Summary of Charlie Warzel & Anne Helen Petersen's Out of Office

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1

The dark promise of flexibility is that it gives workers the freedom to work on their own schedule, for less, with no labor protections. It primarily benefits a company's bottom line and makes the workforce less resilient and resentful.

#2

The defining characteristic of the flexible workplace has never been freedom, but rather worker precarity. The future has always been some sort of flexible work configuration, but we have a rare chance to redefine its character and where its benefits will flow.

#3

Between 1979 and 1996, more than fortythree million jobs were eliminated from the American economy. In the 1980s, the composite of laidoff workers tilted more towards lowerskilled jobs, whose pay averaged under $50,000 a year.

#4

Productivity culture is rooted in the performance of work: making a todo list and crossing items off it, achieving inbox zero, writing and sending memos, or holding meetings. Some of this work serves a purpose, some of it stinks of desperation, but all of it offers the worker the feeling that they’re productive.