I haven’t seen any official announcements yet. But recent evidence indicates Harvard Business Review (HBR) and The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) may be joining forces. At the very least, WSJ seems to have caught whatever inanity has been plaguing HBR for years, causing it to become the compendium of record for all things obvious, trivial, and increasingly infantile.
Case in point: While perusing Apple News (why do I do these things to myself?), I came across this head-slapper from WSJ — “If You Thought Working From Home Was Messy, Here Comes Hybrid Work” — that had me wondering if anyone at WSJ had even looked up and definitions of hybrid:
hybrid:(noun): anything derived from heterogeneous sources, or composed of elements of different or incongruous kinds(adective): composite; formed or composed of heterogeneous elements.
I’m have a feeling I’m not a member of the target audiences for WSJ and HBR. But heterogeneous, different, incongruous, and composite sound decidedly messy to me.
You Don’t Say
Anyway, WSJ challenged — or shot for highest score on — HBR’s Obvious Meter with this:
It took months for bosses and employees to adjust to working remotely in the pandemic. The next era of work might be even more messy … Some companies that are hiring say they can’t find knowledge workers willing to come into an office five days a week … most employees prefer some form of flexibility in where they work.
In other news, outdoor temperatures were warm today, except in places where they weren’t.
In case you’ve taken all of your life off up to now, human nature’s funny like that: It adapts. It resists change but responds to the unexpected. It flows and morphs, finding new ways and taking on new shapes. It does what it has to do to do what it has to do. Along the way it presents all manner of novel surprises to the mental giants at places like HBR and WSJ. I guess that makes it generous, too.
Forewarned
I’m not selling subscriptions. And I’m definitely not on commission or anything. But if you want to read about all the stuff you already know, just from having a pulse and keeping your eyes and ears open, you might want to subscribe to HBR, WSJ, or both. Just be careful. You might get bit by the inanity bug that seems to have infected both of them.
That shit’s contagious.