I've heard the push for returning to the office described as a sunk cost, where managers get to prove their value by scheduling meetings and lording over employees in the office. Do you think that we will eventually see more office space go vacant, or see a real-estate crash driven by offices?
I know all the tech layoffs lately are due to corporate financial greed, but I can’t help to feel like it’s just a big “fuck you” to everyone enjoying the newfound freedom of remote work, to flood the job market with people desperate enough that they have to take a 100% in office role again.
Most companies that are going back to the office are STILL HAVING VIRTUAL MEETINGS. The hybrid environments ABSOLUTELY are. So you are getting all of the shitty aspects of going into the office and all of the downsides of not-in-person collaboration. It's the worst of both worlds.
When you ask an employee to wake up an hour earlier, spend an hour in traffic, to pay for parking, to sit in a 'hotel cube', to get on a virtual meeting that they could have done at home...you are absolutely going to have people leave your company.
The data on people equating lack of flexibility with a 2-3% paycut seems incredible low to me.
I think its a much more significant impact than that. I know people who have basically taken a 20% paycut (lost their cost-of-living adjustment) to move to a different state--doing the same job remotely. That's basically a way of saying flexibility/remote work is work 20% to them.
Since March 2020 I work at home. No more 1h morning 1h afternoon of traffic jam. I'm a programmer, it changes basically nothing in my life. I'll never go to an office downtown and lose 2h+ a day, never.
Also I can have flexible hour now so I'm doing 7AM-3PM, it's wonderful, it changed my life. Instead of being home at 6+PM I'm free at 3 to go in the pool or groceries or whatever.
I'm saving hundreds of dollars in gas and lunch too.
I started working from home in March 2020 also. I was convinced that my productivity would suffer working from home. Previously, I had only worked from home during snowstorms and that was me sitting on my couch or bed working on just my laptop screen. When the pandemic hit, I got an second monitor and set up a dedicated working area. That made all the difference.
I'm actually more productive now than I was in the office. I can get through an entire days' worth of tasks in a matter of hours because I can focus without people walking up to me to talk.
I'm also healthier at home. When I went into the office, I needed to pack my lunch and any snacks I wanted. I'd often overpack and since my lunch container was on my desk next to me, I'd snack all day. Now, all my snacks are in my kitchen, but that means getting up and walking downstairs. Laziness actually helps me eat less. Go figure. Plus, I can make a salad fresh for lunch instead of relying on frozen meals.
Do I miss talking to my coworkers? Sometimes, but the advantages vastly outweigh the disadvantages. I'm also now technically working for my company's home office which is in another state. A commute would be about 10 hours each way for me. (9 hours if I cut through Canada.) So I'm pretty much permanently working from home now as long as I stay in this position (which I have no intention of leaving at the moment).
Same -- I changed jobs since lockdown started, I work for a company now that was 100% remote before all this started. I've actually moved halfway across the country and... yeah, other than now I pay state income tax, nothing has changed for me. I have an office, that's technically a change, I guess.
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