Miss Manners 3/6

Gentle readers: The clash between people who don’t want to return to the office (employees) and those who want them to do so (employers) is no surprise to Miss Manners. The pandemic might have brought this out, but the work/private life problem has existed throughout history.

Society needs to provide both. Obviously, it needs workers. But it also needs people to have a social life. to attend to family life, community welfare and functions of leisure, recreation and entertainment, as these promote general satisfaction.

Therefore, society has, in different eras, come up with different solutions –all have been terrible.

For centuries, the division was the one that seemed most reasonable to those with the power to enforce it: The poor would work, with only enough of a private life necessary to produce children. This freed the rich to pursue such leisure activities as socializing, sports and, when things got really dull, warfare.

But in the 19th century, the industrial revolution produced a class of people who were neither rich enough not to work, nor poor enough to forgo pleasure. So a change: The poor would still work and the rich play, but among the solvent, males would earn money working, and females would perform the functions that did not pay.

This was adjusted in the mid-20th century to admit females to certain paid jobs (notably, those lacking in prestige), even if for less pay and fewer opportunities to advance. Ever since then, efforts have been made to erase the gender gap.

But just as the school schedule remains designed for children to be free in the summer to help with the crops, the work schedule remains under the presumption that the worker had a partner taking care of the private realm.

The underlying problem: Who would staff that private realm? For the essential parts, it has been either the better-paid female worker or one in a poor-paying job. And the merely enjoyable parts suffered from neglect.

So that solution didn’t work, and people are finally noticing.

Whatever compromise might be worked out eventually will take a great deal of negotiating. Employers, as well as employees, have legitimate concerns.

Miss Manners’ contribution is to point out that the easiest part to cut is the pseudo-social life that has become a feature of business models: What is now referred to as “mandatory fun.” Surely workers no longer believe that after-hours drinks, office birthday celebrations and team-building exercises are adequate substitutes for time spent with people of their own choosing.

And bosses will find that encouraging a cordial, cooperative, cheerful level of professional behavior will be easier and more productive than trying to make employees love one another.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Can I touch up my lipstick at the dinner table?

GENTLE READER: You’ll only get it all over your fork and glass.

Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website www.missmanners.com.