Sean Thomas

James Dyson is right to urge us back to the office

  • From Spectator Life
Image: Getty

I have almost no clue what office life is like. And I really mean ‘almost no clue’. Over several decades of professional work, my entire experience of office life consists of four hours working as a receptionist at a shipbroker’s in the City. I was so bad they sacked me by lunchtime: I didn’t even make it through the first day. 

Chastened by this trauma, I thereafter vowed I would never do another hour of paid work in an ‘office’, and I have stuck to my principles. I have never been woken by a horrible alarm at 7am; instead, for all my life, I have heroically kept on sleeping until about 10.30. Likewise, I have never knowingly been caught in the ‘rush hour’; instead I sometimes stand at my window around 6pm and look at all the people hurrying for trains and then I remember it is time for a gin-and-tonic. 

There is a special alchemy that happens when humans interact

My lifestyle wouldn’t be to the taste of Sir James Dyson who recently demanded that we ‘must go back to the office’, because working from home is a ‘productivity disaster’. But I also know Dyson is right. 

How can this be so, you may ask, as you read this on the 07.49 from Southend to Liverpool Street, even as I lie snoring in my bed? My answer is this, because I have always worked from home (or the beach, or a bustling little cafe) I know that WFH really does have disadvantages, compared to office work. At the core of Dyson’s argument is that people need to get together, physically: to collaborate, to develop, and to be mentally creative. This sounds paradoxical but it is true. 

If you work from home all the time you tumble into a kind of psychological silo.

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