[flagged]
Right, counter a conspiracy theory with another conspiracy theory...
The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
71–80 of 301 posts
Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve long suspected it’s a PR campaign/propaganda and talking points aimed directly at the c suite class. A lot of people with a lot of money stand to lose a lot. Banks, investors, retirement funds… Start circulating studies showing people working multiple remote jobs at once, steer thinking around company culture, normalize it through repetition, send out talking points. Eventually dominos will start failing.
If it would be bad for people's pension funds and such, shouldn't it be everyone's interest to actually keep showing up to prop up those real estate values?
No.
Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#73Ok, so which “elites” are holding real estate portfolios and creating these stories in the media bashing remote work? Who are they? I don’t think the world is so coordinated. Some people made a bad bet on real estate. Some other people want to write click bait pieces about lazy workers. Some other corporate leaders are scared that employees are goofing off outside the office (because productivity can’t be measured fo…
> I don’t think the world is so coordinated. The "think tanks" that are pre staffed and fully capable of churning out and placing 3x major long form articles per week that are pro or con {Subject X} (and an additional few that fence sit and are "just asking questions") already exist and have been about since at least Nine out of Ten Doctors Recommend Smoking . You know, 5+ decades ago. The "elites" that are losing mo…
Can you link some think tank pieces arguing against remote work? I tried looking but couldn't find any. I found a few things but clearly none of these are part of an anti remote work effort:
an AEI interview https://www.aei.org/workforce-development/the-future-of-remo... which seems pretty balanced overall (and doesn't take a prescriptive position)
an AEI piece https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/the-trade-offs-... which seems pretty balanced too
a Heritage piece (from early in Covid) https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/labor-policy-... that seems mostly bullish on remote work (but mostly focuses on other issues, like labor rights)
a McKinsey report (also from fairly early in Covid) https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/wh... which is mostly descriptive and also seems pretty balanced
a Cato piece https://www.cato.org/commentary/remote-work-here-stay-mostly... which argues in favor of remote work
Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#74I’ve heard this argument before and I don’t buy it. By that, I mean it may be true (that people want to prop up real estate prices), but I don’t think that this is enough of an explanation. If it were just about real estate, then Amazon would not be calling for 5 days a week return-to-office. I don’t think real estate interests are powerful enough to push Amazon around and I don’t think they’re entrenched enough in A…
My theory, which is kind of informed by what I saw it play out in my company: The reason is a psychological one. Most leaders derive their power from in-person interactions. Remote and video calls severely impact that. Those leaders also love having an audience that needs to listen to them whenever they are in the room and the lack of that kind of feedback and adulation shellshocked a lot of them.
It feels a lot worse to deliver a lame joke at the start of an all hands meeting to a bunch of muted zoom windows with their cameras off. How much of the return to office is leaders wanting that polite chuckle from that captured audience back?
I'm barely being facetious. "That polite chuckle" is really a stand in for all the soft power they wield in person that evaporates with WFH. They have lost a degree of control and power, it is basic human nature to look for a way to claw that back.
Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve long suspected it’s a PR campaign/propaganda and talking points aimed directly at the c suite class. A lot of people with a lot of money stand to lose a lot. Banks, investors, retirement funds… Start circulating studies showing people working multiple remote jobs at once, steer thinking around company culture, normalize it through repetition, send out talking points. Eventually dominos will start failing.
If it would be bad for people's pension funds and such, shouldn't it be everyone's interest to actually keep showing up to prop up those real estate values?
Pension indexes wouldn't be in a volotile industry as real estate.
Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve long suspected it’s a PR campaign/propaganda and talking points aimed directly at the c suite class. A lot of people with a lot of money stand to lose a lot. Banks, investors, retirement funds… Start circulating studies showing people working multiple remote jobs at once, steer thinking around company culture, normalize it through repetition, send out talking points. Eventually dominos will start failing.
If it would be bad for people's pension funds and such, shouldn't it be everyone's interest to actually keep showing up to prop up those real estate values?
> shouldn't it be everyone's interest to actually keep showing up to prop up those real estate values?
not if you're getting a large benefit from WFH. And the loss from commercial real estate devaluation won't hit everyone equally.
Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#77[flagged]
It's a substack blog, there's no trickery going on. It just means she used https://jessicawildfire.substack.com/ until now
Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#78> It's about debt on zombie office towers. No. It's about total loss of the control of the one of the most effective productivity measurements those 'elites' ever had: BiC/h. Zombie towers too, but the middle management don't (and won't ever) get any profit from the sqaure meters, so they eagerly support their top-level executives specifically because they no longer can imitate the vigorous activity of managing peopl…
What's the "/h"?
Per Hour
Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#79[flagged]
> It’s some kind of influence effort. Maybe even Russian.
Russians are amateurs compared to proper "influence efforts" like, for example https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/r/rk-ro/ross-clark/ :
> Why are the BBC weather maps on fire? Is it none too subtle climate propaganda?
> Electric cars are a Trojan horse for the destruction of driving
> Net zero now threatens our national security
> The heat pump fantasy is dead – only our blinkered elites haven’t noticed
> The Brexit revolt is spreading across Europe – and the Brussels elites are terrified
Oh, yes, and:
> Lazy Britain now needs to be paid to get back to the office - Slashing Friday travel fares is the wrong way to fix our entitled, WFH, unproductive workforce
All these are real "thought pieces" in a real British broadsheet, if you can believe it...
Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#80I’ve heard this argument before and I don’t buy it. By that, I mean it may be true (that people want to prop up real estate prices), but I don’t think that this is enough of an explanation. If it were just about real estate, then Amazon would not be calling for 5 days a week return-to-office. I don’t think real estate interests are powerful enough to push Amazon around and I don’t think they’re entrenched enough in A…
My theory, which is kind of informed by what I saw it play out in my company: The reason is a psychological one. Most leaders derive their power from in-person interactions. Remote and video calls severely impact that. Those leaders also love having an audience that needs to listen to them whenever they are in the room and the lack of that kind of feedback and adulation shellshocked a lot of them.
I really wonder if there's a tribal / psychological effect of this kind and if not having to play the submissive / adoration dance made people more interested in practical information passing. Saying this because a few articles mentioned that some full remote teams were much much more effective at actual work, spreading data so that everybody could find solutions or continue work right away.