Flexible working has developed a reputation as something of a silver bullet. It is the perceived solution to almost any of the major workplace problems you care to mention, including the gender pay gap, work life balance, churn, property costs, staff engagement, personal autonomy, stress, physical wellbeing, productivity and – of course – as a way of meeting the needs of those alien beings we now call Millennials. There is some truth in all of this, as we have known for some time. There is no question that there are major problems with the way many people work and that flexible working, hand in hand with new tech, is a way of solving them to one degree or another. And yet, as one of the most interesting yet overlooked recent pieces of research into the effects of flexible working has made clear, the reason behind this may be more complex and fragile than we might suppose and has an antecedence in research that is now approaching its centenary.