Media mogul Martha Stewart isn't a fan of remote work: 'You can't possibly get everything done working three days a week in the office and two days remotely'
- The domestic goddess Martha Stewart is jumping on the anti-remote work bandwagon.
- "You can't possibly get everything done working three days a week in the office and two days remotely," she told Footwear News in a recent interview.
Martha Stewart has done it all. She built a media empire, went to prison, and became the oldest Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover model.
She has now also jumped on the anti-remote work bandwagon.
Stewart came out swinging against remote work in a Footwear News interview published on Monday.
"You can't possibly get everything done working three days a week in the office and two days remotely," she told the publication.
"Look at the success of France with their stupid … you know, off for August, blah blah blah. That's not a very thriving country," she said, adding: "Should America go down the drain because people don't want to go back to work?"
The 81-year-old Wall Street stockbroker-turned-domestic goddess also showed no signs of slowing down.
"I continued to work five days a week" during the COVID-19 pandemic, she told the media outlet.
Stewart has long been a proponent of the hustle culture, telling Harper's Bazaar in an interview in 2021 that employers should be able to call employees anytime — "even on weekends."
Stewart— who employed about 30 people at her farm in Bedford, New York, in 2021 — shared an anecdote of phoning a new employee on a Sunday. He told her he couldn't talk because he was taking a bath.
"I knew I couldn't work with that person. I just couldn't," she said, per Harper's Bazaar. "If you can't talk on a Sunday and you take umbrage that I'm calling you on a Sunday — you know, if you are a terribly religious person, I take that into consideration. But I knew this guy was not a terribly religious person. It's exciting! Business is exciting. I want people to feel that way about business."
A remote work vs. return-to-office war has been brewing for years.
"It's already an ugly war, and it's unfortunate," Abbie Shipp, a professor of management at the Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University, told Insider's Rebecca Knight in March.
Many major companies, including Amazon, Apple, Disney, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan, are requiring employees to return to the office full or part-time, Insider reported.
But employees are ferociously pushing back against return-to-office mandates — some even so far as to quit over returning to the office, in a pushback against employers' "productivity paranoia."
Getting employees back to the office wasn't the only business advice Stewart shared with Footwear News.
She talked about drink choices: "A boss never orders decaf," she said. "I always start my day with green juice. It gives me energy, good skin, and great hair! Mmm."
Martha Stewart did not respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.