Not all jobs are equally dehumanizing, and not everyone finds the same things equally dehumanizing, especially in the context of what one's job is described as is part of the overall experience. If I'm hired with the expectation of writing software, I don't want to be expected to run out and get coffee for my coworkers so that they can write software better. That doesn't mean that I think everyone will find going on coffee runs dehumanizing, or that writing software can't be dehumanizing for some people; the point is that I value my autonomy in deciding to accept a job with the parameters that work for me, and I happen to find that I'm most happy when I can proactively contribute things that help my coworkers rather than passively being a part of their environment or having expectations change without my consent (e.g. being told after multiple years working remotely that I need to start going into an office or "voluntarily" leave).
I really think those are bad examples. I don't see how someone making what you consider to be an unreasonable request can make one feel dehumanized. Insulted or demeaned? Maybe, sure. But dehumanized? What does that say about your opinion of people who do do coffee runs or who like to work in offices? Nevertheless, I'll roll with it.
I would say it comes down to common practices. Commonly, engineers don't do coffee runs. Commonly, office jobs have always been done in an office, and this status quo has only changed fairly recently (let's say in the last 20 years). History could have played out such that it became common practice for coffee run duty to cycle over everyone in the office, regardless of role, in which case asking you to do it would have been perfectly reasonable, and someone would be right to ask what makes you so special than you can't do something everyone else does. Likewise for remote work. Some places allow it, some don't, and some may transition from one to the other. Since this is known to be the case (no one will believe you if you try to feign ignorance on this), it is reasonable to require to come to the office, no matter how many years you've been doing remote work.
>having expectations change without my consent (e.g. being told after multiple years working remotely that I need to start going into an office or "voluntarily" leave).
When expectations change unilaterally, that usually calls for a renegotiation. The correct response to "we want you to start coming to the office every day" is "okay, then I want $x more every year to cover my additional expenses". Now, it could be that either or neither party is willing to negotiate on such terms, or even that they do negotiate but no consensus is reached, in which case you just have to dissolve the business relationship. What else can you do?
> I really think those are bad examples. I don't see how someone making what you consider to be an unreasonable request can make one feel dehumanized. Insulted or demeaned? Maybe, sure. But dehumanized? What does that say about your opinion of people who do do coffee runs or who like to work in offices?
Being asked to do the exact thing you've signed up for isn't inherently dehumanizing (although it certainly can be; I don't have any trouble imagining that people agree to do jobs that are dehumanizing because they need income and don't have any stronger prospects, but that's an entirely different topic of discussion). I feel like you've missed the context I gave about the initial job one is hired for being different from what they're tasked with doing; I didn't say that having to do coffee runs is inherently going to be dehumanizing, but that it's dehumanizing when you're hired to do something entirely different. Treating people as interchangeable units of labor is pretty much a textbook example of dehumanization in my opinion; we're not cogs who should be freely reassigned by authorities based on their whims, but individuals deserving of some semblance of autonomy and self-determination.
> Some places allow it, some don't, and some may transition from one to the other. Since this is known to be the case (no one will believe you if you try to feign ignorance on this), it is reasonable to require to come to the office, no matter how many years you've been doing remote work.
This is honestly a pretty absurd conclusion. Because I'm aware that some companies have certain policies, I'm implicitly agreeing to literally any of those policies by agreeing to employment to any single one? Plenty of companies require their employees to be clean-shaven, but someone who has worked for a company for years is told they need to either shave their beard or quit without severance, I can't imagine any argument I would find compelling about why that would be reasonable. I'm sure you'll be able to come up with plenty of arguments about why you also think this example is absurd, but so far everything you've described is extremely abstract, so it's not clear to me whether there are any real-world examples you wouldn't reject based on not being an exact match to the hypothetical you've described.
> The correct response to "we want you to start coming to the office every day" is "okay, then I want $x more every year to cover my additional expenses". Now, it could be that either or neither party is willing to negotiate on such terms, or even that they do negotiate but no consensus is reached, in which case you just have to dissolve the business relationship. What else can you do?
In some societies (but not the United States), a company unilaterally trying to change the terms of employment in a way that the employee disagrees with is grounds for the employee to receive severance. There are examples even in American society of companies being forced to restore positions to people who were terminated for reasons found to be unlawful.
I fundamentally disagree with the presumption that I need to be willing to present a company with an amount of money for them to force me to change my circumstances; if they're the ones who want to change things, the onus should be on them to convince me, or else they should be required to compensate me for their unwillingness to continue with the previous agreement. This isn't how things work with "at-will" employment though, and the number of software companies in the United States that offer anything other than at-will employment beyond finite length contracts are at most a rounding error above zero. This doesn't mean I have to think this is fair or reasonable; quite a lot of things in life are unfair or unreasonable without being within our individual abilities to influence, and it's not hypocritical to be willing to point those out even if I'm not willing to risk the livelihood of myself or my family to make a point about it that will in all likelihood change nothing.
>it's dehumanizing when you're hired to do something entirely different. Treating people as interchangeable units of labor is pretty much a textbook example of dehumanization in my opinion; we're not cogs who should be freely reassigned by authorities based on their whims, but individuals deserving of some semblance of autonomy and self-determination.
But you do realize that you're going to be treated that way regardless of whether it's overtly or not, right? That's why you're paid by the hour, not by how much your effort contributes to the bottom line (supposing for a moment that that could be accurately quantified). When you become an employee you do agree to become a cog in a machine. You're not some independent artist making your own way in the world, you're working on someone else's project and following someone else's success criteria, along with a bunch of other people. An employee gives up a small amount of autonomy and self-determination in exchange for stability. If that's not what you want perhaps you should become an entrepreneur.
I honestly don't understand how being asked to perform a wildly different task is much worse that the default state of affairs. If it were me I'd think "hell yeah! You're paying me the same money to go fetch coffee? The hell do I care?"
>I'm implicitly agreeing to literally any of those policies by agreeing to employment to any single one?
No. But it does make those policies not unreasonable. It can't be unreasonable when so many other places have said policies. That the place you're at isn't currently one of them doesn't mean it can't be one in the future, nor does it mean that it changing would be unreasonable. You especially can't put on the surprised Pikachu face when so many companies are doing it. "Wha... What do you mean in this software company they're requiring people to return to the office like they're doing at all the other software companies? This is totally unexpected!"
>In some societies (but not the United States), a company unilaterally trying to change the terms of employment in a way that the employee disagrees with is grounds for the employee to receive severance.
I live in one such country, and most people would still rather negotiate than just be fired with severance, or even just bear with it and start looking for a new job. All severance does is make it so small and medium-sized companies can't fire a lot of people at once. It's still a bigger blow to the employee, even with severance.
>I fundamentally disagree with the presumption that I need to be willing to present a company with an amount of money for them to force me to change my circumstances; if they're the ones who want to change things, the onus should be on them to convince me, or else they should be required to compensate me for their unwillingness to continue with the previous agreement. This isn't how things work with "at-will" employment though, and the number of software companies in the United States that offer anything other than at-will employment beyond finite length contracts are at most a rounding error above zero. This doesn't mean I have to think this is fair or reasonable; quite a lot of things in life are unfair or unreasonable without being within our individual abilities to influence, and it's not hypocritical to be willing to point those out even if I'm not willing to risk the livelihood of myself or my family to make a point about it that will in all likelihood change nothing.
To be honest, I'm not sure what your point is anymore. All I said was that if circumstances change and you and the other party can't come to an agreement, all that's left is to dissolve the business relationship. Everything else around that simple fact, such as the particular terms of the business relationship, seem to me largely inconsequential.
> That's why you're paid by the hour, not by how much your effort contributes to the bottom line (supposing for a moment that that could be accurately quantified).
I'm not paid by the hour. Yes, my salary is quantified in a unit of time, but if you're lumping hourly and yearly wage jobs in together to contrast them with working on commission, you're ignoring a lot of details that make a huge difference in the actual experience people in their jobs, and my point is that I think even small details add up and make a difference in how fulfilled people feel in their jobs in the long run.
> When you become an employee you do agree to become a cog in a machine. You're not some independent artist making your own way in the world, you're working on someone else's project and following someone else's success criteria, along with a bunch of other people. An employee gives up a small amount of autonomy and self-determination in exchange for stability. If that's not what you want perhaps you should become an entrepreneur.
As far as I can tell, this is pretty much covered by the last part of my previous comment: just because the world works in a certain way that I can't change doesn't mean that I have to accept it as fair and not criticize it. I don't think it's hypocritical for me to make a choice based on the stability that it affords myself and my family but think it's unfair that people have to make choices like that in the first place. The fact that most companies unilaterally decide the terms of employment and employees have no actual power to negotiate is something I can call out as unfair even if I still end up accepting that it would cost me more to refuse to participate in it.
> No. But it does make those policies not unreasonable. It can't be unreasonable when so many other places have said policies. That the place you're at isn't currently one of them doesn't mean it can't be one in the future, nor does it mean that it changing would be unreasonable. You especially can't put on the surprised Pikachu face when so many companies are doing it. "Wha... What do you mean in this software company they're requiring people to return to the office like they're doing at all the other software companies? This is totally unexpected!"
I disagree that "everyone is doing it" makes it inherently reasonable. You're misconstruing my criticism as surprise. I'm not obligated to refrain from criticizing bad things because they're expected.
> I live in one such country, and most people would still rather negotiate than just be fired with severance, or even just bear with it and start looking for a new job. All severance does is make it so small and medium-sized companies can't fire a lot of people at once. It's still a bigger blow to the employee, even with severance.
You're certainly entitled to disagree with me about this. I don't find your claim that severance only has negative effects compelling though, and I'm entitled to disagree with your claim on this as well.
> To be honest, I'm not sure what your point is anymore. All I said was that if circumstances change and you and the other party can't come to an agreement, all that's left is to dissolve the business relationship. Everything else around that simple fact, such as the particular terms of the business relationship, seem to me largely inconsequential.
My point is that I think the way a lot of companies do things is unfair, and the fact that they do them doesn't inherently make them fair. If you think this is a pointless opinion, you're certainly welcome to ignore or criticize it, as you have been doing, but I don't happen to think your criticisms are particularly convincing.
