A Proposed Job Opportunity
It’s nice to feel wanted. That’s why I usually open LinkedIn “InMail” messages from recruiters. Last week, I got a fun one. A recruiter contacted me, purporting to be working on behalf of an aerospace technology company called Stratolaunch. You may have heard of Stratolaunch… just kidding, it’s an obscure, irrelevant company, working on some technical, aeronautical hobby-project, that will be ultimately overlooked and forgotten by everyone who doesn’t read aerospace technology newsletters.
Anyway, relative significance of Stratolaunch aside, aerospace is my industry, and the Financial Analyst role they had was very much in line with what I currently do (I mean, what I do as a side hustle, just for a little extra pocket change, when I’m not writing this blog). For the right price, I’m curious to hear about a job like this, so I gave the recruiter’s message a look.
It began, “You have an impressive background and I feel you are a great fit for one of the openings we have in Mojave, CA (Relocation assistance available).”
Stop right there. First of all, thank you for acknowledging my impressive background. Secondly, relocate? To MOJAVE?? No offense to Mojave, but the reason it exists, as a city with aerospace technology companies, is primarily due to the fact that it’s one of those parts of the world where you can just go ahead and crash a jet anywhere, assured that it won’t hit anything of value. Only rattlesnakes, cacti, and Breaking Bad Winnebagos out there.
Probably ought to just make this position open for remote work, right? You guys do know we have that technology now?
Stratolaunch *clearly* is aware that it’s a tough sell to get top talent to move to a barren desert. As I read to the bottom of the official job description, it became abundantly evident that they were struggling to convince people to move there. It was, I might say, a bit defensive. The following is from the job listing that’s currently live on their website (I highlighted my favorite parts):
Mojave Air & Spaceport is located 95 miles north of Los Angeles. To outsiders it may seem like it is the middle-of-nowhere, but it offers both affordability and central access to a variety of California’s best attractions and landmarks. Hikers will find themselves within a 2-3 hours distance of some of the best state and national parks, including Yosemite and Sequoia in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Skiers will delight in being closely distanced to world-class resorts at Mammoth Mountain, Mountain High, and Big Bear. Beachgoers can find plenty of sand, sun, and sunsets at both Southern and Central California beaches like Ventura, Huntington, Santa Monica, and Pismo. The area also offers plenty of rural area for off-roading and horseback riding enthusiasts.
Not much for the outdoors and prefer the city life? You’re within a half day’s drive or less of Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, and San Francisco where you can find a variety of live entertainment, museums, tours, and historical sight-seeing. Theme parks are in abundance, with Six Flags Magic Mountain, Disneyland, and Knotts Berry Farm ready to meet the needs of rollercoaster thrill seekers.
Ok. Call me an “outsider”, but a 2-3 HOURS distance, to a HALF DAY’s drive from things means that yes, you are in the middle of nowhere. “Beachgoers” are not going to enjoy living in Mojave. Saying Mojave provides “central access” to all these attractions is, at best, wildly delusional. I could say, “To the outsider, North Dakota is… North Dakota, but it is actually just a half day’s chartered Concorde flight away from Paris. Museumgoers will find plenty to enjoy at the Louvre…”
Clearly these people are painfully aware that they are at a geographic disadvantage. Why not just embrace remote work? Remote work has been proven to be very effective; your Finance team can absolutely excel (pun intended), working from wherever. Have some dignity; there’s no need to go and mislead people about your proximity to Knott's Berry Farm like this.
We’ve Got the Technology; We Should Use It
Remote work works. I thought we have already been over this. That was the primary silver-lining to the tragic events of 2020: Every white-collar desk jockey - your data/financial analysts, clerks, accountants, programmers, and engineers - finally got to run the work-from-home experiment. It was decisively proven that we have been right all along about remote work - the old joke, “Coulda been an email,” was actually not just a joke, but a fact. It was proven that various managers, controllers, VPs, directors, owners, Presidents, and CEO’s have been embarrassingly and completely wrong in dismissing remote work, for some time now.
Well, I thought it was proven, but it seems like the lesson is being forgotten. I’m starting to sense we’re sliding back. Why?
Ever since I was given a job that required me to take a work computer home (they wanted me to get even more work done on the weekends), I’ve known that remote work yields better results than office work. I noticed that I was much faster at completing tasks at home on those weekends and evenings I tried it.
And then in 2020, we finally got good at conferencing apps like Teams. Using Teams is actually much much better than the old in-office, conference room meetings. It’s true. We can all share our screens, and a picture says a thousand words, especially if the words are extremely complicated and technical. Every person on a call has three monitors up, and this allows us to better follow along and contribute to particularly complicated conversations. None of this is possible in a normal conference room, where the meeting leader spends at least 10 minutes trying to connect the projector, all other participants struggle to track with a notepad or tiny laptop, and an angry mob beats at the door if the meeting runs over allotted time. Recent, virtual/remote upgrades to the meeting experience have given remote work an even greater practical advantage to the office.
It’s just better. It’s indisputable. So why do so many still insist that my lack of physical presence in an office is some sort of profound, intangible loss to the company? I have theories.
Why Can’t We Work From Home
Maybe it’s just hubris. It could be that insisting all employees come into an office massages the egos of nanny/helicopter/lonely managerial executive types (think, Michael Scott) who firmly believe that their magnetic personalities and leadership skills inspire the team, and set a tone for success.
Now, in some cases, the executive might be right. By “some cases” I mean like, 5 cases per century. For example, Elon Musk insists that his employees be in the office. Fine; he’s simultaneously built Tesla and SpaceX, so we’ll let him have his office mandate, as a reward. Elon Musk is a generational talent; a phenom. Love him or hate him, he’s doing stuff.
I read the Steve Jobs biography, and think he was a monster, but I still could’ve been talked into working for him given the opportunity, and I’d want to be in the office for that.
So maybe there are situations where the company is so prestigious, and the mission so advanced, that everyone doesn’t just need to there - they want to be there. It’s isn’t that great achievements come as a result of being in the office; the truth is the other way around. The in-office presence can be demanded after the great results.
Such situations are extremely rare, yet everyone wants to think they’re Steve Jobs or Elon Musk.
“Stratolaunch” is not one of these 5-per-century situations. Look, I don’t know how to say this. Here’s a screen grab from their website:
Do I really need to move my family to the middle of the scorching desert, so that I can benefit from the inspiring presence of these people? One day, will I find myself saying, “Yes, the hours were horrific, but I wouldn’t be the professional I am today, had I not gotten the opportunity to work in person with the legendary Mary Normand, a top mind in aerospace and defense!”
Oh, to tell my grandkids I was part of the team of Dr. Zachary Krevor, working shoulder-to-shoulder, helping create - checks notes - um, reusable, cost-effective platforms that enable routine access to the hypersonic environment!
I’m leaving Jackson Kemper, III out of this, because I low-key would take some satisfaction in saying “Jackson Kemper… the THIRD” when speaking of him, so there is value there.
But aside from the Kemperburger (as we affectionately call him in that hypothetical), I’ll say with confidence that no, it’s not mission critical for these people to ever be in physical proximity to their Finance and Accounting team.
Another factor that might be contributing to reluctance to allow remote work is the difficulty to admitting when you’re wrong. It would bring sharp grief and deep humiliation for an executive to face the truth that they’ve been wrong about remote work. Nearly a whole generation of executives have staked their professional expertise, for years, on the statement that there is an intangible benefit to being in the office. It’s just too late now to admit to themselves or anyone, that they were way off. Beyond the professional embarrassment of taking a stubborn, dead-wrong stand, they’ve likely made giant personal sacrifices, missing precious time with spouses, children, nature, etc., in favor of spending countless frustrating hours behind the wheel of a car.
They’ve forced their entire staff to make the same sacrifice. Marriages have probably been broken over this. Years of life taken off from commute stress. Little League home runs gone unobserved, and school dance recitals missed (I don’t know, it’s always a home run or a dance recital in the movies). And, for the last 10 years at least, I'd say some of that the sacrifice was easily avoidable. Knowing one’s own stubbornness and poor judgement led to such tragic consequences has to hurt really bad. Most people in that situation probably can’t bring themselves to admit it directly - it won’t even register as a thought. “I had to make that commute; there was no other choice!”
So that’s another reason companies tend to resist remote work.
There are exceptions where an office makes sense. Some employees do need an office, and prefer it. Maybe they have loud busy homes, with slow internet. Often, the office provides more comfort, with better chairs, desks, and HVAC. Well, good news! We have the tech now to accommodate this as well. Most big companies should just make a set of interchangeable, generic desks available, WeWork style. Speaking for my team, any of us could work from any other’s cubicle. Just dock your laptop to the equipment and go. This wasn’t possible 20 years ago, but it’s basically already happening now. The only thing distinguishing one cubicle from another, at my office, is the framed pictures of family, and what plants you brought in. Well, my desk has Lego sets on it too.
If some people will benefit from an office, the solution is to provide an office for those people. If the company can provide community-shared plants and Lego sets as well, all the better.
Nonetheless, the fact that some people like the office in no way logically means that anyone should be mandated to go the office.
In Conclusion
In summary, I don’t quite understand why the office is still the default. I’ve been told that it would be good optics to be “seen” in the office, and it would help me network. In reality, nobody sees me on the days when I’m at the office. I sit in my cubicle, alone. Furthermore, some of my best professional connections have been made with people who only know me from my voice, and never worked with me in person or saw my face.
Perhaps, the lesson there is that I have an unlikable face; but whatever the reason, working from home has in no way handicapped my professional progress, and has actually accelerated my career.
Maybe the culprit is just boring old inertia. We’ve always been told that most “office” jobs need to be done in the office, and it might take decades to change that mindset. My opinion, clearly, is that mindset is a result of foolish dogma, and not science or critical thinking. Speaking for myself, my peers at my own employer, and a handful of other anecdotal scenarios from friends and family, remote work yields better results for all parties, and it’s not really debatable.
Full disclosure, I’ve actually never been to Mojave (but close), and I have done no research on Mary Normand, Dr. Zachary Krevor, or anybody there. Maybe I’ve been unfair to all of the above, but one of the advantages of writing in obscurity is that I can fire wild shots at anyone, to make a point, with no fear of being fact-checked. So let’s just assume, for purposes of making this article more poignant, that Mojave is a desolate wasteland, and Stratolaunch’s executive leadership are arrogant, self-obsessed, Luddites who miss all their kids’ home runs and dance recitals.
Regardless of the specifics of my Stratolaunch anecdote, my hope is that 2020 made enough of a dent, and remote work will hang on and rally to become the norm. There are still a lot more employers accommodating remote work forces, compared to 2019.
I know colleagues who fled my own employer for 100% remote arrangements. I’ve also found that 100% remote opportunities get far more applicants, and the competition is fierce, as the pool is national. Logically speaking, with these trends, companies offering remote work will end up with the most talented personnel. Companies like Stratolaunch, will either adapt, or perish.
Which is poetic, since Stratolaunch is centrally located within a 2-3 hours drive of Death Valley.