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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

#271

Post by gdubs »

xyzelement wrote: post #225

The "article" rehashes the well repeated meme about propping up commercial real estate, with the only callout to productivity being the authors own self admitted "bullshit job". My counter would be as someone who is loving WFH as a new dad, it is obvious to me that as a group, teams are less productive when not face to face even though individuals may think they are crushing it. This is obvious to many people I talk…

"Vibes for me, data for thee".

People lean heavily on anecdotes when it comes to worker productivity. But actual data is much more nuanced on the matter.

People seem to have completely forgotten how worker productivity actually went up a noticeable amount during a time when most people were working at home – and under some very unusual circumstances mind you – and actually began declining after restrictions ended and companies started asking people to return on a hybrid or full-time basis.

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

#272

Post by NotYourLawyer »

rsynnott wrote: post #238

This is a very popular idea, but it doesn’t make a huge amount of _sense_. Most office-oriented employers don’t own much if any real estate; they lease it. And unless they’re really huge, what _they_ do has very little influence on the price of real estate generally; they’ve no individual incentive here. Arguably a mild counter—incentive; it’s generally to their benefit, as renters of real estate, if future real-esta…

People want to see “the elites” as one homogeneous cabal out to protect themselves at the expense of the little guy. In reality, it’s a bunch of self-interested individuals whose incentives don’t overlap here. The companies using office space have no reason to waste money helping out their landlords, and would much rather profit by screwing them over.

As you say, this theory does not make much sense.

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

#273

Post by galangalalgol »

1attice wrote: post #249
galangalalgol wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legally, doesn't a conspiracy require proof of communication? I think that communication can be indirect or even negative in nature, but it has to be there. But if everyone that owns commercial real estate has lower margins, that would eventually lower property taxes for such properties, which hurts city revenue. City planners can connect the dots and push for rto, no communication necessary.

I could be wrong here but I don't read this as a claim of conspiracy. To my mind, this is more a systems-level description of currents in capital. Yes, there's a clickbaity headline about 'elites', but if you think more in terms of wealth doing things of its own accord (similar to how e.g. Dawkins got us talking about selfish genes -- selfish dollars?) then this observation might cash out after all. That said, I do a…

It would almost be better if it required orchestration. Maximizing profit is an idea, and ideas are bulletproof....

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

#274

Post by camgunz »

rhaway84773 wrote: post #251
deet wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is not well argued, yes. But there is direct evidence that politicians are influencing corporations to alter return to office policies: - Mayor of SF asking businesses to pledge to implement RTO policies: https://sfist.com/2022/03/03/mayor-breed-would-like-you-back... - Mayor of NYC basically doing the same: https://archive.is/si6xd

Neither mayor has any power to affect this. Further, the SF link is from March of last year. The WFH push didn’t start until earlier this year, coinciding with the softening job market.

Of course they do, permits, fines, taxes, etc. Remember when Amazon was shopping cities for HQ2? Just think of that in reverse.

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

#275

Post by nathias »

egl2021 wrote: post #253
nathias wrote: post #160

personally I can do about 2x-4x of the work remotely compared to working in office

Can your boss tell? If they can, then you have no problem. If they can't, then you have a problem. This is the other side of "I'm so much more productive with WFH". Everyone who values WFH should be asking themselves how they will help their company measure productivity. Over time companies will find new ways to manage productivity, possibly by restructuring work to make measurement easier even if the tasks have to c…

well, I have 2x the capacity of guys in office with the same hours...

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

#276

Post by brandonmenc »

To everyone pointing out there is no "conspiracy" here:

In the mid-size city I live in, I hear small business owners and local execs worried all the time about how a commercial real estate crash would send us into recession.

The systemic consequences - real or imagined - are very much top of mind for all the - real or imagined - decision makers. They feel like it's their duty to steer this ship for the greater good. The attitude is nearly lock-step.

I'd take a painful recession today if it means I still don't have to go into the office a decade from now. Rip the band-aid off.

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

#277

Post by bobthepanda »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #252
bobthepanda wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking one major reason is that union representatives are also on company boards in the Europe. This gives them skin in the game and also the same knowledge that gets shared to the rest of the board. And they generally err on the side of employment; American unions have threatened, and successfully, brought down companies that ceased to be a going concern due to demanding unreasonable concessions. (See: Y…

>But German unions are also very subservient given their tacit approvals of things like Agenda 2010. My point exactly. Unions aren't here to fight for even better working conditions for you like mandatory WFH for everyone, but just to overwatch to make sure the company adheres to existing labor regulations. That's it. So yeah, unions are relatively toothless and the QoL and the living standards of the working class i…

Unions can do whatever they set their mind to, and whatever their membership elects to do.

Like humanity itself and other broad categories, saying as a matter of fact that unions can’t do X, when some unions do X, is pretty asinine, almost as much as lumping more than 3B people into “Asians” or other useless categorizations. Particularly if the article doesn’t mention a country of origin being Germany.

You don’t even have to look very far from Germany to find a union negotiating WFH.

https://rfi.fr/en/france/20201205-why-france-is-struggling-t...

https://today.rtl.lu/news/luxembourg/a/1993852.html

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

#278

Post by Clent »

tremon wrote: post #248
xyzelement wrote: post #225

The "article" rehashes the well repeated meme about propping up commercial real estate, with the only callout to productivity being the authors own self admitted "bullshit job". My counter would be as someone who is loving WFH as a new dad, it is obvious to me that as a group, teams are less productive when not face to face even though individuals may think they are crushing it. This is obvious to many people I talk…

it is obvious to me that as a group, teams are less productive when not face to face Less productive, compared to what though? In most offices I've seen cubicles and open-plan spaces reign supreme, along with flex-desk policies. Which means that even when all team members are in the office, they are not working face to face. So while you may be correct that teams could be more productive if they're all in the same sp…

I find myself knowing so much less about the day-to-day personal lives of my co-workers.

Perhaps this is what people are referring to as team productivity?

Do some people work better as a team with that personal bond? That would result in a measured change but it would be foolish to expand it to all teams, which makes it all the more plausible why some companies are pushing hard for return to office.

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

#279

Post by mindslight »

Kamq wrote: post #223
camgunz wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are important differences between Denmark and the US though. Aren't we saying the same thing?

> There are important differences between Denmark and the US though. On the human level, sure. On the level of "fundamental economic system" (which is, I believe, the line of discussion), there really aren't. They're both WEIRD countries with market based-economies and a social safety net. They both end up at the top of the lists on economic power (adjusted for population). The differences between them are political…

> On the human level, sure. On the level of "fundamental economic system" (which is, I believe, the line of discussion), there really aren't.

One of the problems with this whole "debate" is that defenders of the status quo apply a huge motte and bailey to the definition of "capitalism". Both strawmanning any criticism of it as a rejection of all aspects claimed by capitalism, and also giving capitalism credit for systems that share some aspects of capitalism even though they haven't gone all-in and let capital run roughshod over everything else.

This dynamic is so common it has become a trope - kneejerk cries of "socialism". The original link that kicked off this comment tree was basically doing the same thing in more words.

The distinction between the motte and the bailey is easiest to see when aspects that we associate with capitalism end up in direct opposition to capitalism itself. For example, free markets can be directly opposed to capitalism, like in the context of imaginary property. A capital-centric view says that inventing a new form of capital out of whole cloth is the right thing to do. A market-centric view says that competition should drive the cost of information to within an epsilon of the copying/distribution cost.

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

#280

Post by Clent »

PaulHoule wrote: post #131

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 racetra…

You've managed to turn this into a city vs rural problem. Of course your prefer side, rural comes out on top!

What a coincidence.

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