The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity • Hacker News Board

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#61

Post by metalspot » Sun, Aug 13, 2023, 6:14 PM UTC

VirusNewbie wrote: post #9

I don’t really buy the argument. If commercial RE crashes, that means what, people take a 20% haircut on converting the buildings to condos and/or just selling for the value of the land? We are still seeing unprecedented housing shortages, which puts a pretty high floor on how much l “downtown” land values will crash.

SF office buildings are selling at 60-70% off in some cases. I don't think anywhere else is as bad, but still probably worse than 20%.

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/downtown-sf-office-bu... https://www.globest.com/2023/06/07/wells-fargo-sells-san-fra...

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#62

Post by oblio » Sun, Aug 13, 2023, 6:14 PM UTC

lagniappe wrote: post #44

kubb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds about right, my manager enjoys tennis, frequent coffee breaks, one or two light meetings, and he activates with out of touch "ideas" in the last hour of the day. It's ridiculous.

I thought this type of stuff only existed in movies. Just curious, can you elaborate at all? I'm wondering if I'm just blind to this stuff assuming everyone else is nose-to-the-grindstone all day too.

There are definitely a lot of managers like this.

Individual contributors, too, but those have a much harder time hiding.

An extrovert schmoozer can afford to not work that much as a manager for a long time.

Just join meetings, write some short docs, etc.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#63

Post by roncesvalles » Sun, Aug 13, 2023, 6:14 PM UTC

vasco wrote: post #51

roncesvalles wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your job isn't remote, it can also be offshored for 1/10 the cost - just get an office building. The arbitrage from offshoring is much narrower than most people think. You mostly get what you pay for and companies can easily waste a lot of money and time trying to go the low-cost more-employees route.

That's not true, the amount of US based scale-up jobs in Europe has risen a lot in the last couple of years also bringing up compensation at the top end to a bit higher than you used to be able to get here.

What's not true?

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#64

Post by dehrmann » Sun, Aug 13, 2023, 6:15 PM UTC

skwirl wrote: post #24

How are "the elite" forcing companies that do not own real estate and who rent their office space to mandate RTO? How are they forcing these companies to renew their leases when they expire?

Even companies that do own commercial real estate but aren't in that business must see it as a sunk cost and that employees are volunteering to provide their own office space for free.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#65

Post by SubiculumCode » Sun, Aug 13, 2023, 6:15 PM UTC

the real war against remote work is coming from middle management who can no longer hide under the 'I keep them in line' mantra. Corps have become bloated by too little competition (e.g. from mergers) or collusion, toxic departmental politics, etc. We could lose half of middle management and pay the lowest tier more AND be more producive and profitable in many corps.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#66

Post by akudha » Sun, Aug 13, 2023, 6:15 PM UTC

sundaeofshock wrote: post #3

8b16380d wrote: post #2

What recourse do we as workers have? We can soft boycott and quit/stop applying to onsite positions, but there are hundreds of thousands willing and able to take these positions.

Unions.

Yup. And electing people to office with at least an iota of conscience. One area the current admin is better than the previous one - labor issues. Not perfect (they screwed the railway workers) but better

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#67

Post by ghaff » Sun, Aug 13, 2023, 6:15 PM UTC

jarjoura wrote: post #43

CPLX wrote: post #15

This article makes no sense. I mean I'm all for a little elite run the world consipiracy theory but really, I'm supposed to think that a diffuse group of corporate leaders are upending companies so they can spend more on real estate going forward, for class solidarity reasons? The reason people running companies want to end or curtail remote work is because it's very fucking challenging to run a group of people remot…

It's bizarre to me how religious this conversation has become. I'm not sure why people are behaving like it's either 100% remote or 100% in the office, and they are locked in a cage. There are PLENTY of companies who have decided to become fully remote and remain that way indefinitely. If remote opportunities are important to you and your lifestyle, there are plenty of options for you. Otherwise, I haven't heard of a…

>I'm not sure why people are behaving like it's either 100% remote or 100% in the office, and they are locked in a cage.

A lot of people have very strong personal preferences (though probably mostly not 100% in person) and they're worried that you'll have a boiling the frog slide towards some outcome they really don't want even if they'd be OK with a more nuanced version.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#68

Post by dools » Sun, Aug 13, 2023, 6:15 PM UTC

skwirl wrote: post #24

How are "the elite" forcing companies that do not own real estate and who rent their office space to mandate RTO? How are they forcing these companies to renew their leases when they expire?

Yeah I don’t think elon musk is sipping whisky with his landlord and the small business chamber of commerce of downtown palo alto or wherever the “X” office is conspiring to bring the workers back into the office.

He’s just a myopic asshole.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#69

Post by pengaru » Sun, Aug 13, 2023, 6:15 PM UTC

skwirl wrote: post #24

How are "the elite" forcing companies that do not own real estate and who rent their office space to mandate RTO? How are they forcing these companies to renew their leases when they expire?

Maybe funding sources are saying "if our real estate hedges implode your funding dries up, get your workers back in town and spreading our money around"

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#70

Post by mistrial9 » Sun, Aug 13, 2023, 6:16 PM UTC

itronitron wrote: post #38

As for myself, I'd prefer to not bail out commercial real estate in order to prop up the economies of major metropolitan areas that will be inundated with sea water in the next decade. I think we can do better.

close but slight correction.. sea-level rise in 15 years has gone from "cuckoo topic" to carefully monitored via centralized systems with leadership meetings. The best information that I can gather to date suggests that a) active port cities will deploy enough resources to roll with the changes, even if they are very expensive; b) large metropolitan areas generally will do the same, despite large costs; c) there is an unexpected threat to underground sewer and dry infrastructure, due to rising water tables; d) many places that do not have a lot of economics, really will go under water slowly.

Given the track record, a wager that there will be giant bailouts requested is almost a certain win, and that some portion of those bailouts will accompany graft-corruption under the covers. Lots of built infrastructure that was expensive to build in its' day, but not crucial now, will be lost to water.