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The Birth and Death of the Office

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Re: The Birth and Death of the Office

#51

Post by jen20 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #36
999900000999 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is to keep local economies alive. It's not about us, it's about the guy who delivers lunch, or the girl who owns the bagel shop. However, offices are straight up abelist , if you have mobility issues it's absurdly hard to commute. Commuting isn't really needed here, if I was in a wheelchair I'd take this to court. Full tin foil hat time, if remote work was the norm the entire commercial real estate sector w…

Quoted post unavailable.

Mobility issues are not for you to agree with or not.

And yes, work the hours you want to work. I typically don’t start until 11 or noon, and thanks to time zones and meetings tend to work until 11pm or so. It works out great since 11 is typically when the good shows start here.

Do try to be less disagreeable.

Re: The Birth and Death of the Office

#52

Post by voisin »

alistairSH wrote: post #47
999900000999 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is to keep local economies alive. It's not about us, it's about the guy who delivers lunch, or the girl who owns the bagel shop. However, offices are straight up abelist , if you have mobility issues it's absurdly hard to commute. Commuting isn't really needed here, if I was in a wheelchair I'd take this to court. Full tin foil hat time, if remote work was the norm the entire commercial real estate sector w…

It's not about us, it's about the guy who delivers lunch, or the girl who owns the bagel shop. Isn’t that just an instance of the broken window parable? There’s nothing to prevent the bagel shop locating adjacent to a residential area instead of an office park - then society sees the benefit of WFH and tasty round breads.

Presumably if you had bagel shops in every residential neighbourhood, each would sell less and have largely the same fixed costs and so prices would have to be higher.

Re: The Birth and Death of the Office

#53

Post by bell-cot »

SoftTalker wrote: post #16
spicyusername wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once remote working has been around long enough we'll probably see the rise of new social constructs that fill the void the office as the "second place" is leaving behind. The office was a crappy "second place" anyways.

Before office work was the norm, what was this "second place?" Churches, probably? Taverns?

Fields, pastures, village squares. A small boat if you happened to be a fisherman.

Re: The Birth and Death of the Office

#54

Post by waynesonfire »

One if the things that made Ultima Online an incredible MMO gaming experience when it first came out and has since never been replicated is because it was the only choice. EVERYONE had to play it, all the various types of folks. It's this that made the game special.

I wonder if the same affect is going to ruin the office experience. In that what made it special was that everyone had to go to the office. Nowadays, the only people that show up are the ones that "prefer" it or whatever. And, I don't know how to word this differently, maybe, I don't care for those folks. Just something I was thinking about. When I go into the office now, something is missing. No point even going in a day or two a week.

Re: The Birth and Death of the Office

#55

Post by quantumwannabe »

aylmao wrote: post #44
osigurdson wrote: post #21

I don't think there is anything else more illogical in modern society than waking up in building A, hopping in a car and fighting traffic for an hour to get to building B just to sit in front of a computer for 8 hours (perhaps with a few minimally productive meetings here and there), then commute back to building A 8 hours later. Building B sits empty for 16 hours a day while Building A sits empty for 10 with both be…

I agree, but I don't think the problem is so much "the office", but rather how poorly cities are designed in the USA; - The lack of mixed use zoning makes it just that much more likely that one live so far from their workplace. The choice is too often "a house far away from everything" or "a high-rise close to the noise, smells, and un-pretty sights of town" - There's so little space to build offices cities end up ha…

Most American cities have their jobs distributed throughout the city, and don’t have mega skyscrapers. The more sprawling the city, the more evenly distributed the jobs are. Mixed use zoning has no effect on commute times because it doesn’t matter that an office is near your home, what matters is that your office is near your home. Most people don’t move every time they change jobs, so even if someone originally lived near work they may not in the future, and couples may have jobs in different locations. The US and Europe have nearly identical average commute times [1][2].

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/d...

[2] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2021/acs/acs-47....

Re: The Birth and Death of the Office

#56

Post by voisin »

shahbaby wrote: post #37
osigurdson wrote: post #21

I don't think there is anything else more illogical in modern society than waking up in building A, hopping in a car and fighting traffic for an hour to get to building B just to sit in front of a computer for 8 hours (perhaps with a few minimally productive meetings here and there), then commute back to building A 8 hours later. Building B sits empty for 16 hours a day while Building A sits empty for 10 with both be…

Yep, it's jarring to see governments talk about carbon emissions and then ignore the potential emission savings by WFH.

Heating/cooling 100 homes vs 1 office favours the office, but the commute tips it in favour of WFH. So why not fix the commute? Let people live/work/play in dense urban environments rather than commute individually from live-zone to work-zone.

Re: The Birth and Death of the Office

#57

Post by voisin »

ultim8k wrote: post #20

Office sucks. Let me list a few things: - Hot desks - People laughing and constantly talking while you are trying to focus - Unstable temperature making you freeze or boil - Uncomfortable and unhealthy desks/chairs - Often lack of proper screens/equipment - Getting squeezed in trains to commute - spending at best an extra hour per day - Unhealthy and expensive dietary options around work - Contamination of diseases -…

See I think the issue is the design of offices have become shit. Less and less space per employee and no privacy. It’s abhorrent, and it is this design philosophy that people are primarily raging against.

Hot desking? It is laughably inhumane that anyone thought people would be happy with this.

Re: The Birth and Death of the Office

#58

Post by waynesonfire »

lizknope wrote: post #25

I had an office with a door for 12 years. I switched jobs 3 years ago and everyone has a cubicle even the managers. Constant distractions with people talking loudly on conference calls. Then someone else talks even louder on their call. Before covid our site was mostly working on the same project. There was some fun collaboration in the conference room around white boards etc. We had a reorg to pool resources across…

Mm interesting.. I wonder if an office would entice me to go back.

Re: The Birth and Death of the Office

#59

Post by waynesonfire »

dijit wrote: post #38
lizknope wrote: post #25

I had an office with a door for 12 years. I switched jobs 3 years ago and everyone has a cubicle even the managers. Constant distractions with people talking loudly on conference calls. Then someone else talks even louder on their call. Before covid our site was mostly working on the same project. There was some fun collaboration in the conference room around white boards etc. We had a reorg to pool resources across…

I worked in open offices for 10 years. I’d kill for a cubicle. Everyone is different of course but open offices, lack of visual privacy, lack of personal space, it just drains me.

Yeah, the bean counters really dug themselves in with the open office cost saving strategy. Just makes the office that much worse.

Re: The Birth and Death of the Office

#60

Post by thwarted »

dijit wrote: post #42
thwarted wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I miss offices in reasonable locations. Instead they're all in the same 6-8 cities... The majority of the US population lives in the same 6-8 metro areas; so it's "reasonable" to put offices in those metro areas. I've worked at places with offices in downtown areas (short public transit ride or walk), in close suburbs (the extent to where public transit goes), and in remote suburbs (that require driving to get ther…

> The majority of the US population lives in the same 6-8 metro areas; so it's "reasonable" to put offices in those metro areas. Isn’t this self-reinforcing though? I moved to london because there were no jobs for people like me _anywhere_ else near where I came from. Thus, I contributed to the problem. When I broached the topic some years later with a company, they said that they moved to london because that’s where…

What's "the problem" that you contributed to? That humans are social animals and that as a group they are stronger than the sum of the individuals? I supposed by not starting your own business outside of London to cater to people like you where you came from does contribute to there not being businesses outside of London. But I'm not sure why that matters. You're only beating yourself up for not doing that and for moving to London.

All else being equal, neither the workers nor the employer has the time to wait around existing in a place where they can't get work or find employees, respectively, waiting for the other to arrive. An empty night club is just as much fun as a loner hanging out at the Circle K: no one wants to go to an empty night club, and no one is going to open a night club in a location just because people loiter there. It's about momentum, there's nothing wrong with a positive feedback cycle. The self-reinforcing is the cause of the continued and sustained congregation, because it makes it easier, more flexible, and reduces risk for all parties. Being in metro areas (traditionally) creates significant buffer and reduces risk significantly for both the employee and employer in terms of availability of prospects.

That both sides of a transaction have realized it's efficient to meet at the (defacto) marketplace (metro areas) in order to successfully and easily transact business (being employed/employing people) isn't lamentable self-fulfilling; it's descriptive of the state of how people interact and that the true value of a network is the connections, not the nodes.

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