wfh: WFH, the ultimate spy’s master disguise

This column has been a votary of earn a living from home – the place it does not negatively have an effect on work output. So, whereas we would not be a dummkopf to let a cricketer or a automotive mechanic WFH/WFA as a substitute of within the area and storage, sure professions do beg the query: can high quality work be accomplished properly with out ‘stepping out’? That’s the conundrum now being confronted by Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, which is discovering it exhausting to recruit new operatives since an growing variety of candidates have a standard prerequisite: permission to ceaselessly WFH.

For these of you whose concept of spies is caught with Bond exotica or Le Carre secrotica, you’d be higher knowledgeable to know that not each intelligence officer must be a area officer – which means, be within the tough and tumble of fobbing off (or being) honey traps or dipping radioactive droplets into tea. An amazing a part of a undercover agent’s job profile – (right) data gathering and (false) data splattering – is finished from a desk, web connection and telephone. The truth is, a super spy ought to see/hear and never be seen/ heard. Precisely the type of factor mainstream trade, particularly these beneath Elon Musk’s Massive Brotherly manufacturing unit eye, finds uncomfortable about employees WFH-ing. However spymasters needs to be proud of a flexi-work association with their operatives. In any case, WFH can put off disguise.