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The Birth and Death of the Office

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Re: The Birth and Death of the Office

#81

Post by j7ake »

travisgriggs wrote: post #79
greggman3 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend what has a company with ~20 employees. During COVID they all went WFH. After 12 months or so they announced they'd stay WFH forever and closed the office. 9 months later the president and office manager got new office. They realized they were more productive together than separated, more productive at a dedicated work space than at home with all the distractions, family, kids. They were also happier t…

This mirrors my work experience over the years somewhat. I had a pretty unique experience as a college student when I was permitted to take one of the company’s HP 720 workstations with me two states away and work remotely. I used dial up and kermit to transfer files. It was very exciting at first. I did engineering up at campus, worked at home, consuming all of tiny toons and animaniacs while I worked on nuclear fue…

Thanks for your stories. If you were to start a company from scratch today, how would you organise and divide work from home versus office ?

Re: The Birth and Death of the Office

#82

Post by Roritharr »

travisgriggs wrote: post #79
greggman3 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend what has a company with ~20 employees. During COVID they all went WFH. After 12 months or so they announced they'd stay WFH forever and closed the office. 9 months later the president and office manager got new office. They realized they were more productive together than separated, more productive at a dedicated work space than at home with all the distractions, family, kids. They were also happier t…

This mirrors my work experience over the years somewhat. I had a pretty unique experience as a college student when I was permitted to take one of the company’s HP 720 workstations with me two states away and work remotely. I used dial up and kermit to transfer files. It was very exciting at first. I did engineering up at campus, worked at home, consuming all of tiny toons and animaniacs while I worked on nuclear fue…

> I hated that I felt like I worked half time all the time. I could step out of work any little minute. But every little minute, work was only an “open up the laptop in the office” away. It was like being an on call dad and an on call worker simultaneously 100% of the time.

This describes my current situation 100%. It feels both my duties at home and in the office are exaggerating themselves because I am seemingly available to both of them all the time. This is surely in large part my fault, but I struggle with finding solutions to this that don't create stress for my family.

Re: The Birth and Death of the Office

#83

Post by Joeri »

ciphol wrote: post #72
aylmao wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It is inherently impossible for most people to walk/bike to an office job, that is not due to a choice of urban design. The point of office jobs, and cities in general, is that agglomerating huge numbers of people lets you choose workers from a larger pool, which leads to more specialization and higher productivity. These huge numbers of people will need to live across a large area, so wherever you put the office, at…

That’s in a mindset where workers are interchangeable and change employers often, and employers make no effort to cluster together. You could also have a model where workers specialize within either a single company for life (japanese model) or a cluster of geographically near companies doing the same line of work (silicon valley model) and they choose to live near this location. New employers in the same line of work would then choose this site specifically because of the nearby workers.

I think the challenge is not with the specialized workers, but with the lower paid staff. The cleaners, the cooks, the maintenance crew, the guards. They won’t be able to afford to live near such places because they get displaced by specialized workers, and then they’re stuck in a commuting model.

Re: The Birth and Death of the Office

#84

Post by zelos »

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.

I agree - in a UK open office I’m maybe 2 metres from a coworker if we both squeezed to opposite ends of our desks.

Headphones are the only way to get any work done. Our US colleagues have acres of space in comparison.

Re: The Birth and Death of the Office

#85

Post by Joeri »

999900000999 wrote: post #31
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…

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…

Most modern cities would collapse as well.

Cities have much more to offer than office work. Restaurants, entertainment, shops, museums, sights. People that choose to live in the city often choose for those amenities, not a nearness to the office. Getting rid of offices might actually lead to a city that is denser with those attractive activities and therefore more welcoming for people to move there and enjoy those activities.

Re: The Birth and Death of the Office

#86

Post by ciphol »

rhexs wrote: post #5
dnndev wrote: post #2

I miss the office.

I miss offices in reasonable locations. Instead they're all in the same 6-8 cities that all have increasingly bad homeless populations. No, I don't want to live in the Bay, New York City, Boston, Austin, or Denver. Please create small satellite offices in reasonable cities instead of mega campuses in towns that all seem to have public libraries that are now defacto homeless shelters. Tech imports most of the talent t…

All the good jobs are in 6-8 cities because large cities have agglomeration effects that make them inherently more productive.

The homelessness is simply a result of high housing prices [1] which in turn are the result of restrictive zoning. Remove restrictive zoning laws and most of the homelessness will go away.

[1] https://twitter.com/aaronAcarr/status/1515774019685036033

Re: The Birth and Death of the Office

#87

Post by ciphol »

Joeri wrote: post #83
ciphol wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is inherently impossible for most people to walk/bike to an office job, that is not due to a choice of urban design. The point of office jobs, and cities in general, is that agglomerating huge numbers of people lets you choose workers from a larger pool, which leads to more specialization and higher productivity. These huge numbers of people will need to live across a large area, so wherever you put the office, at…

That’s in a mindset where workers are interchangeable and change employers often, and employers make no effort to cluster together. You could also have a model where workers specialize within either a single company for life (japanese model) or a cluster of geographically near companies doing the same line of work (silicon valley model) and they choose to live near this location. New employers in the same line of wor…

Working in one place for life is very economically inefficient for any intellectual work. Eventually there will be a company that would get more value out of you, and therefore is willing to pay you more, but you won't be able to take the job.

Clusters of companies already exist. One is Manhattan where finance jobs are concentrated, another (like you say) is Silicon Valley where tech jobs are concentrated. In both, the workers choose to live across a vast area.

Re: The Birth and Death of the Office

#88

Post by sam_bristow »

jjav wrote: post #73
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…

> Full tin foil hat time, if remote work was the norm the entire commercial real estate sector would collapse. They just need to slightly change focus. People still need a place to work even if remote. Instead of trying to rent out that 20Ksqft building to some corporation, start renting out individual private offices within that building to people nearby who need a place to work remotely that's not their couch. I've…

Just curious, do you pay for this small office out of your pocket or does your employer subsidize it?

Or are you self-employed?

Re: The Birth and Death of the Office

#89

Post by Gollapalli »

I almost think the solution would be to have people live in apartments in the cities during the week and have them go out to a larger place in the countryside on the weekends. Maybe have a 4 day workweek and have that be the rhythm of life.

Homeownership wouldn't be about a glorified cubicle in the suburbs, but about landwonership proper. Apartments could be treated as the temporary "live near work/in the city" thing that they are, and the city could be a walkable mixed-use environment meant to support this overall rhythm of life.

Re: The Birth and Death of the Office

#90

Post by distances »

999900000999 wrote: post #64
alistairSH wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Correct, but where's all that trillion dollar commercial real estate going ? Cities don't have much of a reason to exist, at least not in their current form, with WFH.

> Cities don't have much of a reason to exist, at least not in their current form, with WFH.

Are you assuming people would rather live in suburbs and countryside then? I would definitely still live in the city, and my first thought of offices closing was "great, more space for residential buildings".

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