In 2004, the monthly magazine Technikart published an article with a slogan-like title, "Je bosse donc je jouis" ("I work, therefore I come") that captured a profound truth. Work has a way of commandeering our libidinal energy. Sometimes, when we are too fully invested in our professional lives, it becomes difficult to desire anything other than work itself. This could be due to an excess of passion that turns daily work into a receptacle for impulses that might be better expressed through other channels.

But more often than not, it's fatigue and stress that leave us too incapacitated for anything else. In 2012, an extensive Technologia survey concluded that employees' sexual problems are inextricably linked to the pressures of the workplace. For 66.6% of those who participated in the survey (70% among executives), stress at work had a negative impact on their sex and love lives, in particular with erectile problems for men and lubrification difficulties for women. More generally, 72.6% of respondents acknowledge that the fatigue accumulated during their working day prevented them from having sex in the evening. "Never being able to make love when you want to, is tantamount to giving work symbolic power over personal life, love life and sex life. In some cases, employees change jobs for that reason, without ever making it officially clear," the report said.

The massive adoption of hybrid work in the wake of the pandemic seemed to partially undo the hold that professional life has on our desires. Escaping the panopticon of office life and exhausting commutes, we managed time more freely and enjoyed a sort of new honeymoon with our daily organization. All of which led to reorienting our desires away from the four walls of the open-space office. According to a 2022 QAPA study, 72% of the people surveyed said they had sex more frequently with their partner when working remotely.

In light of these changes in the libidinal economy, the current return to the office imposed by some companies could be interpreted as the determination to reestablish relational exclusivity, like a possessive lover would (it's him or me!). While large companies such as Amazon or J.P. Morgan want to bring employees back into the workplace, it's not so much to encourage informal interaction and collective intelligence as to avoid seeing their libidinal energy find new outlets.

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