The Great Displaced
They are the zombies of the employment world; cursed to forever roam the Earth.
You really never know when or where inspiration might strike. I am writing this “live” from an airport hotel lobby in Hamburg, Germany. I have time to kill. The security workers at the airport are on strike and I find myself unable to return home to the UK.
It is breakfast time and the reception area is awash with people. It is all very different from when I checked in last night. Then, the lobby was empty, save for a solitary receptionist humming along to the muzak playing in the background. My arrival interrupted her mid-song; but I think she was grateful for the company.
But this morning, the reception is transformed. Coffee is being consumed at a rate suggesting it is a finite resource; meetings are taking place between power-suited women and chino-clad men. Laptops are open, spreadsheets are being consulted and updated; and mobile phones are being shouted into. It is clear that in this hotel, and in so many more just like it around the world, business is being done and the wheels of commerce are grinding.
Meetings have left the office and they have gone mobile; nomadic.
This is not a new phenomenon, of course. But, in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown, many businesses realised that employees are like relatives: Nice to have but even better if you don’t have to see them every day.
in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown, many businesses realised that employees are like relatives: Nice to have but even better if you don’t have to see them every day.
Those office-based workers that were for so long tethered to their homes during the global pandemic are now filling hotel lounges across the world. That’s great news for hospitality sector; but what about those employees? With whom do they share that precious water-cooler moment? Who do they gossip with about Steve from accounts and his Christmas party “shenanigans”? Who do they steal their stationery from?
These people have been cast adrift; condemned to spend their lives on the road or in unremarkable hotel lobbies; homeless and alone with only a soulless laptop computer for company.
Something just occurred to me. I am sat in a hotel lobby. I too am staring at a laptop. I too am all alone. Quietly and imperceptibly, I have been subsumed. I am one of them. I am one of the great displaced.
