I honestly wish more was written about the experiences of the in-between essential and WFH workers. I should not be the star, but I work building operations, in NYC. I've been going in since March 13th 2020, as have my staff, we all wear pants, I think I showed up in shorts once. I WFH a few days here and there when things are steady and I let some of my managers do the same, but buildings don't do well when left alone and they certainly don't do well when they still need to function as the space they were designed to be. We have precious things inside that must be secured and maintained. I biked in a lot because I like biking, and it felt safer and healthy. But also through this, I talked to people and looked them in the eyes and discussed repairs and wore masks inside and stayed socially distant but would take masks off when working on the roof. I have friends who were laid-off and I also made decisions in the moment when my friends were struggling to weigh the risks of their own mental health vs. getting covid, I even went into "gasp" a person's apartment to help them when they were feeling too isolated and trapped. I just finished reading the NYtimes Morning and I really am concerned at times about the public's ability to understand risk, and it is certainly not helped by mixed messaging from experts and infighting between mayors and governors, looking at you Cuomo/BDB. Also, I ate a fried egg this morning and the yolk was pretty runny got all over my mask.
I’m tickled by something Matt mentioned at the end, the fixation in NYC centric media on those who left the city. ‘Will we accept back those who fled?’ Meanwhile as far as I can see the rest of NY is begging people to return, welcoming with open arms, considering voting for them for mayor, etc
This article glosses over a small but crucial distinction between "most workers" and "most people". Matt correctly points out that most *workers* are unable to work from home and thus live comparatively normal lives.
However, most *people* are significantly affected by the pandemic. Currently, the nation's employment-to-population ratio is just 57% due to the prevalence of retired people, stay-at-home parents, college students, and the unemployed. If you factor in children aged 16 and younger, the share of employed Americans is just 46%. If you subtract those workers who are engaged in telework, the share of Americans doing in-person work is about 37%.
Viewed through this lens, the focus on pandemic lockdown restrictions makes sense. For most of the non-employed, life is substantially different as a result of the pandemic. Although they are not "working from home" in the traditional sense, they are generally staying home and unable to engage in their ordinary day-to-day activities. So although hand-wringing about an inability to make eye contact is silly fodder for an article, I think it does in some way reflect the concerns and lived experience of most people.
The media are isolated in a bubble in other ways as well. Reporters are young and act as if there is no such thing as history. Calling the recent economic data "unprecedented" is evidence that they never lived through or studied the 1970s.
Travel for work. As you guys know. Sitting in South Paulo airport in Brazil right now drinking a cappuccino at Starbucks. It’s pretty terrible.
I spent last week in New York City, and it was a culture shock to see how skittish people were. People walking their dogs, no one around wearing masks. It is such a culture shock compared to every place else in the country that I work.
I don’t think I’ve read an article this year, that has really captured work the real life is like for us normal people. I would describe it as normal life, with a lot of inconveniences.
I know the difference between Liberals and Conservatives is meant to be openness vs Conscientiousness, but it doesn’t jive with the risk management I see. Conservatives more likely to not wear masks and continue on with life. Whereas liberals are more likely to stay home and wear masks religiously.
My brother and his wife refused to drive anywhere that would require them to use a bathroom. That was their rule. No long drives. No day trips. One single grocery trip a week. Zero meals out. (This is in Los Angeles). Very liberal.
Meanwhile, I’ve been flying all over the country. Brother thinks I’m practically Trump.
One of my biggest beef’s with this whole thing is the way the term essential worker has been fetishized. I’m not even sure it means what it’s meant to mean. And it usually leaves out a whole lot of people who are really essential.
Anyway. I’ve seen this sort of.... we aren’t representative take from Matt several times. Also from other pundits. But let’s face it, no regular people aren’t their demographic, they’re not reading the articles. If I asked 100 people that I deal with in a normal day, I would be surprised if more than five ever heard of Matthew Yglesias. I’m not picking on them, but Maddie has been around a while and is a known name. I put the number of people that live read even one Matthew at least this article has probably less than 10% of all adults. In fact, he probably got more exposure on Joe Rogan then he has with anything in the rest of his career.
I don’t want this to come across as derogatory towards Matt, obviously a paid subscriber and a big fan. I’m using him more as an example. Just that, I don’t blame the out of touch articles.
Anyway, I’m wearing jeans right now. I haven’t wore leggings are here, even though I would look fabulous in them.
On my way to Cuiaba later. So just people watching here in Brazil. The last time I was here was last March, win I sort of knew this Covid thing was going to kick off. Airport is a lot less crowded, everyone is wearing masks. The women are still beautiful. And that was the quickest I’ve ever been through passport control and customs.
Also, I am curious about you fellow commenters. If u feel like it... drop a reply with where u live l, what your job is, remote or not, how cautious u are, and what u wear on a regular basis. I’m jeans at work... shorts everywhere else.
Rory. Boise. Inspect gas Turbine power plants across N and South America. 100 travel. Below average cautious. Have a bachelors degree I earned online in the Military, but isn’t required for my job. Not particularly bright, but I do read a lot.
The main take-away from this just mainly seems to be 'we need more working-class-focused media outlets'. I seem to recall that was discussed on the Weeds episode with Faiz Shakir, and that he was starting one. That seems good, and hopefully it (and/or others like it) are successful and force a little more 'real people problems' content from the prestige outlets.
It would be interesting for you to do a demographic survey of your subscribers. I for one would like to see that information. As an aged boomer I suspect I'm an outlier.
Reading many of those stories over the past year-plus about staying home and lockdown anxiety and whatnot has been a very bizarre experience for those of us who are entirely too online and read a lot of mainstream, left-leaning folks, but who also have our feet firmly planted in environments where people were very cautious but not huddled together in their homes.
Like a lot of people, my wife and I both had to continue working, and also like a lot of people, we initially went to level 10 on COVID precautions before scaling back and doing things that felt safe and okay, like playgrounds, or outdoor birthday parties. I have friends who live in Sonoma County who don't take their kid out to the playground and are talking about keeping them home from school for all of next year to be safe, and to be honest, that's nuts to me.
I was in The Villages, Florida this past week visiting my racist dad. Fascinating place. All old people. No masks anywhere, indoors or out, except for staff members. No capacity reduction or anything. All I kept thinking was “how are more of these people not dead?” I do not have a good answer to that question. Dad assured me it’s because COVID is fake and just a scam to let communists take over the government. I’m not so sure about that, but the pandemic heterogeneity there is certainly very interesting.
So when I'm at work my other coworkers and myself always sit without our masks in the break room. This is in spite of us working directly with COVID patients sometimes (we are nurses on a non COVID unit). The point being that working while wearing masks for over 12 hours is very uncomfortable and a maskless break is a nice thing to have in spite of the inherent risk.
Nothing against Amanda Mull in particular, but prestige magazines like The Atlantic could really use some diversity. Mull is *somewhat* differentiated because at least she's from the south, but like everyone else at these publications, she grew up rich and now lives in Brooklyn. Having more people from working class backgrounds would make it harder to miss these obvious blindspots.
Both excerpts were ridiculous, but it's particularly stupid to insist that there were only two experiences available during 2020, and that only the luckiest Americans got to experience "soul crushing loneliness". She needs to expand her circle a bit because there are lots of people who had a much better 2020 than these "luckiest Americans".
I don't need long lectures at the top of every article in the business or style or sports sections detailing how this depiction of real life doesn't actually represent the median experience, thanks very much. This is just a boring take.
"Here's what $900K Buys You In These Cities* *Disclaimer: most folks don't have any money"
"Here's what LeBron James did this weekend* *Disclaimer: average folks are lousy at basketball"
"Look how Google is redesigning their office space* *Disclaimer: Google employs fewer than 50% of the American workforce"
I work from home but my wife is a doctor... most of her colleagues at the hospital are not very interested in the COVID culture war stuff that drove clicks throughout the whole thing. COVID didn't really seem like the main topic of concern for most doctors and nurses after ~ July/August.
And once they got vaccinated in Dec./Jan. there was very little handwringing like you see in the press about "easing back" in to things, people started going out to lunch together and planning trips immediately. So perhaps covering people who were actually putting on pants wouldn't have resulted in the appropriate twitter flame wars.
Anecdotally I have heard a lot more "WE'RE IN A GLOBAL PANDEMIC" from my own work from home team than from any doctors and nurses, but maybe that is just a "stiff upper lip" sort of thing. Again, might not make super interesting stories though.
I honestly wish more was written about the experiences of the in-between essential and WFH workers. I should not be the star, but I work building operations, in NYC. I've been going in since March 13th 2020, as have my staff, we all wear pants, I think I showed up in shorts once. I WFH a few days here and there when things are steady and I let some of my managers do the same, but buildings don't do well when left alone and they certainly don't do well when they still need to function as the space they were designed to be. We have precious things inside that must be secured and maintained. I biked in a lot because I like biking, and it felt safer and healthy. But also through this, I talked to people and looked them in the eyes and discussed repairs and wore masks inside and stayed socially distant but would take masks off when working on the roof. I have friends who were laid-off and I also made decisions in the moment when my friends were struggling to weigh the risks of their own mental health vs. getting covid, I even went into "gasp" a person's apartment to help them when they were feeling too isolated and trapped. I just finished reading the NYtimes Morning and I really am concerned at times about the public's ability to understand risk, and it is certainly not helped by mixed messaging from experts and infighting between mayors and governors, looking at you Cuomo/BDB. Also, I ate a fried egg this morning and the yolk was pretty runny got all over my mask.
I’m tickled by something Matt mentioned at the end, the fixation in NYC centric media on those who left the city. ‘Will we accept back those who fled?’ Meanwhile as far as I can see the rest of NY is begging people to return, welcoming with open arms, considering voting for them for mayor, etc
I never respected the DC playground ban. I did civil disobedience.
"Most people work in person"
This article glosses over a small but crucial distinction between "most workers" and "most people". Matt correctly points out that most *workers* are unable to work from home and thus live comparatively normal lives.
However, most *people* are significantly affected by the pandemic. Currently, the nation's employment-to-population ratio is just 57% due to the prevalence of retired people, stay-at-home parents, college students, and the unemployed. If you factor in children aged 16 and younger, the share of employed Americans is just 46%. If you subtract those workers who are engaged in telework, the share of Americans doing in-person work is about 37%.
Viewed through this lens, the focus on pandemic lockdown restrictions makes sense. For most of the non-employed, life is substantially different as a result of the pandemic. Although they are not "working from home" in the traditional sense, they are generally staying home and unable to engage in their ordinary day-to-day activities. So although hand-wringing about an inability to make eye contact is silly fodder for an article, I think it does in some way reflect the concerns and lived experience of most people.
The media are isolated in a bubble in other ways as well. Reporters are young and act as if there is no such thing as history. Calling the recent economic data "unprecedented" is evidence that they never lived through or studied the 1970s.
Travel for work. As you guys know. Sitting in South Paulo airport in Brazil right now drinking a cappuccino at Starbucks. It’s pretty terrible.
I spent last week in New York City, and it was a culture shock to see how skittish people were. People walking their dogs, no one around wearing masks. It is such a culture shock compared to every place else in the country that I work.
I don’t think I’ve read an article this year, that has really captured work the real life is like for us normal people. I would describe it as normal life, with a lot of inconveniences.
I know the difference between Liberals and Conservatives is meant to be openness vs Conscientiousness, but it doesn’t jive with the risk management I see. Conservatives more likely to not wear masks and continue on with life. Whereas liberals are more likely to stay home and wear masks religiously.
My brother and his wife refused to drive anywhere that would require them to use a bathroom. That was their rule. No long drives. No day trips. One single grocery trip a week. Zero meals out. (This is in Los Angeles). Very liberal.
Meanwhile, I’ve been flying all over the country. Brother thinks I’m practically Trump.
One of my biggest beef’s with this whole thing is the way the term essential worker has been fetishized. I’m not even sure it means what it’s meant to mean. And it usually leaves out a whole lot of people who are really essential.
Anyway. I’ve seen this sort of.... we aren’t representative take from Matt several times. Also from other pundits. But let’s face it, no regular people aren’t their demographic, they’re not reading the articles. If I asked 100 people that I deal with in a normal day, I would be surprised if more than five ever heard of Matthew Yglesias. I’m not picking on them, but Maddie has been around a while and is a known name. I put the number of people that live read even one Matthew at least this article has probably less than 10% of all adults. In fact, he probably got more exposure on Joe Rogan then he has with anything in the rest of his career.
I don’t want this to come across as derogatory towards Matt, obviously a paid subscriber and a big fan. I’m using him more as an example. Just that, I don’t blame the out of touch articles.
Anyway, I’m wearing jeans right now. I haven’t wore leggings are here, even though I would look fabulous in them.
On my way to Cuiaba later. So just people watching here in Brazil. The last time I was here was last March, win I sort of knew this Covid thing was going to kick off. Airport is a lot less crowded, everyone is wearing masks. The women are still beautiful. And that was the quickest I’ve ever been through passport control and customs.
Also, I am curious about you fellow commenters. If u feel like it... drop a reply with where u live l, what your job is, remote or not, how cautious u are, and what u wear on a regular basis. I’m jeans at work... shorts everywhere else.
Rory. Boise. Inspect gas Turbine power plants across N and South America. 100 travel. Below average cautious. Have a bachelors degree I earned online in the Military, but isn’t required for my job. Not particularly bright, but I do read a lot.
The main take-away from this just mainly seems to be 'we need more working-class-focused media outlets'. I seem to recall that was discussed on the Weeds episode with Faiz Shakir, and that he was starting one. That seems good, and hopefully it (and/or others like it) are successful and force a little more 'real people problems' content from the prestige outlets.
It would be interesting for you to do a demographic survey of your subscribers. I for one would like to see that information. As an aged boomer I suspect I'm an outlier.
Thanks for this, Matt.
Reading many of those stories over the past year-plus about staying home and lockdown anxiety and whatnot has been a very bizarre experience for those of us who are entirely too online and read a lot of mainstream, left-leaning folks, but who also have our feet firmly planted in environments where people were very cautious but not huddled together in their homes.
Like a lot of people, my wife and I both had to continue working, and also like a lot of people, we initially went to level 10 on COVID precautions before scaling back and doing things that felt safe and okay, like playgrounds, or outdoor birthday parties. I have friends who live in Sonoma County who don't take their kid out to the playground and are talking about keeping them home from school for all of next year to be safe, and to be honest, that's nuts to me.
I was in The Villages, Florida this past week visiting my racist dad. Fascinating place. All old people. No masks anywhere, indoors or out, except for staff members. No capacity reduction or anything. All I kept thinking was “how are more of these people not dead?” I do not have a good answer to that question. Dad assured me it’s because COVID is fake and just a scam to let communists take over the government. I’m not so sure about that, but the pandemic heterogeneity there is certainly very interesting.
Thanks for being the kind of person who assumes most people have some common sense. It is what draws me to your work.
"obliged to try to describe reality accurately" - I am really grateful for that, too, and the tinge of irritation it seemed to carry.
Re "zoom fatigue" - that may actually be more widespread, if you include parents' experience of their children's online classes.
So when I'm at work my other coworkers and myself always sit without our masks in the break room. This is in spite of us working directly with COVID patients sometimes (we are nurses on a non COVID unit). The point being that working while wearing masks for over 12 hours is very uncomfortable and a maskless break is a nice thing to have in spite of the inherent risk.
Nothing against Amanda Mull in particular, but prestige magazines like The Atlantic could really use some diversity. Mull is *somewhat* differentiated because at least she's from the south, but like everyone else at these publications, she grew up rich and now lives in Brooklyn. Having more people from working class backgrounds would make it harder to miss these obvious blindspots.
Both excerpts were ridiculous, but it's particularly stupid to insist that there were only two experiences available during 2020, and that only the luckiest Americans got to experience "soul crushing loneliness". She needs to expand her circle a bit because there are lots of people who had a much better 2020 than these "luckiest Americans".
I don't need long lectures at the top of every article in the business or style or sports sections detailing how this depiction of real life doesn't actually represent the median experience, thanks very much. This is just a boring take.
"Here's what $900K Buys You In These Cities* *Disclaimer: most folks don't have any money"
"Here's what LeBron James did this weekend* *Disclaimer: average folks are lousy at basketball"
"Look how Google is redesigning their office space* *Disclaimer: Google employs fewer than 50% of the American workforce"
I work from home but my wife is a doctor... most of her colleagues at the hospital are not very interested in the COVID culture war stuff that drove clicks throughout the whole thing. COVID didn't really seem like the main topic of concern for most doctors and nurses after ~ July/August.
And once they got vaccinated in Dec./Jan. there was very little handwringing like you see in the press about "easing back" in to things, people started going out to lunch together and planning trips immediately. So perhaps covering people who were actually putting on pants wouldn't have resulted in the appropriate twitter flame wars.
Anecdotally I have heard a lot more "WE'RE IN A GLOBAL PANDEMIC" from my own work from home team than from any doctors and nurses, but maybe that is just a "stiff upper lip" sort of thing. Again, might not make super interesting stories though.