Remote Work in 2025 and Beyond

[maki2]

I know that perhaps 20 years ago and earlier there was a fair amount of “piece work” opportunities going on. Actual physical product work that persons were doing in their homes. They would be sent boxes of parts that needed assembling or even packaging. I think there is still some of that going on. But it would not be all that easy to get such jobs if you frequently travel to new shipping addresses.

But the label “remote work” no longer seems to include such jobs. Although I do know that remote sewing assembly work still does exist in the USA for some small sized sporting goods products. If a nomad had the right equipment and the shipping of materials and completed products could be worked out that could actually work as a remote job. I have friends who owned such a mom and pop company and used remote sewers for the cutting and assembly, but they recently retired to Florida.

 

[eDJ_]

The "Putting Out Industry" is the term that was coined for it in the 1750's English Industrial Revolution. There were no factories like we have today so people's homes had raw materials delivered to them to be convert into finished goods which the merchant would later pick up and pay for. Then supply a next allocation of materials. As this practice grew it influenced the modification of a work-family's home. A shed-like lean to was added to the house later to serve as a shop and even at times a barn in bad weather if necessary. Soon after, "Cottage Industry" became the more common term. In this phase the work-family's home became the first factory facility.

When I was living in North Carolina the next door neighbor to my parents worked this putting out industry system. She was a seamstress who sewed women's stockings. Once a week a Van would pull up and they would exchange boxes. Mom had come to know her and she told her she sewed "custom" lingerie. The area was big into textile and carpet tufting.



Today, some Nomads tow a trailer behind their rig that serves as a work shop while others may work out of a school bus doing similar.

 

[maki2]

My remote work station.

 

[twomountainlions]

Very soon, workplaces will become so unsafe because of rage people feel (and workspace violence lawsuits that will follow) that CEOs and "managers" will be begging people to work from home.

This current push go return to office are the last throes of antiquated dying system, and they want to buy some time to offload all the office real estate and change various businesses that feed off workplace slavery like downtown coffee shops into something else. The also want people staying shackled to their mortgages in expensive cities and are afraid of city collapses. But whats inevitable will happen.

Some types of government workers, though - they need to be public facing and accessible to the public in person as they are public servants. Its the fear of public anger, not the common cold fears, that made them work from home and hide from the public. One calls a government office then and no one answers the phone, just a message that people are working from home and will call you back, which they never do.

Professionals whose work in private industry can be easily done from home should just boycott return to office companies even if it means taking a pay cut, resulting brain drain will sort it all out eventually. Ever since they stated with Open office thing and got rid of cubicles work in the office became especially bad. Smelling horrendous personal care products people use, nauseating stinky foods, musty carpets, air fresheners, listening to chatter, seeing distractions all of this is incompatible with productive work.

 

[twomountainlions]

Another thing is people (those who won't snap and go full bat guano crazy and violent from long commutes, high expenses and in person workspace stress) will be quietly sabotaging companies that made them unnecessarily work from the office and will be just biding their time. This is happening a lot now. I think its called coffee revolt or badging. Just show up, have a coffee with chit chat, do bare minimum, take shortcuts, skip stuff, another coffee, then lunch, oops time to go home my dog just called.

 

[maki2]

You are confusing real life with fictional TV shows.

You are just relying on your imagination of what a fictional character might do in such a situation. The reality is that break times are scheduled with defined time limits and supervisors report you if you are away from your work station too long. You would get formal warnings with letters put in your personnel file and after just a couple of incidences you would be fired. Companies can’t afford to have one employee setting a bad example for other employees. It ruins productivity.