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If WFH wins, but at what cost.
(hexbear.net)
https://fortune.com/2023/10/27/unilever-deodorant-personal-care-hygiene-wfh-return-to-work/
Among those changes was the lesser time spent showering, wearing fresh clothes, and in some cases, even brushing teeth,
I don't see the implications of immortality or lack of work ethic in the small amount of the article you can see without a Forbes subscription. But regardless, remember Forbes' target readership: business executives, investors, and people in the finance industry. Those people aren't considered bastions of morality by the populace at large anyway.
Also remember that Forbes readers are more likely to work from home than the general public. They aren't going to try to villify their reader base.
Forbes is all about business. Deodorant sales were down during lockdown and are recovering now that people are returning to work. That's noteworthy if you own stock in Proctor & Gamble, for instance, and makes for an interesting bit of information even if you don't. It makes me wonder about other industries affected by the return to work.
But if you really want to read it that way, go ahead. Just don't be surprised if you have to repeatedly explain the extremely tenuous connection between this article and western oppression.
It's Fortune, but I see what you mean. I won't say I'm letting go of the beliefs I have right now about expectations in the workplace, but I'll read more on them. If my points aren't making sense, that's on me and maybe I need to read and better refine my points.
I don't think those magazines are a bastion of morality, but they do get more mainstream attention than day Jacobin or other left-leaning publications.
I don't think it matters that the article itself has an explicit stance. Taking a moral stance in the text isn't where the narrative comes from. It's the fact that this story being published in the first place, and the associations people would make (wfh being unhygienic by a lack of deodorant and other grooming). It doesn't matter if the article says being hygienic is good or bad. Pointing out the lack of deodorant use and connecting it to work from home was a deliberate choice.
Think instead if the article or headline described the phenomenon of wfh as saving money for the average worker because they don't need to buy shaving cream.
At the end of the day, it's a magazine owned by a major corporation using its reputation to talk about events in a certain way.
I don't see the article as being pro worker from what framing I can see. It's not the article itself, but its existence in a space where the media narrative is 'people don't want to work anymore.'
I'm not gonna continue trying to convince you, but I would ask that you consider what a magazine supported by wealthy people would stand to gain from publishing this story instead of say, a story about the health benefits of working from home.
I hope you have a good night and I thank you for giving me a reason to reevaluate how I'm communicating my arguments.