As working practices change, many decision makers are ‘telepresent’. I have at least two customers that operate a two desk for three policy so are clearly assuming a third of their workforce are simply not in the office on any one given day.

The decision makers cubicle is empty or more likely gone along with many others. The whole office may well have been emptied and now home to a new Starbucks.

Decision Makers spend are spending more time working from home or working from hubs. Ironically, they might even be in the Starbucks where all the cubicles used to be.

Which brings me to the reduction of air quotes.  if I have seen one set of air quotes to accompany the phrase ‘working from home’ I have seen a thousand. Stop it. Your inference offends me and the overwhelming majority of workers use home working as an opportunity to get stuff done, often late into the night.

Some also use it to take the opportunity to drop off/collect children or carry out some other family commitment that would otherwise be a pain in the proverbial, require time out of the office or both. It’s a gift from their enlightened employer that they return two or threefold at the beginning or end of the day. What I hear most often from home workers is that their overall output improves once they have worked out a sensible work pattern. They get into the ‘flow’ of increased productivity which would otherwise be interrupted by, amongst other things, the chattering water cooler crowd overusing air quotes.