Usually, I do not tangle with pronouncements by the editor of a paper I write for. Call it the instinct of columnist self-preservation. Still, a blast this week by this paper’s Dylan Jones enjoining work-from-homers to get back to the office — citing the perils of emptying out the capital’s restaurants, clubs and shops — rang a bell.
I have also just spent some time in New York, to find the office-scapes I had associated with buzzy activity looked like the opening episodes of the brilliant dystopian drama Severance. Vast corridors of white space, coffee machines harbouring ancient UHT milk and piles of free snacks awaited. Actual people: not so much. “Basically,” confided a co-snacker. “We come for the food — and then go home.”
