Coffee Badging — Presence Theatre When “showing up” replaces showing results. The latte is real; the labour, not so much.

At Rohit’s Bengaluru fintech, the new hybrid policy demanded two office days. MBA Finance, 29, he drives from Whitefield just to swipe his card, grab cappuccino, chat ten minutes, and slip out “for client meetings.” His manager calls it “face time.” Rohit calls it “career insurance.”

Across the world, Emily, 26, works at a San Francisco climate-data startup. She pops into the co-working hub each Tuesday, posts a selfie captioned “Team vibes 💚”, then codes from a café. The CEO proudly tells investors, “Our team’s back together.” Everyone’s performing presence.

What This Reveals About Work Relations
Coffee Badging is a symptom of mutual distrust: employers doubt remote work, employees fake visibility. Trust replaced by optics. The fix isn’t surveillance; it’s clarity of deliverables — define what output means, and nobody needs to prove they exist.