Companies are desperate to get people back to the office because … well, the reasons are myriad (and many are wrong). But a UK office furniture brand made a rather extreme and embarrassing attempt to portray what a home office worker from the future would look like to make its point.
It started last week when a company called Furniture At Work released a “model” of a home worker from the year 2100. Per the Daily Mail, this “Anna” caricature featured a woman with a hunchback, swollen eyes and claw-like hands (from having her hands around a computer mouse, apparently still a thing 77 years from now). “Anna displays many physical effects because of consistent use of technology, screen exposure and poor posture, as well as highlighting potential mental health issues,” Furniture At Work said at the time.
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According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, working from home can actually help everyoneFurniture At Work claims this grotesque visualization was inspired by research from the University of Leeds. But social media was having none of this, summed up best by one Twitter user:
“Why would this happen if you worked from home but not in the office?” asked another Twitter user.
The Independent ran through several examples of social media mockery and memes, including one user who sarcastically noted that office workers, in contrast to a WFH goblin, will “develop long, gorgeous, prehensile tails that can easily pluck slightly-expired [sic] luna bars from the office kitchen.”
The worst part? The Daily Mail apparently published a similar article four years ago … describing the adverse health effects of office workers and crafting a different grotesque visualization, this time named Emma.
“Judging from the newspaper’s apparent outlook for the evolution of computer-based workers, it would seem humanity is doomed to become Quasimoto-esque hunchbacks whether people primarily work from the office or their living rooms,” sums up Know Your Meme.
Furniture At Work has, conveniently, taken the blog post off its site.
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