Future of Work and the Future Generation

My oldest daughter is six years old. For the last five years, I’ve either been a stay-at-home dad who did freelancing fully remote or working full-time for Automattic fully-remote.

When “Daddy goes to work”, it means one of two things. Either, I walk into my office off of the living space in our house or I fly away for a week for a team meetup, which happens about twice a year.

Recently, I went coworking at a local shop with five other Automatticians, so we changed up our morning routine. When I told her I was going to go work with my coworkers and would be dropping her off and picking her up from school, she was dumbfounded.

“You’re going to go somewhere to work with your coworkers? Why?”

As strange as it sounds, it wasn’t easy to provide an answer.

This led me to think. I grew up watching my Dad come home from work—he left for work usually before I woke up in the morning. During the day, he was gone and working. At night, he was home and was not working. He went to work all day every day. It set a tone for the work ethic I have now.

What will the children of Automatticians and other remote worker be like when they enter into the work force? Will they accept the typical working experience or will they balk at the assumption that work is done best from a central location? Will they struggle to enter the work force when they expect to be able to be at home for lunch every day, or available to step out of the office for five minutes to hold a baby like a generation ago people taking a smoke break.

If nothing else, we have about 15-20 years to make remote work more mainstream.