“Except in sectors where the minimum standard is kept
high through regulation — medicine, say, or piloting — the standard in a
profession is always lower than outsiders would credit. This has to be drummed
into young people from less privileged backgrounds, all too many of whom
believe that every lawyer is Earl Warren, every trader a Fields Medalist. The
office allows them to observe colleagues flail under pressure, utter
banalities, or just shamble around. The ultimate benefit of going to the office
is the demystification of the successful. You can’t see someone’s clay feet
over Zoom.”—“Citizen of Nowhere” columnist Janan Ganesh, “Why the Young Should
Go to the Office,”
The Financial Times, Nov. 4-5, 2023
The image accompanying this post comes from the 1999
movie Office Space, with Gary Cole playing the kind of clay-footed boss
that Ganesh has in mind.
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