Why the Future of Work isn’t About Technology
Unhappiness at work and the desperate need for a more common-sense workplace
“Oh, Sorry! I thought you took sugar.”
I had prepared a coffee for the plumber who was fitting a new faucet in my kitchen — a fancy one with an instant boiling water tap.
“I used to. But not anymore. I turned forty a couple of months ago and I stopped putting sugar in my coffee and tea.”
He tapped his waist — the universal male sign for “diet.”
We all go through changes when we get older. It’s an important — and necessary — fact of life. I have a natural sweet tooth and used to plaster sugar in or on everything. Coffee. Tea. Yogurt. Strawberries. But — like my plumber — I also gave it all up when I hit the big four zero. That’s more than ten years ago, and the thought of putting sugar in anything feels pretty gross now.
But then, our conversation was abruptly cut short by the sound of his phone.
“Not that thing again,” he groaned. “It takes so much longer to finish a project these days. Installing a kitchen faucet took me around one hour a decade ago. But now — with all these interruptions — it’s more like a half day’s work. It’s just too easy for people to contact me, and they won’t even…
