Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is trying a unique strategy to get remote workers to return downtown: insulting them.
“I don’t know if you saw this study the other day,” Frey told an audience of 1,000 at Minneapolis Downtown Council’s annual meeting on Wednesday. “What this study clearly showed … is that when people who have the ability to come downtown to an office don’t — when they stay home sitting on their couch, with their nasty cat blanket, diddling on their laptop — if they do that for a few months, you become a loser!”
The comment was a “complete joke” and the study was made-up, the Minneapolis mayor’s office told Fortune, but there are serious facts to back up Frey’s worry about the impact of remote work on Minneapolis’ downtown economy.
Because humans evolved to live in a sterile environment 24/7 and to never be exposed to other forms of life, dirt, or literally any sort of adversity physically or emotionally. Or something?
Your home doesn’t need to be sterile, but it does need to be disease free.
We have known that since the middle ages.
Okay, what diseases are my dogs giving me? Also, define “disease free” because you’re already covered in “diseases”. The bacteria that causes strep throat is already hanging out inside of your throat, waiting to proliferate one day when your immune system dips because of something entirely unrelated. If you’ve eaten out, you’ve probably eaten fecal coliform bacteria from the people who made your food, and you never even knew it (and neither did they) because nobody washes their hands for the recommended 30 seconds. Just take it easy, don’t do obviously risky things with your health, and you’ll be fine.