You’re Going Back to the Office. Here Is What Your Day Might Look

A hypothetical everyperson in most respects, Jane is exceptional in that she’s from the future—a few months ahead of us. The changes that will soon impact our commuting and office life, changes that are both cultural and technological, are already her daily reality.

Many of these tools, including workspace management apps and digital whiteboards, have been around for years. But, like the video-calling tech that got America’s homebound workers through the pandemic, they are only now becoming widespread. This list also includes newer and more experimental tech, like 360-degree conference-room cameras and contactless employee check-in systems.

Cumulatively, these many…

It’s 6 a.m., Monday, somewhere in America, and Jane Q. Office Worker’s alarm goes off. She’s tempted to hit the snooze button. But she knows if she does, she might miss out on a desk with a view.

A hypothetical everyperson in most respects, Jane is exceptional in that she’s from the future—a few months ahead of us. The changes that will soon impact our commuting and office life, changes that are both cultural and technological, are already her daily reality.

Many of these tools, including workspace management apps and digital whiteboards, have been around for years. But, like the video-calling tech that got America’s homebound workers through the pandemic, they are only now becoming widespread. This list also includes newer and more experimental tech, like 360-degree conference-room cameras and contactless employee check-in systems.

Cumulatively, these many small changes will represent, for some of us anyway, a profound break from the past.

Germany’s competition regulator is investigating whether Google is dominant enough to be subject to the country’s new digital-competition law, broadening its efforts to brandish new powers against companies including Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc.

Germany’s Federal Cartel Office said Tuesday that it has opened a probe into whether Google, the main unit of Alphabet Inc., is of “paramount significance for competition across markets.” That designation allows the regulator to impose changes to a dominant digital company’s business practices under a law passed in January.

The investigation follows similar probes the Cartel Office has opened in recent months against Amazon and Facebook, seeking similar designations. Under the new law, German regulators can order companies it finds to be of paramount importance to cease certain practices deemed anticompetitive through a faster procedure than traditional competition enforcement.

Google “could be considered to be of paramount significance for competition across markets,” given the products it offers, said Andreas Mundt, the president of the Cartel Office. “It is often very difficult for other companies to challenge this position of power.”

“People choose Google because it’s helpful, not because they’re forced to, or because they can’t find alternatives,” a Google spokeswoman said, adding that the company will cooperate with the Cartel Office.

The ground underneath the oil industry is getting slicker. Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC suffered significant defeats Wednesday as environmental groups and activist investors step up pressure on the oil industry to address concerns about climate change. First a Dutch court ordered Shell to sharply reduce its carbon emissions, and then hours later an activist investor won at least two seats on Exxon’s board. Exxon’s shares rose 1.2% Wednesday.

Amazon . com Inc.

A titan of the tech world wants to direct one of Hollywood’s most fabled studios. Amazon.com Inc. said Wednesday it agreed to buy MGM Holdings, a pact that would turn a film operation known for classics like “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Rocky” into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant. The deal is part of a larger consolidation in the media world; last week AT&T agreed to combine its media assets with Discovery Inc. A MGM purchase would mark Amazon’s second-largest acquisition in history, behind its $13.7 billion pickup of Whole Foods in 2017, and highlights the premium that content is commanding as streaming wars force consolidation. Amazon’s shares rose 0.2% Wednesday.

Bank of America
I remember the day Lance Corporal Walter O’Haire was killed in Fallujah. Known as Gator to his friends, Lance Cpl. O’Haire was on a rooftop with his squad on a sweltering May afternoon in 2007, watching over fellow Marines on the street below when a sniper hit him about 2 inches below the back of his helmet.

It was a blow to Golf Company, where I was a young lieutenant, the first and only death in our unit during a seven-month deployment in Iraq. At the memorial service on base a few days later, the company first sergeant, equipped with a voice like a force of nature, boomed out the formal roll call. He ritualistically demanded Lance Cpl. Walter O’Haire respond. Three times he called his name, and three times he was met with silence.

Gator’s body arrived back home in Massachusetts on Mother’s Day and he was buried on his 21st birthday. His mom got his medals, including a posthumous Purple Heart, packaged in a handmade display case.

After a few more years in the Marines, I left the service as a captain and became a journalist covering veterans and the Pentagon. My own medals were stored away in a box at home, and my ribbons remain pinned on my old dress blues, provoking occasional questions from my kids.

“Dad, are these prizes from the Marine Corn?” my 4-year-old asked me recently.