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Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/features/2020/08/ars-readers-take-on-the-present-and-future-of-work/

Over the past few weeks, we've been talking about how best to manage the current state of work and what companies will need to do in the near and not-too-distant future to adjust to post-pandemic reality. As expected, our readers had some opinions on these topics, too—ranging from insightful to inciteful.

So, in the interest of better surfacing the wisdom of our particular crowd, I've curated some of the thoughts of the Ars community on the topics of working better from home and what our shared experiences have taught us about the future of collaboration technology and the future nature of the corporate office. As always, we hope you'll share additional wisdom in the comments here, as they may guide some future coverage on issues related to the realities of future work.
[...]
Aside from responding with protests of post-traumatic stress after I mentioned Lotus Notes in our article on the future of collaboration, our readers had some on-point thoughts on the current strengths and weaknesses of collaboration technology—particularly in the face of current circumstances. And one of the problems is collaborating across companies effectively.
[...]
Other readers noted that work-from-home wasn't an option for them, but only because of management's whims. RCook wrote that his employer had brought everyone back into the office, "partly because we're located in Iowa where the Pandemic didn't happen according to our Governor and partly because the company President has some stupid control issues."
[....]
However, the company president is working from home. And while RCook "made sure the IT infrastructure was ready and capable of handling the [work-from-home] VPN load" during the company's initial lockdown, "I was actually asked at one point how management could effectively spy on employees to gauge productivity."

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