This is true, though it is also true that people pretended to work at the office.

I’m more concerned about the inverse. Employees OVER working at home because they are unable or unwilling to stop.

Not only does pretending to work happen in the office, it happens anywhere work happens. Gas stations, store clerks, cashiers, fast food, everywhere.

People that are lazy and pretend are not limited to offices or remote roles.

Thing I've observed about pretending to work most of the time: no one notices that you're pretending to work. I still get raises, no one has a long chat with me about my future with the company, nothing.

This strongly suggests that the company just really doesn't expect much out of me for what they're paying, so why should I give them anything more? It's bad enough I have to give them 40 hours (plus commute) of my week when I can apparently get done what they want done in a fraction of that.

Is this laziness, if the alternative is essentially doing extra work for free?

I hear you-- why try more than you need to anyway? It's not your business on the line, and if they don't want more from you...

This is already an problem, since people forget to stop working. Happened to me multiple times that i worked over 10 hours.

just set an alarm on your phone, I can't understand how someone could have this problem.

Deadlines, bad project managers, arm twists. I could go on.

While companies aren't even pretending to pay more, I think pretending to work will continue.

Why would they pay more if the costs have decreased to the worker.

Because inflation and the cost of living crisis. A living wage is a must.

If people aren't buying the non-essential goods and services every major economy is propped up by, things grind to a halt.

Yeah but you moved out of the city your living costs are now a small fraction of what they once were.

People in the UK working the average job generally commute into the city, the wages that are generally paid mean that folks couldn't afford to live in the city.

You can’t pretend when you have a Trello board to tick off. You also can’t pretend if you’re forced to run tattleware.

Maybe he's projecting.