Sir, – Following Amazon’s cancellation of home working for office staff, the bizarre gush of supportive think-pieces and reporting across Ireland’s media seem rooted in an alternate history wherein working from home (WFH) began with Covid (“Amazon CEO asks staff to return five days a week, plans management cuts”, Business, September 17th; “The Irish Times view on Amazon’s return to the office diktat: Irish employees like their flexible working”, September 22nd). It did not. My present employer was already supportive of a day or two WFH pre-pandemic, as was my previous employer. This was commonplace.
Since executives, directors and shareholders are presumably following the ongoing media coverage, I worry that a post-Covid, reactionary groupthink might return us to an imaginary 2019 wherein remote working and its enabling technologies weren’t already ticking along nicely.
How retrograde, and Luddite. – Yours, etc,
ALAN MURPHY,
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Knocklyon,
Dublin 16.