Yep, been saying this for years now, the vicious and irrational hatred against work from home employees is driven by two main factors:
At a systemic level, despite work from home being obviously less costly in the long run than maintaining an office space, if work from home were allowed to proliferate it basically pop the commercial real estate bubble and then basically every corrupt mayor and idiots in upper management would be shown to be corrupt idiots.
At a more personal level, upper and middle management people essentially get their kicks from seeing busy little worker bees near them, and they would personally have existential crisis when they realize that 90% of what they do is negging and then ommitting or misrepresenting that in actual meetings. Actual meetings which can easily take place in zoom, or often replaced with just an email.
Another part of #2 is they can no longer be toxic and verbally abusive, like they could in person. Anything virtual might be recorded and every email is a record.
Thats a key element as well, the insane corpo manipulation that only exists if you can prove it even though everyone who doesnt up their head up either their own ass or someone elses knows is absurdly rampant… but youre too busy to record it all!
So more or less, since many businesses are only keeping their offices because they have multi-year leases preventing them from simply packing up and going fully remote or downsizing to a smaller office, we can expect occupancy rates to continue falling and slow-burn exacerbating the commercial real estate crisis. And really, the problem here is just that banks are overinvested in commercial real estate, not knowing that a pandemic would alter work patterns in a lasting way. So again, we’re all in for a fun ride on the roller coaster that is capitalism, literally because of problems caused by real estate speculation.
For sure. Business investments go up and down all the time. That’s business
I’m more concerned about trains/transit. After all these years, we (US) are finally investing in improving transportation within and between cities, just as commutes have been cut and many cities may be depopulating.
I just ate ravioli. I’m sure they were packaged in an automated fashion. I’m gonna now post about ravioli in c/technology since it’s all the same. For now here’s some recipes tasteofhome.com/…/ravioli-recipes-thatll-fill-you…
All I can think about is that Ali G skit about how his friend “ain’t got no techmology” and the expert asks “does your friend live in a house? A house is technology.”
The pandemic triggering a cultural shift to WFH is a big part of the problems in the commercial real estate market. Basically, America becoming 10% more technologically sophisticated may have unhinged the financial system. Story about the impact of tech on society, I guess?
Wait…are you suggesting we solve a problem? Or even two problems simultaneously? That’s absurd! We need tax cuts, deregulation, and corporate bailouts…I may not know the problem, but I know the solution. /s
I’m a union commercial electrician where I spent a decade building and improving tenant spaces in commercial towers in Seattle and Bellevue. There’s a huge dip in our work now that there aren’t high rises being occupied. I’d like people to work from home, but my blue collar job can’t be done from home. If we can change what these buildings are used for I wouldn’t be worried.
Google here in Fremont area on the other hand is expanding their space by occupying a larger foot print with a smaller work force per square foot. That’s a good way to keep us working.
I don’t know anything about being an electrician - commercial or otherwise, so I’m curious to hear your side.
When all those people go to working remote, it’s not like they’re no longer in need of electricity. Presumably their home demand is higher and we might even see people adding new office spaces to adapt their home. Maybe the public grid needs to change to support it? Won’t this mean that there will just be a different type of demand for electricians?
Are there reasons this would be less attractive to electricians? Pay, job security, or something else?
There are many different types of electrical workers. I’m a commercial inside wireman. I’m licensed to install electrical infrastructure and maintain electrical infrastructure in commercial and industrial complexes. I have a wide range of work I can do, but to put it simply I only have a job if: Complexes are being built (I’m doing construction) Complexes are being used (this is mostly industrial since commercial spaces have building engineers that mostly took over our maintaince work).
People working from home eliminate both my outlets of work. Residential electricians make significantly less than I do, and their work is pretty similar but dedicated to homes. But even their work would be cut because if we’re talking office employees making an office at home, there’s not much if anything required of any electrician for someone to set up a computer and a desk in their home. The grid will be using much less power due to drop in facilities.
But it’s not just my job as an electrician. It’s construction in the city as a whole and even the city economy. Because outside of the residential district in cities, people working from home in the suburbs aren’t utilizing the city infrastructure and commercial goods.
Fremont in Seattle has a large presence with many employees. The tech here tries to stay very competitive so Google was providing their employees with beautiful breakfast and lunch amenities. This created such a blow to Fremonts local restaurants that Seattle had to implement a special tax for serving food in your complex. Basically food cannot be free.
This is but one industry being impacted with employees no longer having a presence in the city high rises they’re employed at. Construction slowing or being fully eliminated will remove our presence in the city, majority of tradesmen. Tech will invest less because employees will take care of their own facilities by working from home. Now the economy takes a hit, we don’t have work in the city, restaurants don’t have customers, and the jobs of the office workers are suddenly finding themselves not needed as much either. Now residential high rises in the city are being vacated. The towers are losing employees and residents. The city stagnants. Economy crashes.
Of course this is pretty dramatic, and very generalized. But people working from home effects A LOT including a few steps down, their own careers.
This is simply sunk cost fallacy. Companies signed leases. Now they regret it but can’t back out so they’ve got to try to pretend it’s worth it even if it costs their employees money out of pocket.
It’s not really about owners it’s more about leases and the company leasing the property “not getting their money’s worth”
Often they have signed leases with themselves. With original owners, holding companies etc.
This is a way of extracting value from a corporation without paying it as a dividend or salary. Dividends go to all shareholders. Lease payments go to one specific one.
So obviously if there’s no reason to pay these leases anymore, somebody powerful is going to be very upset.
Fwiw, turning most of these buildings into livable spaces is a lot harder and more expensive than you’d expect. For many of them, it would actually be cheaper to just raze it and create a new residential building, even if it maintains the same outer dimensions.
Yes, that’s one possibility. But if your goal is to create a multi-unit residential housing building, you would probably choose a location that doesn’t already have a giant office building in the way.
There is no better alternative than turning these offices into housing. Forcing people to work in offices again is worse and keeping them empty is also worse.
A big advantage of converting them is there is already a lot of desirable infrastructure in place. Public transportation, shops, restaurants, everything is there already. Building apartment complexes at the edge of town might be cheaper but there usually is nothing there.
I also doubt that it’s actually cheaper to raze and rebuild for that many buildings. The only real trouble is upgrading the plumbing. Everything else is definitely offset buy using the existing shell.
Some buildings have a floorplan that doesn’t really work for residential but there is also no need to convert all offices. Pick the ones that are best suited and keep the remaining to satisfy the reduced need for office space.
The only real issue is that the current owner of the building obviously prefer just forcing people back into office since that’s more profitable. So it would take government subsidies and incentives for them to make the switch more profitable. And then we are once again putting hundred of millions into the pockets of already rich people. But it’s cheaper for the city and better for the people so while a tough pill to swallow, it’s still beats any alternative.
I had to start going back to the office today. I’ll eventually split time between two buildings, but my main office is practically empty. Been here 3 days in a row, and I’m the only one in my area that stayed the entire day. The first day 4 of 5 other people left at lunch. The last person left about 4:15pm.
Yestersay I was by myself until about 10am and that person left at 4. I’m here by myself today and I don’t suspect anyone will show up late.
On the other side of the floor where the breakroom is, there’s maybe been 7 people total across the 3 days I’ve been here lol.
Yeah it’s like that now. People come in late and leave early. I do that too since it’s fine. Only one office day is required and I make sure to come in late and leave early to beat traffic. Everyone does. :)
I use it as a day of socializing with the team. Just talking. Not much work.
Same for me. I’m more productive at home and the occasional office visit is primarily for socializing with coworkers. There’s only one other person in my team in my office location and we just schedule 2 or 3 days a month where we meet up in the office to catch up.
Yeah, I get the socializing aspect and it hasn’t been bad coming in. I’ve been wfh for the past like 4 years so it’s nice to put on actual clothes instead of wearing joggers and t-shirts every day lol. You’re lucky you’re only required to come in one day a week. We have to come in 3 days (eventually we’ll be monitored to make sure we come in 3 days) but at least we can pick the 3 days every week.
On the plus side, we have assigned cubes (no hotel cubes thankfully!) and since I was part of the first small group to come in, I was able to change cubes.
However, I still think it’s BS that companies are forcing the back to work crap with such strict boundaries.
I know, I got very lucky with just one day in the office. And that is so important to me that I don’t even consider looking at other jobs right now. I will stay here for at least another year, probably even longer. Just because of that super nice single office day per week.
For me, it’s important as a mental health thing. Working from home, I tend not to see other humans and not go anywhere I don’t need to. I’m also poor at establishing work-life boundaries.
Meanwhile, going into work means getting presentable, interacting with people, not forgetting a lunch break, and I tend to stop working when the place empties out.
It’s also important for career advancement. I’m poor at self-promotion, so working from home is “out of sight, out of mind” no matter how much I do. It’s easy to say that management needs to figure that out, but it’s in my self-interest to make sure they realize when I get shit done
Well yes, sounds like the office is better for you with your personality traits. The issue is when they want all of us to sit there and try to work in an environment that is horrible for work (for the ones of us who needs focus and silence).
Also i agree about career advancement being better in offices, which is why I’m a consultant so I don’t have to care.
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