White House Deputy Chief of Staff: “If you refuse to come back to the office, you’re going to be laid off. Why would federal taxpayers be subsidizing Netflix watching at home?”

Stephen Miller is obviously using the no telecommuting angle to provide just cause for firing people.

Any competent manager understands that the location of the employee is not the metric to be used to assess an employee’s worth. The metric is productivity, not location. Not once have I heard those opposed to telecommuting talk about productivity in terms of justifying an employee’s continued employment.

I telecommute, and it has many advantages, like reduced wear and tear on my cars, and the ability to maximize home life by eliminating the daily commute.

But to say telecommuting is a free ride shows one’s utter lack of understanding. Every key stroke made is recorded, as are all communications. If there is no activity on my computer for 6 minutes my manager is alerted.

Also, a daily status report is required, to show clearly what was accomplished each day. Now, I ask you, what office employee needs to provide a daily status report, one that is routinely monitored for accuracy? I’ve worked in offices for nearly 30 years and never once was that required. One company wanted a weekly status and everyone opposed that. One employee I know that just switched from working remote to the office told me that was the one thing she liked about working in the office – no more status reports. In other words, the ability to sluff off an entire day just became possible again.

So, this debate about where an employee is located is ridiculous. How do I know? My bosses’ boss told me yesterday that I’m one of the most productive employees under him, and there are probably 35 or more employees under him, of which maybe six telecommute.

I wonder about this debate as it takes place in the private sector, about why it started and so forth. What I’ve concluded is that Indian companies benefit much less if USA citizens are allowed to telecommute. When a company allows telecommuting it opens up their job opportunities to a much larger body of applicants, which means that it is possible to find Americans that can fill these positions. When this happens, the need to hire Indians decreases dramatically. Besides, most Indian positions are an off-shoring arrangement, meaning that they must telecommute to perform their job.

If telecommuting was really on the chopping block then the first thing that would happen is that all off-shored positions would be eliminated.

So, as I continue on with my remote position from Iowa, with a company located in Florida, I just laugh at those that want people to be forced to work on an office, when their position can be worked just as easily from home. Most that oppose remote workers, like Musk, have another agenda in mind, like justifying H-1B hires in Musk’s case. To me, he’s the ultimate flimflam man when it comes to employing Americans.

Enjoy your day!! I will as well. Thank you.