The future of work is remote. The accepted truth has been crowding my LinkedIn feed as companies race to shut down their offices quicker than employees can sign resignation letters. So when I heard a podcast discuss the downfalls of remote work, I was intrigued.
The problem with remote work, the episode argued, is that it hinders trust. Such trust is crucial for constructive collaboration and is going to hurt companies’ creativity over time.
Listening to it made me curious—does anyone truly want to return to the office? I developed the original idea of polling Caffeine for Your Inbox readers (you) to understand how people are thinking.
The only problem? It wasn’t an original idea at all. It’s something I saw Morning Brew, one of my favorite newsletters, start up a couple months ago: they poll readers on relevant current events and share the results the next day. It doesn’t help that Morning Brew’s newsletter is also inspired by coffee. In fact, many people have mentioned the similarities between the Brew and Caffeine for Your Inbox to me before.
My grand idea had come crashing down. But the experience also reminded me of a quote I’d recently read by TV host Conan O’Brien. “It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique,” he said.
In other words, if you try to imitate the people you admire, you end up with a creative style that’s entirely your own. The failure to create work that is identical to our role models defines our own work as original.
Of course, our human desire is to do wholly the opposite. We want to be unique and we’re scared to be perceived as the dreaded copycat. But many creatives we admire today found their style through learning from others.
For example, Hollywood film director Quentin Tarantino’s creativity begins with replicating scenes from other movies. “I steal from every single movie ever made,” he once said. We now laud him for his originality.
David Perell expresses this whole philosophy best: imitate, then innovate. Embrace being the copycat.
So, do you want the future of work to be remote, hybrid, or in-person? Let me know by clicking one of the buttons below. I’ll get back to you with the results next week.
