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The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

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

#121

Post by Malcolmlisk »

klodolph wrote: post #10

I’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…

If we oversimplify everything, yes... it's all about prop up real estate prices. But if we want to talk about this, we need to have in mind the capital amortization. The value of every business goes up or down if their fixed capital gets old or unused. For example, if you have 100 computers and every computer costs 1000, your company has that value as capital. But if they lose value in the next years and those same computers have a value of 50 in the market, then your company's value is halved (oversimplifiying it). The same happens with buildings and offices, if they lose values the company loses value too. Forcing workers to move to the office gives value to the area and the building, and the buildings around, and that's one of the main reasons why they are forcing the back to office thing.

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

#122

Post by computerthings »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #45
lrem wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t think the world is so coordinated. I suggest you read or watch something about McKinsey.

Oh please. The fact that McKinsey exists and has done plenty of shady shit doesn't mean they coordinate stuff like this. "People who believe in conspiracy theories have never been project managers."

Calling stuff a "conspiracy theory" is just a thought-terminating cliché, and measuring the ability of humans to conspire [0] by equating that ability with stuff like Elvis still being alive isn't the attempt of an argument, it's just a slogan.

[0] for which there is no communication between them required, or even conscious desire to "conspire" of single one of them. Consider how mobbing can go. People don't go "so, we're all racist, and this new guy is X, so I propose you are kinda sarcastic to him, and I forget to remind him of the thing tomorrow". It doesn't even happen that way in bad fiction, much less so in real life.

Or put more positively, consider how teamwork and healthy group behavior can go, too. Most of it is simply done, gets fine-tuned by doing, and only some of it is thought, spoken or written about, usually in hindsight, often as a rationalization.

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

#124

Post by mgh95 »

bjornsing wrote: post #120
mgh95 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of this comes down to perception of ROI for management. If the employment market is giving you qualified candidates at the price you seek in-office, why would you expose yourself to risk? I'm in this situation now where I'm hiring early employees and looking to grow, and about 90% of the decisions is how well can I derisk this hire . I don't need elite developers; I need competent, conscientious "75%" d…

> Your friend was probably not thinking "fair" or "unfair", rather, what is the employment market bringing him. In a relatively free labor market (like e.g. California’s) that perspective is fine with me, because you probably have to pay more for the conscientious “75%” developers you need. But Sweden has a heavily regulated and unionized labor market where differences in pay are typically motivated by the collective…

If I'm being totally honest, I am not sure it would be totally foreign. Entrepreneurship in Sweden (at least according to a quick google search) is relatively rare. Most of the entrepreneurs coming from the nordics I have interacted with have been decidedly less social contract oriented than even I am to the point where they seem almost like Gordon Gekko caricatures as though they are attempting to behave in a manner they think someone attempting to operate in a market-driven context would act. I am not sure that this argument would be totally foreign to your acquaintance, at least based upon the entrepreneurs coming from that region of the world in the USA.

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

#126

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

computerthings wrote: post #122
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please. The fact that McKinsey exists and has done plenty of shady shit doesn't mean they coordinate stuff like this. "People who believe in conspiracy theories have never been project managers."

Calling stuff a "conspiracy theory" is just a thought-terminating cliché, and measuring the ability of humans to conspire [0] by equating that ability with stuff like Elvis still being alive isn't the attempt of an argument, it's just a slogan. [0] for which there is no communication between them required, or even conscious desire to "conspire" of single one of them. Consider how mobbing can go. People don't go "so,…

What is "cliché" is to offer up "McKinsey is this shady organization we all hate!" as some sort of evidence that they could conspire to organize this sort of thing.

Getting back to the original thesis of the article, the author is stating that people making the decision on RTO (the "elites", another nebulous scary term...) are doing so because commercial real estate is so critical to their decision making process. If anyone can provide any evidence that McKinsey could orchestrate such a thing (with actual details), I'm all ears.

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

#127

Post by aloha2436 »

I've been hearing about this for a while and many of the entities holding the bag are publicly traded, given there's plenty of mercenary firms out there able and willing to make a buck off of a catastrophe is there any reason to believe this isn't already priced in?

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

#128

Post by HeatrayEnjoyer »

jaggederest wrote: post #70
euroderf wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a metric like PPP for real estate ? It might be a reality check for wealth vis-à-vis other nations.

I think cap rates are a decent proxy for that kind of thing, and they're not too bad recently in commercial office space, as far as I can tell. It seems that office buildings are selling at a discount to what they were a few years ago. But I suspect that many buildings have not yet changed hands, and thus have debt based on their old values. I wonder how many underwater office buildings there are in the US right now,…

But the mortgage is fixed. Bringing people back in won't change the contract.

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

#129

Post by n_ary »

Saline9515 wrote: post #47

I didn't think of Jeff Bezos as a benevolent community member of "the elites", doing everything he can, for free, to save the real estate portfolio of his unlucky landlord friends. The truth is that after the initial movement toward remote work, we are starting to see the secondary effects. For instance, starting as a junior in a remote job can be really daunting, and you're sure to never make any personal connection…

I do not think that you need to be around to make connections. I have had colleagues who were at office once every blue moon but everyone in the office knew them and invited them everywhere. And I also know of people who sit on opposite desks for years and only have greetings and coffee chit-chats when forced to.

Anyone with good people skills will break any barriers to connect and build a network of influence regardless of their expertise level. Anyone with communication issues or extremely introverted will have more difficulties to connect however, not that they would be doing great in person.

If non-cooperative senior coworkers are stonewalling, then it is a cultural or personal issues that needs to be managed, not the mode of work.

Starting a new job is always stressful, as any major change is difficult for human to adapt and needs time.

> See the countless stories about people holding two jobs at the same time.

This needs to stop, there were few reports, not countless. A few bad apples does not generalize the orchard. Also, if the pay is decent and living costs are affordable, no one needs to hold two jobs. If someone is holding two jobs remotely, it mostly means they are in "bulls!!t" job where they are not utilized to adequate levels and the symptoms of low output is not correctly noticed.

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

#130

Post by jaggederest »

pash wrote: post #101
jaggederest wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A significant majority of the total wealth in the US is in real estate (~$90T of ~$150T). Most of that is residential, but about a third of it is commercial. So about 10-20% of the total wealth in the US is in the form of commercial real estate, a significant amount of which is offices or office-adjacent-services that lose value if offices are not occupied.

The Fed’s estimates thru 2022 say real estate makes up 46.8% of net US wealth ($83.5 trillion of $178.4 trillion) [0]. 0. Readably summarized at https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/net-wealth-is-over-135-... .

Appreciate the more accurate figures, I didn't want to have to break out a spreadsheet to read an inflammatory blog article.
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