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‘It’s Not My Responsibility’ to Save the Office Economy

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Re: ‘It’s Not My Responsibility’ to Save the Office Economy

#101

Post by Balgair »

glitcher wrote: post #26

“Everything from daycare to public transportation, toll roads, fuel and fuel taxes, auto purchases and maintenance, dry cleaners, nail spas, restaurants, clothiers, hair stylists, dog walkers, nannies and office leases suffer when people work from home,” Sounds to me like more households get to retain more of their income (and time) as a result. And that extra money will end up back in the economy albeit in different…

Anything that can change the god-awful situation of daycare in the US has my vote. I can't see how it can get any worse.

Re: ‘It’s Not My Responsibility’ to Save the Office Economy

#102

Post by fullshark »

voisin wrote: post #42
bluefishinit wrote: post #6

It feels like RTO is quickly evaporating the leverage these big companies temporarily created with their mass layoffs. I think the plan was to create a poor labor market so they could demand RTO. Well, it looks like the majority of the industry is calling their bluff and refusing to go back to the office regardless of the threat of unemployment. The tech job market seems to be rejuvenating so I think if people couldn…

This seems like wishful thinking to me. It seems to me like more companies are enforcing hybrid, starting with 1 day a week, then 2, and now many are at 3. Maybe there’s a plateau somewhere, but purely remote seems to have lost a lot of steam.

For big tech maybe, but if you are a smaller startup / company it's a godsend, you can finally get elite talent at a lower cost without spending a fortune on an office in a major hub.

Re: ‘It’s Not My Responsibility’ to Save the Office Economy

#103

Post by HDThoreaun »

Balgair wrote: post #101
glitcher wrote: post #26

“Everything from daycare to public transportation, toll roads, fuel and fuel taxes, auto purchases and maintenance, dry cleaners, nail spas, restaurants, clothiers, hair stylists, dog walkers, nannies and office leases suffer when people work from home,” Sounds to me like more households get to retain more of their income (and time) as a result. And that extra money will end up back in the economy albeit in different…

Anything that can change the god-awful situation of daycare in the US has my vote. I can't see how it can get any worse.

Biden tried to pass universal daycare. Rejected by Manchin

Re: ‘It’s Not My Responsibility’ to Save the Office Economy

#104

Post by HDThoreaun »

dangus wrote: post #75
glitcher wrote: post #26

“Everything from daycare to public transportation, toll roads, fuel and fuel taxes, auto purchases and maintenance, dry cleaners, nail spas, restaurants, clothiers, hair stylists, dog walkers, nannies and office leases suffer when people work from home,” Sounds to me like more households get to retain more of their income (and time) as a result. And that extra money will end up back in the economy albeit in different…

Most of these examples don’t even suffer very much. Roads don’t “suffer” from disuse, their maintenance costs go down. People who work at home still need child and sometimes even pet care, working from home doesn’t mean you’re magically able to watch your children and work at the same time. People don’t get their hair and nails done to please coworkers. Dry cleaners are already on their last legs due to changing fash…

> People don’t get their hair and nails done to please coworkers.

I certainly do, or did before I started remote.

Re: ‘It’s Not My Responsibility’ to Save the Office Economy

#105

Post by eddieroger »

hardware2win wrote: post #97
dangus wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these examples don’t even suffer very much. Roads don’t “suffer” from disuse, their maintenance costs go down. People who work at home still need child and sometimes even pet care, working from home doesn’t mean you’re magically able to watch your children and work at the same time. People don’t get their hair and nails done to please coworkers. Dry cleaners are already on their last legs due to changing fash…

Id say it differently: Money moves from centers to outside

I'd also say it louder. These services used to be centered around offices and urban centers like that, and while it may just move, that will impact where the services were. At a macro level, it's a net-zero change, but to the mayor of the city with the downtown, it hurts to see the business leave for adjacent suburbs, which are different cities with different mayors. Incentives given to businesses for bringing people downtown go away. Poor real estate population brings different people to the area, which can increase crime.

To be clear, that's still not our problem as employees, but they are concerns and potentially reasons for the return to office push.

Re: ‘It’s Not My Responsibility’ to Save the Office Economy

#106

Post by HDThoreaun »

po8tin wrote: post #62
davewritescode wrote: post #43

I think full time work in the office is 100% dead and buried. It's never coming back for people who have enough skills to leverage that kind of arrangement. I think the first place we need to start is there. Most of us are NEVER going back to 5 days a week in the office. However, most of the folks complaining about return to work I've noticed are senior people who have enough skills to perform their job and don't req…

“…however younger employees greatly benefit from in person learning and mentoring.” Doesn’t require a permanent office. Temp cowork spaces or bundling working with a career mentor in the final stretch of college are two options I just thought of laying in bed while also thinking about making coffee. More of the same is not an option for all the cost-benefit analysis that’s come up before. Prior to world war industria…

You want to go back to when 90% of people were subsistence farmers on the verge of starving?

Re: ‘It’s Not My Responsibility’ to Save the Office Economy

#107

Post by HDThoreaun »

goeiedaggoeie wrote: post #77
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Ask any remote worker if they’d go back to the office and most would say no. Ask them if the office was within walking distance and most probably wouldn’t mind.

My office is 7 minutes on my bicycle. I work from home where I have a better screen setup, privacy, instead of having to shuffle into a cubicle to make calls. I cycle to the office to have a beer with some colleagues every few weeks on an agreed date and we meet there when we have to do some deep planning. Day to day my house is so much better

You can't get a good screen setup at your office?

Re: ‘It’s Not My Responsibility’ to Save the Office Economy

#108

Post by HDThoreaun »

DonsDiscountGas wrote: post #84
amathyst wrote: post #73

There seems to be such a strong anti-RTO/pro-remote sentiment on HN. I don’t hold that against anyone: if you prefer working from home, then I’m happy for you! But here’s another take: I’m a software engineer and I love working from the office. I enjoy my 40 minute commute (on sunny days I ride a bike and on rainy days I read a book on the train). I enjoy the separation in my life between where I work and where I liv…

I understand feeling this way if the company actually closed the office so you literally could not go in. But even remote-friendly places typically have an office which is big enough for the people that go, so you'd still have company even if plenty of people were remote. I understand why some people like RTO (even though I'm not one of them), I don't understand why they have such hostility towards the WFH folks.

People that want RTO usually want it because they believe it enables better collaboration. But that's only possible if the people they want to collaborate with are also at the office. I wouldn't call it hostility, there are just different philosophies about how to be productive.

Re: ‘It’s Not My Responsibility’ to Save the Office Economy

#109

Post by pg_1234 »

po8tin wrote: post #62
davewritescode wrote: post #43

I think full time work in the office is 100% dead and buried. It's never coming back for people who have enough skills to leverage that kind of arrangement. I think the first place we need to start is there. Most of us are NEVER going back to 5 days a week in the office. However, most of the folks complaining about return to work I've noticed are senior people who have enough skills to perform their job and don't req…

“…however younger employees greatly benefit from in person learning and mentoring.” Doesn’t require a permanent office. Temp cowork spaces or bundling working with a career mentor in the final stretch of college are two options I just thought of laying in bed while also thinking about making coffee. More of the same is not an option for all the cost-benefit analysis that’s come up before. Prior to world war industria…

People who have the skills to leverage a permanent WFO arrangement, actually benefit from a breakdown in mentoring.

Whatever sob story they may spin you, the ONLY thing corporations care about in the mentoring relationship is upskilling cheap juniors so they can replace their expensive mentors.

With a mentoring breakdown the seniors will stop getting sucked dry and fired at 50.

They become irreplaceable assets all the way through to retirement.

Re: ‘It’s Not My Responsibility’ to Save the Office Economy

#110

Post by HDThoreaun »

themaninthedark wrote: post #91
jeffbee wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every clause of your post is false. There was not a mass exodus from cities during COVID. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/12/16/in-2020-f... Urban people do not look down on rural people. It’s the opposite. Rural people are the most likely to hold negative opinions about people who live in other situations, and urban dwellers are the least likely. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/how-…

I appreciate the data! However on the second point, I will note that I don't know of any term used recently by rural communities to describe urban dwelling. City Slickers being the only term that I know but have never heard or seen written in news. "Flyover Country" is thrown about often however. Especially around election time and regarding how they are controlling to much of the country's politics.

"coastal elite" I guess. The entire trumpist movement is built on the back of negative feelings toward urban dwellers.
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