I reminisce about the dot-com days when bipolar sociopaths started new businesses with that glint of insane pride in their eyes. The pride of a parent cheering on their barely adequate child at a Pop-Warner football game while fantasizing about them being in the NFL. These crazy, unpredictable entrepreneurs loved their companies. They would take drugs to stay awake, and sleep in their offices when that inevitable crash reared its lazy head. If you didn’t at least pretend to be a corporate cheerleader, they’d dump you into the streets. There was no room for negativity in their fast-paced world.
It was a great time to be a software developer. The money was incredible, and you actually felt like you were part of something bigger, important.
Gone are the days of lavish Christmas parties, profit sharing, and corporate cheerleading events where a coke-addled CEO would amp us up for the next business quarter. Jobs are so boring now. Companies only pretend to be the way they were. Yes, you’ll find a few with game rooms, or nap rooms (seriously?), but there’s no connection, no bond anymore. We were never truly special in the dot-com era, but we felt special.
Now, work-from-home is the latest trend in corporate America, and it makes sense. Companies are so bland and mind-numbingly boring, that working from home is the natural evolution to keep employees from abandoning them. Without that spark, they really have nothing left to offer. When WFH gets old, and it will, corporations are in for a painful awakening. Maybe they’ll circle back to being a place we looked forward to, where we actually wanted to give 110%.