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

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

#131

Post by PaulHoule »

The politics of entitlement plays large in cities.

The LIRR thinks that commuters exist to fund the LIRR, not that they exist to serve commuters. (Sometimes that seems true about public transit everywhere. Similar changing the psychology of this could be transformational.)

I remember a state assemblywomen from Queens who thought that, to protect jobs, NY state should subsidize off track betting, not even the racetrack!

Some people in urban areas who are paying $90 a month for 10x the bandwidth speed I pay $240 a month for think they are paying too much. In principle their "last mile" might be 20 feet as opposed to my 2000 feet. The trouble is that 20 feet will cost as much to cover because of all the palms they have to grease to cover it (landlords, unions, community groups, etc.) Contrast that to a rural area where people will grease the skids for you.

(Try to shoot a movie outdoors in Los Angeles and you'll need to get permits to file your permits. Try to do it in Alamaba and your neighbors will bake cookies for you!)

In an environment like this it is like getting off the BART in San Francisco. You just walk straight ahead, keep moving, don't make eye contact with anybody. One of the few things people can agree upon in the entitlement economy is that don't way to pay any taxes they can possibly avoid.

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

#132

Post by xiphias2 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #41
bperki8 wrote: post #29

The "elites"? That's a funny term for people who own commercial real estate.

> The “elites”? That’s a funny term for people who own commercial real estate You think commercial real estate isn’t disproportionately owned, directly or indirectly, by the narrow haut bourgeoisie ?

I think it may be a lot of pension funds, where the choice was made by the fund managers, not the asset owners.

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

#133

Post by warning26 »

ben_w wrote: post #130
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?

In principle it could be straight up targeted propaganda "making" the bosses do that. I have no idea if the reality is more that, or more the banal "nobody is organising anything like this and suggestions to the contrary are just conspiracy theories, the bosses genuinely believe what they're saying". I currently have a boss who appears to sincerely want people back in the office; he doesn't want to be the CEO of a 10…

I feel like often article-writers miss the fact of people like your boss: some people just legitimately like being in an office and there's no conspiracy to speak of.

As someone who likes being in an office, I personally feel that everyone becoming permanent WFH basement gremlins is a bad thing overall. Human contact is a good thing, and my observations of people who are 100% WFH is that they almost never interact with anyone outside of their household.

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

#134

Post by motohagiography »

Is there similar derivatives exposure on those commercial real estate loans as there was to residential mortgages in 2007/8? I've been thinking that there will be a a blackmail/chicken play, where the banks with the exposure to the loans say to government, "here are what we say the consequences are if these loans go upside down. Your choice is between another bank bailout on these loans with real domestic unrest risk from consequent currency debasement and the ability to import food and other staple goods, or effectively legislating most people back into offices."

I lived in commercial warehouse spaces in the 90s, and not only were they cheap, huge, and awesome, but they created a condo boom for all those pretend "lofts," that cashed in on the cachet of that lifestyle our generation inspired. If the bulk of your personal net worth comes from flipping some 600sq' shoebox for almost a million dollars, you're welcome. The middle ground may be that landlords will turn a blind eye to live-ins again, and it will create some affordable housing for young people again, and with their influx, the downtowns can be revitalized from the globalized airport mall dead zones they have become. I think there's room for optimism.

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

#135

Post by kelnos »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #74
brentm wrote: post #32

Bad take. There are plenty of dumb reasons people are wanted back at the office but the most predominant one is probably that it just "feels like" it will make your company better. I'd think people would be happy that at least some remote work will never go away at this point. To argue that you should never ever even have to consider going back into an office for any amount of time is just silly. But to also argue yo…

our lab just got dinged by an employee who was trying to hold got another full time job on the down low....something that would have been caught if the work was in person.

Sure, that happens. But if you think that's actually a significant problem (significant enough to abandon all the benefits of allowing workers to work from home), you're gonna need more than an n=1 anecdote to support that take.

And regardless, that sort of thing happens even when employees work in an office. People can certainly get a part time side gig and do that work from their main job's office. Maybe a little more likely to get caught, but it's far from impossible.

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

#136

Post by davidw »

camgunz wrote: post #127
chanakya wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, there are all sorts of problems with capitalism. But as Churchill said about democracy, it the worst form of economic organization except for all the others that have been tried from time to time.

Eh I would say Socialism as practiced in Western Europe and the Nordics is doing better. They're out doing the US in most important metrics, and they're trending more Socialist (though we'll see what intensifying climate migration and other climate change consequences bring).

Anyone who thinks that, say, Denmark is not a mixed economy with a strong bit of capitalism as well as a strong social safety net has never dealt with a kid who wants to buy lots of Lego.

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

#137

Post by manuelabeledo »

warning26 wrote: post #133
ben_w wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle it could be straight up targeted propaganda "making" the bosses do that. I have no idea if the reality is more that, or more the banal "nobody is organising anything like this and suggestions to the contrary are just conspiracy theories, the bosses genuinely believe what they're saying". I currently have a boss who appears to sincerely want people back in the office; he doesn't want to be the CEO of a 10…

I feel like often article-writers miss the fact of people like your boss: some people just legitimately like being in an office and there's no conspiracy to speak of. As someone who likes being in an office, I personally feel that everyone becoming permanent WFH basement gremlins is a bad thing overall. Human contact is a good thing , and my observations of people who are 100% WFH is that they almost never interact w…

> As someone who likes being in an office, I personally feel that everyone becoming permanent WFH basement gremlins is a bad thing overall

Good thing that there are these things called friends, which usually aren’t forced on people like work colleagues are.

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

#139

Post by davidw »

camgunz wrote: post #118
davidw wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of an "Ugh, Capitalism" take - https://www.infinitescroll.us/p/ugh-capitalism

Weren't people right about this though? Institutionalized racism and sexism was everywhere, neoliberalism created the most unequal society since the era we unironically call "the robber-baron era", the carceral system is truly heinous (the ban on weed alone was just a joke), etc etc etc.

Things like racism and sexism are very real problems, but not some key component of "capitalism".
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