I’m fine with that.
Turn them all into housing we desperately need
“But office building pipes aren’t set up for that!”
Okay so make communal housing/bathrooms for cheaper rent or invest in expanding the plumbing
“But that’s too expensive!”
More expensive than $800 billion??
they’d never do that. then they’d be killing the housing bubble as well. think of the investors!
Okay so make communal housing/bathrooms for cheaper rent or invest in expanding the plumbing
This is how you get dystopian highrise slums
I would have agreed up until about a week ago. There was a news story a few days ago about how there are people in LA renting various vehicles parked on public streets for people to live in. Then another story about how there are actually thousands of such “rentals” in LA. I think highrise slums might be a notch or two down from the current dystopia.
This is already what many college dorms are today.
A bigger problem is the location, office building are not located in residential areas and as such lack a lot of facilities, e.g. no supermarkets and other shops in walking/cycling distance, no MD/pharmacy and other healthcare facilities, no schools or playgrounds, etc. etc.
You could literally add those services inside many of these buildings.
It can be done, but it requires proper planing, fore thought, and research. I could easily see a rushed, budget conversion leading to a getto like environment.
Such changes will take time. Right now, no-one is sure if WFH will stick. The last thing they want is to initiate a change, only to find it’s far less profitable than just waiting. Local government won’t push it yet, for similar reasons.
The best thing right now would be to gather case studies and planning research into EXACTLY what is needed, both short term (1-10 years) and long (20-100 years). That can then both accelerate the process, once it gets going, as well as make it long term sustainable.
It’ll stick if we let it stick. If you don’t let your work bully you into going back to the Office and instead say “Kindly fuck off, if you want to retain me in your company, you’ll let me work from my home. If not, I can easily find a job that pays 20% more, and let’s me work from home.”
Because let’s face it. You almost certainly can find a 20% raise + WFH if you are good at your job and work in a field that has WFH as an option.
You want to open a entire supermarket for a single building ?
That would only work if you convert an entire commercial district, but then you still have all the other infrastructure problems. If you’re going to do that why not level the entire lot and build proper housing?
It’s very common to have grocery stores in the bottom floors of buildings that are open to everyone, not just the residents of that building. And in parts of Europe it is the norm for large commercial/residential buildings to reserve the bottom floor for small retail businesses. It would greatly improve cities to have this.
I’m in Europe and large office buildings that are empty are usually not the ones with stores on the bottom floors, those offices (and residential buildings) are older, smaller buildings in city centers and are very much in demand. The large empty office buildings are usually in commercial districts on the edge of cities with very little foot traffic. There is no market for convenience stores there if you just convert a single office building.
Say you get 100 apartments out of it, you can’t run a supermarket on 100 customers.
Say you get 100 apartments out of it, you can’t run a supermarket on 100 customers.
Why does it have to be a supermarket, though? From what I’ve heard, New York City has bodegas everywhere and those are small convenience stores that have similarly sized customer bases. If the bottom floor is a small market, they have a nearly guaranteed 100 customers. And in your hypothetical commercial district, there would be more than one unused office building so more opportunity for mixed-use space.
I don’t see why it wouldn’t be a market for all the buildings around it too?
I agree that it’s not great but it’s better than nothing. Plus some of those services could eventually appear or be setup even in the same building itself.
Yeah, great, build housing. Minimize commuting, minimize pollution, maximize autonomy, maximize bathrobe sales.
I haven’t worn a belt in months. 🥳
Sounds generally positive to me.
Why not. Cheaper rent for ailing urban areas, and more incentives for residential construction.
Plus people commuting less = less pollution and less congestion.
Good for people, good for the planet, bad for profit for some.
Yeah but less pollution in the sky means people can see the clouds, and that’s where my data is stored. 😡 I don’t want people seeing my data.
Alternative headline: remote work adds billions into workers’ pockets and an immeasurable amount of happiness
One person downvoted that, what a clown haha
Two people now. You are not going to see ANY of the money that will not be spent on real estate. Do you think it’s going to trickle down? But hey at least it feels good to pretend right? What we need is more snarky comments and less actual solutions.
I work remote and do see that money. Let me explain how:
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I save money on car maintenance, gas, and business attire.
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I save money on food by eating at home or eating in my neighborhood instead, which adds value to my neighborhood and creates businesses in my neighborhood instead of my bosses
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I save roughly 2 hours of getting ready / commute time per day, and time is money.
What’s wild is that my boss ever felt entitled to all of that for their benefit.
I mean WFH was literally impossible for a lot of jobs until broadband internet and personal computers became ubiquitous in the average workers home in the last decade or so. That’s part of why yor boss felt entitled to all that, but I see the rest of your points
oh my boss felt entitled to this recently
they point blank told me they needed me in the office because ‘they owned the building’ (read: they think they are entitled to use their employees time and resources to prop up the value of their commercial real estate)
they also spent the time during the pandemic installing a giant paid cafeteria, so they were hoping to capture some of that lunch revenue I mentioned for themselves, or the company they sub-contracted with
(yes, I did quit, get a new job, and a raise)
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I don’t give a fuck about that money, I already have money.
We have the solution, it’s remote work. Smart businesses are using it as a competitive advantage to attract the best candidates.
Convert it to affordable housing. You made a bad investment corporate America, kindly eat shit. If you need us, will be working, from home.
Nah let’s just pump out more propaganda articles on why WFH is bad. /s
Yeah cause sitting at a desk all day in an overpriced office building is sooo much different than sitting at a desk all day at home
it’s funny because I was able to get a standup desk in my home office
I’m in better shape now than when I was sitting at the office (plus zero distractions from the cOlAbErAtIvE oPeN fLoOr pLaN)
LOL I’m sure the depiction of what someone could look like after years of working from home, created/paid for by a work furniture company, is totally accurate.
A whole lot of Americans who don’t work from home look like that today :/
What a joke of an article. Claw hands? Wtf?
Some people have been working remotely for decades, they are fine.
Time to practice the rugged capitalism that corporations preach. You want good workers? Follow them.
Zoning makes that difficult. We need to lobby to even allow for that even though it seems so obvious
Not just zoning, the average office building needs thorough work for that to happen. Washrooms are centralized and one per floor in an average office building for example, for it to have a bathroom for every apartment, it needs extensive piping.
It can definitely be done though, I live in such a building myself.
The piping also needs to be oversized for apartment areas compared to offices.
Local company made this mistake, raised an apartment building on sewage piping designed for offices. At peak hours in the evening and morning the sewage ended up backflowing into the apartments at the lower levels.
So just like in an office, life is less shitty on the top.
I’m sure there are special cases where residents would need bathroom access directly from their apartment, but are there any good reasons for private bathrooms, other than convenience?
To me, one of the most interesting things about converting non-residential building to residential is the potential for different ways of living. A shared bathroom and kitchen with offices surrounding a communal area could lead to a more communal lifestyle for residents.
If you want to charge market rents you’d need to provide private bathrooms. Any apartment without a private bathroom is what we’d call a bedsit in the UK and it could be worth half the rent.
We’re talking about converting unused office space into affordable housing, though. Charging half the rent would qualify it as affordable housing and is still better than no income from an unused building.
Would have to be cheap as hell rent to put up with that.
Maybe for college dorms, hostels or halfway houses.
Yea it could definitely work for those but I don’t think it’s limited to those.
Difficult as long as we don’t want to do it, the second we do, it’s a man made obstacle that can be fixed in a moment.
Noooo, we can’t let companies lose on bad investments, it is a sin in the eyes of The Red Line! Quickly, let’s whip up a bailout for those poor billionares!
I guess that explains why they’re going to such great lengths to convince us that talking about Game of Thrones around a water cooler is such a tremendous benefit to humankind…
At our office they are really pushing the “socializing” aspect by having a “gaming lunch” once a month. And by gaming lunch I mean they put out a few board games in the kitchenette that no one touches because we get 30 minutes to eat before having to work at a soulless corporation. But hey at least middle management is happy now they can walk around making sure you are working instead of being at home.
All workers are required to enjoy 30 minutes of mandatory social engagement at a designated “Fun Area”. Enjoyment activities can include: hearty laughter, corporate value appreciation, appropriate camaraderie. If the enjoyment you wish to experience is outside of these allowed forms, please speak to your department’s Enjoyment Adjustment Officer.
In the first half I thought that sounds at least kind of cool to have a lan party, but its one of those gaming table in office that only for decorations and no one touch….
Strange way to frame it. It sounds to me like businesses are saving $800 billion in unnessicary expenses.
Someone is holding that bag, though. Unfortunately for us, the people holding that bag have the kind of money to make our lives hell just for a fraction of a percentage point of value for their bottom line.
We were always going to pay for their failures; this one, or the next.
this one, or the next.
More like this one and the next
The really bad news is the one left holding the bag is the commercial real estate market, which if it goes under due to remote work reducing demand for office space theb it’s likely to heavily impact bank stability. So there is reason to be concerned as individuals low on the chain
I’ve been wondering why this isn’t talked about more.
All those commercial mortgages are intertwined with banks, and retirement accounts, and all sorts of “stable” investments.
Plus it’s not just the offices directly affected by pandemic remote work that aren’t renewing their leases. New companies wont lease a building since it’s not expected anymore, and big companies will be counting the beans to see how much they can save by reducing office space.
This is a phase shift in commercial real estate that I don’t think banks have budgeted for.
I’m sure everyone on wall street knows it’s coming, but if they can act surprised and get another bailout in a major crash, that’s just going to cost you and me our futures, again.
To clarify (what I think you’re talking about), CMBS ie commercial mortgage backed securities is eerily similar to the bullshit that kicked off the '80 ‘great recession’, which was speculation / shorting on MBS. I remember reading an economist at the time of '08 saying this is very bad, but he predicts we’ll just about scrape through it, followed by a long period of stagnating growth, zero lessons learned, then a crash which will make '08 look like a fender bender.
I always hoped he was wrong but day by day, month by month, I saw his prediction coming true.
This is also really bad news for all the small businesses that rely on the office workers who work from home now. I’m all for shoving it to the billionaires and mega corps but it seems like everyone’s forgotten about all the small(er) businesses they deal with on a daily basis and all the people who work for them.
There’s also the tax revenue streaming from the offices, small businesses, and the people who work there. Less people taking public transportation makes them less safe and slows progress on improvements. It’s not difficult to imagine city coffers shrinking, leaving room for more abandoned store fronts and an increase in crime.
I mean, if there’s enough people who are no longer going to work everyday, there’s a potentially devastating outcome on the horizon. Let’s not get distracted by our elation of the wealthy (possibly) suffering. This is bad news for everyone who lives in a city.
well my hope is it pushes investment back.into leisure and third space usage, to encourage people back into cities for fun reasons rather than just to operate a keyboard which I can do from anywhere
I agree and actually if the commercial areas of the cities become more residencial. In my experience they become safer because some massive commercial areas when the sun goes down they are not nice to walk.
Who will think of the landlords?
The government… The government will think of the landlord’s and your tax money will be the salve for the wounds.
Meanwhile, as schools and hospitals are left chronically underfunded…
And there it is. This is the reason why so many companies are insisting on RTO. The C-level bosses are being pressured by their ultra rich friends who own the land to justify their high real estate valuations and rent so they can continue to make more money. They’re happy to do it too… No compromise for them… Most of them are old conservative fucks that are probably angry at all the technology disconnecting them from their ability to interrupt their workers whenever they feel like it, so they can dump their stress, anger and frustration on their subordinates by reprimanding them without just cause.
It’s the same old story, rich folks screwing over the common poors for their own selfish reasons to their own self-serving ends. Progress? No problem, as long as it makes them more money, costs them less in expenses, and gives them more power over the rest of us.
Communities / local governments are also pressuring people to return to office work so small businesses and their employees don’t continue to struggle in a post-covid economy. Less people going to work means more vacant store fronts, less people on public transit, less tax revenue, and more crime. By all means, press your frustration with the old conservative fucks, just don’t let the media and personal grievances distract us from what’s happening on the ground in our communities.
Most of them are old conservative fucks
There is no need to imply it is a “right wing” exclusive issue. Many people on centre and left exist to leech off society as corporate bourgeois, in the form of C suite, managers, HR, and what not. It is a capitalism issue, which is fundamentally economically right wing. When you say “conservative”, try to make the distinction between social, economical, diplomatic and civil leanings.
Captialism is more conservative/right than liberal/left. Most of the left-leaning people I’ve met are more communial/“communist” (to the dictionary definition of communism, which, if you’re unaware, is: “Communism is a left-wing to far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products to everyone in the society based on need.”); whereas conservative/right tends to be more authoritarian/capitalistic usually believing in a universal justice system, where if you do good things, you will be rewarded in kind, therefore, being successful = doing things right and being just in your actions.
I’m not sure what you believe, honestly your comment is rather confusing to me, but the fact of the matter is that communism and communal services are generally good for everyone, especially the lower-class, and capitalism only rewards those with money/power/influence to gain more, at the expense of everyone else. Yet, conservatives fly this banner of communism is bad and capitalism will react to the market (whatever that means); economically speaking, a healthy, well educated public is a more productive public; regardless of what system you subscribe to, more productivity is better for humanity overall; to have a healthy, well-educated public, you need communal resources that people can leverage to be healthy, and well educated (like highschool, and healthcare). To tie personal responsibility for healthcare or education (financially) to your own productivity is a net-negative to all, as many will need to decide between survival day-to-day and being healthy and/or educated. A large driving force for people dropping out of school is to make money to take care of elderly/sick relatives/family; pushing those that cannot afford such things, even those that might be the next albert einstein or nikola tesla, into poverty and working at slave wages, never seeing their full potential and their full benefit to society as a whole. There may be an underprivileged, poor kid living in rural massachusetts who can’t get educated enough to get a job where they can make the society changing breakthrough they could all because their parent needs them to work at mc.donalds to make ends meet to feed themselves and their family, and cover their medical bill payments. Since we don’t know who, or where the next genius is that will change society with the things they invent, condemning them to a life of incremental payments on an unfathomably large, life-long debt may stunt the ability for society to reach the next level of development for decades or more.
meanwhile in a communal/communist society where everyone can get the medical coverage they need, free, or at least at a deep discount, nobody worries about food or housing security, the cost of education, etc. then each person can live up to their full potential, given the freedom to do so. The main problem with all communist systems of government to date has been that someone, namely a human, has to decide what each person is able to receive under that system, which, since that human is a human and in being so, they are inherently flawed, greedy, and self-serving, the system fails; since they will prioritize themselves and the people they think are worthy, instead of the society as a whole. Communism is a good system, putting the control in the hands of the public, the problem is that someone has to represent that public interest, and nobody is capable of doing that without having their decision tainted by their own selfishness and greed.
Bringing this back to the point: the capitalistic c-suite and their views are deciding everyone’s worth, and dictating rules and stipulations on how you should function for and at work, including work from home. It’s interesting because it’s a microcosm of authoritarian socialism inside of a capitalistic society. Each organization is, unto itself an authoritarian socialistic governance which is itself governed by capitalism. The c-suite decides what each worker can and cannot have, how much they are compensated for their efforts, what resources are available, etc, often without any input (or at least very little input) from workers, and when a decision is made, there is no method for appeal by the workers. Modern businesses are authoritarian communism, while society is a capitalist paradise of shitfuckary.
Personally, I support things like universal healthcare, and universal basic income, as well as several other communistic/communal supports, whether I would personally need those supports or not; including for post-secondary education, which I believe should be fully compensated by the society in which we live, so that society can benefit from a younger generation that is highly educated; despite the fact that I paid for my education (100% paid off), and would see no benefit from it. Giving people the freedom and security of always having access to healthcare, and always having access to education, and always having food on the table (by proxy of UBI), and a roof over their head (again by proxy of UBI), is a good starting point IMO.
We the people (the workers in this case) have no say in how, where, and what we’re working on, we’re essentially slaves to our authoritarian masters, who are the c-suite. They say jump, we have the choice of jumping, or quitting. that’s it. Our ability to protest or enact changes that would help with safety, wages, workload, etc, is basically null. We can voice our opinions to our superiors, who are free to ignore anything we say/want, and do whatever they please, and either we play ball, or we quit or get fired. That’s not capitalist, that’s authoritarian; which, if I may point out, is exactly what the problem with communism has always been… some person in the position of ultimate authority dictating what you can or cannot do, and what you get in return for your efforts.
Yet, here you are apparently defending such people, under the guise of “capitalism”. incredible.
Captialism is more conservative/right than liberal/left. Most of the left-leaning people I’ve met are more communial/“communist”
Yet, here you are apparently defending such people, under the guise of “capitalism”. incredible.
Unsure how you even manage to extract the essence of me defending right wing capitalists here. I am making the abstractions you indulged in clear for everyone as a monologue. It is a fact that capitalism is littered with liberal left, centrist and even anarchist bourgeois apologists. The moment you subscribe to individualism/imperialism/monarchism is the moment you subscribe to capitalism, which is what a lot of people do economically.
Most people only hate capitalism when they cannot buy something when shopping, or more tolerant ones if they struggle to buy their essentials. They have no moral or ideological conscience when claiming to unsubscribe from capitalism.
Money as the capital makes this economic leaning more dominant than social, diplomatic or civil preferences, which is why capitalism holds such a nice grip on society, no matter which political faction people come from outside of socialists.
Edit: now that I reread your rant, I think you popped off for a nothingburger. I was and am still trying to correct you on how social and economical leanings can be different for everyone, and your critique is misworded which can come off as being misplaced. I think you should check out 8values. My score = https://8values.github.io/results.html?e=84.0&d=69.4&g=58.2&s=73.4
I’m not sure how relevant it is, but I’m no stranger to doing things for the sake of doing them. My score: https://8values.github.io/results.html?e=87.2&d=78.9&g=69.1&s=87.2
just as many others, my views are also tainted by my own personal situation and experience, and all I want to say about that right now is that I’m presently fighting with my management staff about WFH vs RTO; I don’t think I have to say this, but I’m largely in favor of WFH, and they’re largely pushing RTO. The problem is that it’s “their way or the highway” more-or-less and I’m frustrated in this situation. A friend of mine is so strong in that opinion that he left his high paying position when they announced mandatory RTO, and I think he did the right thing. There’s many others that feel the same.
Fact is, this translates directly to the authoritarian viewpoint of business owners; there’s a lot of people who want WFH to be permanent, and many business owners that want RTO to be mandatory. The more I view this issue, the more the scientific data shows that WFH is often more productive, and yet articles I keep seeing lately, seem to be alleging that “WFH doesn’t work” usually citing management’s FEELINGS or OPINIONS on the matter, with no hard proof, studies or scientific analysis of whether those statements are in any way accurate beyond how managers feel. I’m very much in support of optimizing progress, and I want people to be the best they can be, and work as productively as they can, yet, we’re often pushed into situation where we would rather do it another way, one that improves employee morale and productivity, yet for no good reason beyond some manager’s feelings we end up having to do it the way they want us to, and often our work and productivity suffer for it.
I don’t hate capitalism or consumerism or conservatives, regardless; I’m very much in favor of personal freedom, as long as that freedom doesn’t restrict the freedoms of others; you can think/feel/believe/whatever anything you want, just don’t force me to do it your way or get financially ruined in the process of seeking my own freedom. Don’t get me wrong, there are jobs that are incapable of being WFH, but as the last few years has taught us, that number is far smaller than what the management would like us to believe. Often, not only can those jobs be done remotely, but they are often done more efficiently and productively than if you’re forced to work in a place you would rather not need to be. Every person is different, so WFH vs office work should be a personal choice; in many cases, it is not, simply on the whim of some manager’s say-so.
In the end, my belief is that everyone should be allowed to choose their own way through this life; to be productive on their terms and decide what they can handle and what they cannot. I’m no stranger to work, nor working for little to no compensation, provided I have my basic needs met, then I couldn’t care less what I’m being paid. The fact is, I’m forced to push further into my career, in a direction I don’t want to go, simply to gain more pay, I don’t want to be management, I don’t want to be a business owner, I want to be in the weeds of a problem and actively work towards fixing it, in my line of work, that can be done entirely at a computer, and 99% of the time, it is entirely done at a computer screen. The geographical placement of that computer and screen are 99% of the time, irrelevant. Regardless of these facts of my job, my employer, under threat of financially ruining me with unemployment, is forcing full-time in-office work.
Turn the page and just about every workplace is doing the same, regardless of what’s required. It doesn’t matter what their justification is, if it’s not a safety concern, or a proven more productive way to do something, then employees should be free to work in their own way with very few exceptions. The part I’m most offended by is the fact that every individual worker is required as condition of being employed, to pay for their own transportation to attend a workplace, whether that attendance is required or not. So you have to contribute freely, your time and effort to satisfy their requirement for you to be there, under the threat of unemployment and potential financial ruin as a result. The argument being that they didn’t tell you to, nor are they responsible for, where you live, or how long you have to travel, nor what mode of transportation you choose to utilize; fact is, I didn’t choose to have to be in office, and I should be compensated for the time, effort and money I’ve spent to be there to satisfy their requirement for my physical presence; regardless of how long of a trip it is, by which mode of transport and whatever amount of money I had to spend to get there.
but it applies to more than just travel to the workplace. The list is long, and not worth going over every point, I’m just selecting a few highlights from my own recent struggles and frustrations. There’s a lot more to my story, obviously, but I’ve already typed several hundred words on the topic expressing my point of view. I may not be the most articulate speaker or the most refined, as my mind is often spinning on all the different frustrations I’m dealing with instead of typing a coherent and focused point, but the concerns I have are valid for my situation and I imagine, many other people’s as well.
We speak of freedom, but I’m not sure we really know what that means; right now, to me, it seems that I’m free to choose my employer from a slew of bad and worse options; none of which will meet my requirements for employment, so ether I choose to work for terrible pay to get what I want and struggle to make ends meet, or I compromise my freedoms in order to achieve a higher wage, where I won’t struggle nearly as much to make things work. The whole thing is a mess. When it comes to employment, you don’t have freedom, the companies hold the cards, and you either play their game, or go find another table with similar hardships placed against you, and the deck stacked in their favor.
It’s authoritarian, and it doesn’t make me happy.
Now I can see why you popped off, and want to tell about your situation. WFH vs RTO is such an asinine thing, because of how the world is in control of “factory owners”. The ones that hold a grip on you are corporate hierarchy top dogs, one type of “factory owner”. I think your friend either explored his options beforehand, and/or had enough saved in his bank to take the gamble.
I don’t hate capitalism or consumerism or conservatives, regardless; I’m very much in favor of personal freedom, as long as that freedom doesn’t restrict the freedoms of others;
my belief is that everyone should be allowed to choose their own way through this life; to be productive on their terms and decide what they can handle and what they cannot.
For the parasitic managers, HR and other heads, you are trampling on the “office culture” and their parasitic job pay. When you have no socialism or trade unionist politics, and when corporate/government capitalist nexus grows beyond strong, this is where you and millions of others end up with. There is no freedom in a “free” society whose foundations lay in capitalism. USA sells the “freedom in a free society” hotdog to everyone, and people happily eat it up thinking its a free treat.
You either have to suck it up to corporates eternally, or temporarily leech the leeches for a while to be able to make the least risky gambles to lessen your suffering in the future. There is no other way in this system, where capitalism has loaded decks when you have barely any aces to pull. This is why dismantling of Western individualist capitalism is so critical for all of global society.
I live in a family that loves its capitalism and “authority” bootlicking and that frowns on unions. I am from India. I am a mindhacker that feels far too isolated away from this kind of kowtowing, uncritical, slacking society, and have always lived a life trying to help people through the internet. Even gave a chunk of my life everyday the past 3 years to help make Lemmy what it is now, to help dismantle Reddit away (even got few big subs migrated like piracy), and build Fediverse, while doing a lot of other stuff.
well, I appreciate your efforts.
I’m very pro-union, but in my line of work, creating a union is nearly impossible, even in a company very heavily focused on my job; I work in I.T. and often we’re the last to be included. Most workers are happy to omit IT workers from unions, and legislation usually omits us from some worker protections, like how many hours you can work in a row, or how many hours you have on the books per week, etc. The factory owners (as you call them) see IT as a cost center, not as the critical resource it is. Even in very large companies, IT workers are usually a vast minority and often, at least from what I can tell, we’re lumped in with middle management, to be excluded from the workers. There’s usually very small teams of IT folk, usually far fewer than are required, and we’re treated like garbage from both sides; despite every effort we make being for the good of everyone, either management or worker, we’re trying to help. IMO, we’re far closer to the workers than we are the management, but people don’t seem to see it that way.
So my hopes for a union are effectively pointless, since even if I get in with a company that has a union, it’s very likely that the union will specifically omit my job as one covered by them. So I’m left to struggling against the ruling class in the organization, alone, since all my IT coworkers are too fearful of their own job security to present a unified front against anything. I seem to be unique in that I will forcefully make myself heard; I will speak up about it, and I’m not afraid of it. I’m not in a position to remain unemployed for any length of time, but I do it anyways.
My friend has a rather significant financial cushion to land on. He has long since paid off his debts and has been putting away any money he didn’t otherwise need to spend, whether on food, or rent or whatever… so with few expenses (mainly internet, phone and rent for him), and significant income ( six-figures CAD/yr), he was able to make substantial savings; so he was in a privileged position to relieve himself from his employer based on that, and live comfortably on savings for many months before acquiring new work. That was a few weeks ago for him, so he’s taking the time to de-stress and relax before getting back into the job market - an opportunity that he has, which I do not.
Luckily for me (and I recognise the privilege here) I’m in Canada, and we have several social structures that can support someone through unemployment; in my case, I’m able to leverage our healthcare system, specifically with my general practitioner (family doctor), who has put me on a medical leave due to stress. He may use a different diagnosis, but his specific justification to the business/government doesn’t matter as much as the purpose of my leave, which is to alleviate stress and improve my mental well-being. The government supports in place (here it is called “employment insurance” or EI), provide enough that I should be able to coast along with few compromises without work until I am either ready to return to the workplace, or I am ready to find a new job (the choice is up to me at this point). It is very fortunate for me that my GP is on my side in all this, and he’s willing to facilitate what I need for my well-being. Not everyone has this luxury, but since I have it, I’m going to leverage it to keep myself from going off a cliff, either metaphorically, or literally.
there’s a lot more that can be said, but I’ll keep it as brief as I can: I understand what you’re saying and I agree, it’s not a great situation to need to deal with, but with capitalism as strongly situated as it is, it’s difficult to fight against it for something better. I appreciate you and all you’ve said and tried to understand, and I wish you all the best.
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The guy above definitely could have left the politics out of that comment, since there’s nothing more bipartisan than rich people fucking the working class.
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You think Biden is “Far left”??? Laughs in European…
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Trump can be whatever he wants, but logically that doesn’t define where his opposition stands. Biden could be moderate left or extreme left, unless you think everything is 1 and 0…? I’m confused
Logic is hard 😢
Why don’t you go right the fuck away then.
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Yes they do, that’s freedom of speech ole chum. And you’re free to ignore them. You’re free to say what you want but you’re not free of the consequences of your speech; if one of those consequences is that people think you’re a bumbum living a bumbum life, and treat you accordingly, well that’s just life I’m afraid.
You seem very fixated on left vs right. What do you want from life? A fair go, right? You want to be paid fairly for the work you do, and have the opportunity to rent or buy housing that doesn’t leave you with no disposable income? You want to be treated with respect?
Many of us whether on the left or the right want exactly the same thing. Many on the right have been gaslit into thinking a) they don’t want the above b) the ‘left’ are their enemy. We’re all just people, and most of us want the same things, when you dig down. Respect, fair pay, housing that doesn’t leave us destitute. It shouldn’t be a big ask imo.
There’s an XKCD for everything
Always loved the alt text on that one:
I can’t remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you’re saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it’s not literally illegal to express.
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I mean this in the friendliest, most non-confrontational way; It sounds as though you’ve been fed quite a bit of misinformation, Biden is most definitely not Far Left. If you’d like me to elaborate I am willing.
I’m not the OP, but I know exactly what you’re saying. To elaborate a slight bit on what you’ve said here: most of what we call “the left” is actually fairly centerist; it’s left-leaning at most. The far left is far more authoritarian than anything. To see authoritarianism in action, look no further than your current employer - they’re all the same. Politically, they’re typically very far right leaning, but when they’re put in a position of control, they tend to lean hard into authoritarianism.
The US isn’t anywhere near far left. We have a center right party and a far right party. Look at healthcare. The left wing position is single payer. The centrist position is an insurance market with a public option to keep prices competitive. The right wing position is no public option and an oligopoly to price gouge people. Even the centrist option is considered too far left for Dems.
The “left”?
LOL republicunts always feel the need to blame the left whenever they can.
Corporations: get your booty back into the office so it’s not empty
Also corporations: we’ve laid off your team in favor of AI, it was a tough but necessary choice due to costs
The empty office building: ???I mean to be fair even though corporations fucking suck. Most commercial leases are typically longer than what you would do for residential. So it can range from 3-10 ish years(3-5 seems to be a common number). There is always the option to exit them early but there are typically pretty costly negatives to doing that.
I think the guy who bought it is in for life though :-)
I guess my company has been lucky so far. Our management team saw the chance to save money by reducing how many buildings we need and they rolled that money into hiring more remote workers.
It’s funny / sad how much good / bad management can affect a company. Anyone with half a brain can see the benefit of remote work. You just need to figure out how to keep your workers accountable in different ways now that you can’t stand behind their chairs and look over their shoulders.
The smart companies are saving money and getting better workers. The rest can all go fuck themselves.
Good. Developers can buy them on the cheap and renovate into living spaces
Most of the time it’s more economical to tear them down than to convert them. The plumbing work needed is probably the most expensive part but then you only have windows along the outside walls. I suppose you could have large common areas in the center.
Economical perhaps, but this is the sort of stupid ass shit that epitomizes how fucked the growth based economy is in this climate changed era. Developer’s think a few years down the road, but have no economic incentive to build it as a cradle-to-cradle build rather than a cradle-to-grave build.
Build the same damn curtain wall floor plans in a dozen cities, so they all look ugly and don’t improve the quality of life, because it’s cheap, makes short term money for people who already have more then they can spend, and leave it to the kids to deal with everything in the future… Grrrr {rant off}
Sorry, bitter old fart chiming in.
No, you’re alright, I think you’re entirely justified to rant about that. We continue being a very short sighted species.
I’d agree with you under the traditional model, but weird things can happen with economies of scale.
That’s the story they’re selling but I don’t think it really holds water. Sure, they’ll have to remove the fitout and upgrade the plumbing and that costs money but no more than anyone would expect when building apartments. Some office buildings won’t be suitable for residential use due to their shape and they obviously won’t be converted but most are suitable and they’ll be fine.
The business lobby pointing at the ones which are unsuitable and saying “but this whole thing is going to be impossible!” looks disingenuous to me. There are plenty of good options and there’s no reason to expect they won’t be converted.
These kinds of topics always get the “if it doesn’t work for every single use case, it’s useless”.
This is a case by case kind of thing, each building should be examined and choose the appropriate new use for it.
Right, like masks don’t stop all germs 100% of the time, ergo masks don’t do anything.
They will turn into new jack city
Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!
And homelessness is on the rise. Whatever should we do?
I know! Ban homeless encampments! Yeah!
Edit: but first let’s fire 15% of our workforce and then give ourselves a few million in bonuses.
Okay, but solving problems is only “feasible” or “sustainable” if it keeps lines going up.
I think I’m on the wrong line :/
Come on you rich idiots, convert those offices into something useful and they’ll be valuable again.
Like housing. So people can afford places to live again!
But that would bring down the value of all the residential property these same people own.
Converting offices to residential is expensive and can take longer than just building new residential. I’m not against converting offices to a better use, I saw an article yesterday about turning offices into vertical gardens for example, but office to housing isn’t a financially viable option, especially if you’re trying to make affordable housing.
Don’t expect the rich idiots to spend a dime doing that.
You know what they’re likely to do, tho? Convince the govt to PAY THEM for some bullshit reason. That’s how a portion of them get rich.
That would require effort and work. People this rich don’t do that. They may lift a finger to ring a bell to have a prole come and take instructions on how to deal with the situation.
They themselves have money to count and caviar to eat out of their mistresses anus.
It’s insane that we as a society are even having the debate between pushing capital investment strategies to adapt and come into the 21st century or dragging globally-distributed workers back to the 20th century just to avoid short-term pain and costs associated with updating outdated laws, tax incentives, and capital business practices.
Boomers. My former boss was like this. Sit in a crowded, loud, hot, glare on every screen office BeCaUse it ProMotEs CollAborAtiOn. Yeah. No one “collaborated.”
When did we sign something that said I’ll work for you but also in some of the worst conditions because well just because.
The problem is that the idea of WFH being more productive is slowly being shown to be false.
It can be a viable business strategy of you design for it, but WFH being the best in all cases has shown itself to be false.
Edit: The working-from-home illusion fades from TheEconomist
That is the source. Feel free to post your own sources.
What you’re saying is absolute bullshit. But, even IF it was true, I’d still be for WFH.
Society should make things better for people. Less time spent in cars, more time spent with family is worth the 5% stock dip for the investor class.
The worker has been taking it up the ass since the 60s and getting more and more productive while wages have stagnated.
So yea what you say is nonsense, but even if it was true in the immortal words of Red: I don’t give a shit.
It is fine to want to WFH, I get it. It is a great perk for some people.
I’m not saying that WFH is horrible for companies.
I’m just saying that there seems to be productivity reasons why employers want their employees to work in an office.
IMHO it’s more of a management issue than productivity. Managers like seeing you work.
The good news is I don’t care if it’s more productive fuck offices :)
And I like that answer because you’re being honest. You don’t like working in an office, and that is fair.
The productivity metrics at my company were consistently up by around 150% month by month for the entire duration that we were all permanently working from home without the distraction of the office and the time sink of in person meetings where nothing is achieved.
The only reason we were forced back to a hybrid arrangement is that none of the middle managers had any work to do and it became painfully obvious how little they actually contribute. They don’t actually generate any value.
Instead of restructuring, and distributing the heinous waste of money that they and our real estate holdings represent they made the decision to limit WFH arrangements to two days per week and our metrics went right back where they were previously.
If you design for work in office, WFH probably isn’t going to be more productive and the other way around. A lot of companies made the mistake thinking that WFH is the same as regular office but with everyone being home. This is not the case.
I have experience with company without WFH employees, where any team that wasn’t literary all in the same building had some serious communication and cooperation isuues. I have experience with company where there was no office whatsoever, people were across globe and time zones and we managed to cooperate effectively.
I’m not saying that WFH can be always more effective. But in many cases it’s just terribly implemented change and companies are just moving back to investing into office space instead of investing into proper WFH culture.
Folks at Zapier wrote an excellent guide if anyone is interested. It’s serious effort, sure. People often feel like this is extra work to keep WFH viable, but they tend to forget that keeping the office running is also a serious effort. Many companies probably have office manager, how many of these have some alternative of that for WFH?
I would agree that implementation of WFH could be better. I also appreciate the link you shared. WFH can also be a viable option provided you set up for it.
However, I tend to find that a lot of the people who work best in WFH situations are generally friendly and productive people who will reach out on issues and cultivate relationships.
In contrast, those who seem to advocate the most for WFH online seem to want their direct manager to plug them into a system that will turn them into a cog that doesn’t need to be proactive in solving problems. That isn’t everyone who wants WFH, but they seem to be a loud minority.
Yeah, you absolutely have to set up for WFH. Which is no different than working from office. We just take that effort for granted.
Another issue is, that lot of the office work cost is not paid by companies. (At least not directly) For example the commute to work can easily be 10% of overall time spent from leaving your house until returning back home from work. But both the commute cost and time spent is paid by employee. So obviously companies are reluctant invest into WFH, because that does generate some expenses.
Please provide sources with who funded the study and we can provide sources that show the opposite!
If you expect results in given time and you’re not getting it, you’re gonna have talk with employee, WFH or office, doesn’t matter.
The “productivity” is an illusion and always has been.
source? even before WFH, even before the internet it’s just common sense that if I need something from the Phillippines office or the London office or the California office while I’m in New York it’s much more efficient to call them than it is for me to get on a plane and go there.
The working-from-home illusion fades from TheEconomist
The article refers to several peer reviewed studies which you can look up.
Every efficiency study, environmental model, and psychological model disagrees with your sentiments that WFH productivity is less than in office productivity. I am a software engineer, so it might be anecdotal and industry specific, but my experience as well as the studies done by my employer show that they get more out of WFH employees or Hybrid (1-2 days a week in office) than the traditional route. Commutes, in office distractions, etc are massive drains on the employee.
The working-from-home illusion fades from TheEconomist
The studies cited in the article say otherwise. Feel free to show your studies.
That article is pretty trash, a half finished doctoral study from 2020 and it draws some wild conclusions from this authors work who comes to the opposite conclusion than what was provided by the article. You can see more information mathematically here in this paper that seems to suggest that a lot of the WFH productivity might be eaten up by the lack of effective tools at the disposal of the worker provided by the company. You can also find more data driven, finished papers on WFH efficiency here:
This is a chinese study from 2013 for a call center, similar to the unfinished 2020 paper mentioned in the beginning of the terrible Economist Paper. This was done without the current tools and innovation, so I imagine if it were to be run again the numbers would probably be higher: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/working-papers/does-working-home-work-evidence-chinese-experiment
Here is a study on jobs that could be done from home. The above study allows you to see that the environmental impact from having those jobs actually be done from home could be massive. Especially since most of those jobs are located in urban centers and require commuting and/or massive carbon footprints.
This is a small (n = 519) study showing that peoples general mental health and happiness are higher when they are WFH. Also, a study showing that people who are happy are more productive.
The problem with the argument is that it is reductionist, it makes it seem like the ONLY thing that matters is how much more productive it is. It is more productive, and it can have a HUGE benefit to both the mental health of the individuals who are able to WFH as well as the environment.
So, like I said. The large company I work for is 80% WFH, with an optional hybrid approach and spent a bunch of money researching this and are looking to keep it up because their workers are happier, healthier, and more productive… That single economist piece that misrepresents data and uses kind of trash studies isn’t really a great one to be leaning on.
Edit: There are absolutely jobs that cannot be done from home, and people who can’t handle WFH because of their personality. However, WFH is primarily a good thing. All these hit pieces and garbo articles trying to justify people returning to these monolithic buildings without any value are trash and shouldn’t be promoted as information. At their core they’re opinion pieces.
Since I’ve had more time to read your sources.
The first study you cite only discusses the ability to work from home. Nothing in the study talks about productivity. I agree that a lot of jobs can be full remote.
The second study is about employee satisfaction, which I didn’t argue as well. The third study may be a thing, but it doesn’t outright compare those who work in an office to those who work full remote.
And as I’ve said earlier, it is fine if you want to make arguments for WFH outside of productivity. However, none of the studies you provided tries to directly measure the two. Thank you for providing some studies, though. You were the only one who tried to argue this via academic studies.
If you want to want to make the argument that productivity isn’t the be all end all reason, that is fine. WFH is a great perk and I can see why people like it. I also agree that it can work, but there is a difference between being able to work and being the best option.
But the argument is always that WFH is the best and most productive option where that may not be the case.
Can you elaborate on this?
I can’t WFH so I haven’t really kept up with the trend
Don’t listen to the bootlicker below. He’s just spreading propaganda for his corporate overlords.
Basically there has been a mantra from people that WFH will always be productive and that, therefore, going into work is a waste. What is being found is that there seems to be a minor productivity hit, but it isn’t the end of the world and there may be reasons to allow WFH even if workers are less productive.
Saying that WFH isn’t anything but good gets a lot of people pissed off.
Dumb opinion is dumb lol
What would you expect The Economist to say?
Their reporting has a financial bent to it, but they would write an article defending WFH productivity wise if the data was there.
The article also doesn’t dismiss WFH either, noting other reasons to keep it.
Source?
Anecdotally, I can’t get shit done in the office. I like to talk to people, people interrupt me with questions, and towards the end of the day I’m watching the clock and dreading traffic.
When I need to get something done I work from home. My coworkers are the same way.
I took a remote job for 18 months before leaving and getting a new job back in an office. For me personally, I found it great for the first 12 months, however over time it became obvious that the company wasn’t structured well for remote work and I couldn’t get anything meaningful done. I loved all the extra time working from home gave me, but I finished every day feeling like I was wasting my life in a room at home and not achieving anything. This was largely due to the organisation itself, but I also found that working remote created an extra barrier to trying to fix that company’s culture. So I quit and went back to working face to face with people. Since then I’ve found it easier to push for changes and influence people, process etc now that I’m back working face to face. I do miss the WFH lifestyle though and think I’d be happiest in a hybrid model.
when my shit gets wiped out its “a market correction”. let’s see if this is “a market correction” or a “crisis” that requires federal intervention (read: a bunch of your money stolen at gunpoint and given to the people who made bad investments)
