead pigs to drift pass, so that you can slice them in half...

That's a nightmare for my snooze on the flight


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...but I wish someone would tell my boss that (about not needing to go into work - not the pig killing bit) - he is old school (but no older than me) - in that if you are not at your desk you are not working

That's not the point and I suspect you're very well aware of that. The whole point of 'the working day' is it defines a period of our lives where we have an obligation to our employers and therefore also a period of our lives where we owe them no obligation. if you remove that principle, employers will increasingly demand we are obliged to them whenever and wherever they require us, because that's what will be in their best interest. If you remove the principle of the working day, you weaken the right of an employee to refuse to do work because they require a work/life balance.

If your employer needs a thing by tomorrow and your work day is defined, it's up to them to manage things so you're able to provide that thing within that working day. if they can't do that, tough, its' their problem. If you don't have that defined working day, it's entirely plausible they will manage that task badly and then just ring you up at home at 8PM and say 'I need that thing for tomorrow morning. Can you log in and do it for me?' and the employee has one less plank to stand on if they wish to refuse.

It's not about 'have you done 36 or 37 hours this week', It's about employee's ability/right to say no. It's about shifting the balance of power between employer and employee even further in one direction.

That is exactly the point. He merely talks about work not needing to be geographically restricted to a specific place.

The working day has already disappeared long ago. Its demise is why we can all buy toothpaste and socks at three in the morning.

To a degree, through things like zero hour contracts yes. But night shift workers for example still have 'a working day', even if it isn't 9-5. if you go into a 24 hour supermarket at 3AM (as I have) you'll find they don't have a lot of staff there at all and most likely you'll be using an automated 'self-service' checkout. So we're not really a 24 hour society yet. Nor are we one where there's no such thing as 'a workplace'. if you're MS and the large majority of your profit is in 'virtual objects' yes you're going to think that. But we still need shops and factories and all those other 'places of work' and will for a very long time. The large majority of people do not work in the 'knowledge economy'.

There's definitely a case to be made for even those places to allow for more flexible working - both in terms of productivity and to alleviate things like congestion - but we're still years - decades maybe - away from the case where the majority of workers do so using a tablet computer rather than a power tool.

So he's never had a 'real' job then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XD2kNopsUs seems appropriate.

I was told once by someone I worked for that I did all my best work when I was at home on my own. I used to have to go to the office twice a week, and I seriously got nothing done because I was being talked to about what was needed, we were discussing how the website should work. It was necessary to talk face to face to people about stuff, but the kind of work and thinking I needed to do to actually do my job really required me to be on my own and not be interrupted. They learned that to get the best out of me was to throw an idea at me and leave me alone for a few days.