The push for widespread teleworking

Dear Hipster:

I’ll probably out myself as an aging hipster has-been here, but I have to ask: is there a word for the feeling you get when you hear kids talking about stuff that used to be relevant when you were a lot younger like it’s something they just discovered?

— Anne

To my knowledge, no such word exists. One almost certainly should exist, but that’s what we’re here for. I think this could easily be called a “generealization,” for when you realize something magnificent, or magnificently depressing (or both), about a generation other than your own. As a bonus, you only have to add one letter to a word that already means something else you’re doing (can you guess it?), which is pretty cool, because now it works on multiple levels.

I went ahead and added it to Urban Dictionary for you. Now, if you use this in conversation and somebody accuses you of making it up, you can gently correct them and smile condescendingly at the out-of-touch person who never heard of generealizing before.

Dear Hipster:

I have heard tremendous chatter from friends and colleagues lately about how work-from-home arrangements are being considered and implemented on an “indefinite” basis for many people. The general consensus seems to be that businesses want to 86 conventional office spaces and other brick-and-mortar establishments, even after we get past the need for such preventive measures. On the one hand, I dig working from home in my pyjamas and not breathing the gross air that always seems to fill office buildings no matter how good the HVAC systems are. On the other hand, I don’t hate my colleagues or anything, and it seems like kind of a bummer that I may never see some of them again if my company decides to keep workers like me on a permanent work-from-home schedule. What do you think, hipster? Is a move to more widespread working from home a good thing or a bad thing?

— Ashley

I’m sure you can find think-pieces both praising and hating the future of expanded teleworking. Although I have not looked, I bet I can predict some. There is probably somebody out there who has already said the push for more teleworking frees up commercial real estate for repurposing as affordable housing. Someone else probably says it will have a net-positive environmental impact because of a reduction in individual commuting. An equal number of plausible arguments might oppose permanent telework increases. Maybe it will hurt too many related economic sectors; or perhaps the social consequences of increased human isolation are not yet understood.

I’m sure all these points have been made, but you won’t hear them from me. This being “Ask a Hipster,” I know you came for the wild conspiracy theories, so I’ll tell you this — the push for widespread teleworking is just another step in Corporate America’s quest to make humanity obsolete. Big Athleisure and the Home Delivery Cartels want you staying inside, where they can watch you turn into a Wall-E human, content to push a button that delivers you whatever you want with zero risk of having an adventure. We should reject a future where everybody stays inside all day, basic needs met by same-day Amazon delivery, because good grief what a terribly boring world. There isn’t much you can do if your job shelves in-person work; but if you get the chance to rejoin the world, take it.