Of course it has nothing to do with productivity. But these people demanding rto are anything but “elites”.
The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
281–290 of 371 posts
Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#282[deleted]
Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#283This 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…
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Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#284Earlier 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…
I am 100% remote, I socialize after work by playing golf, going to the gym, or going to tech meets. I also get to explore some research topics outside of my day-to-day work by attending some special topic zooms during lunch times. I think the flexibility staves off burnout and helps my problem solving by enabling creativity. If I wasn't remote, I would lose all that to commuting.
The basement gremlin comment is unnecessarily judgemental, especially considering that some people have movie theaters, gyms or marble floored, spa-like basements (yes, even the remote, non-elite ones may have that).
But I respect that other people's way of work is not for me. I just don't mind if someone else goes to the office, and I would just expect the same courtesy.
Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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…
Sure, unions can in theory demand whatever they want, but if they don't show enough teeth, as in actually having strikes, they usually don't ask because the corporate overlords will say 'no' anyway.
Unions in Germany are usually a lot more submissively than in France and rarely fight for gaining new perks, they just look after maintain the existing ones, moistly following the "don't bite the hand that feeds you" mentality.
Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
People make friends at work all the time, and usually that helps productivity and career success
Surely it helps career success, but does it help productivity? Maybe workplaces would be more meritocratic if people didn't base promotions on who they like to go out for a beer with.
In a hilarious and ironic turn of events, at my last job in which I was 100% remote from a different continent, I made an effort to meet my boss in-person for the first time while traveling internationally as a break from the grind. We went out for pizza, and it was completely out of the scope of expectations and purely an effort to play that card and get to know one of my colleagues better. The ironic part is that not had the startup been purchased by a commercial real estate behemoth, but I'd face increasing demands and pressure upon arrival back home, then a layoff. He even paid for the meal even though
it wasn't technically a work expense.
Communication got incredibly toxic from his end; every sentence infused with inexplicable resentment. It was a very confusing result, and now I'm even less likely to bother meeting anyone in the future. I'm happy I avoided burnout by simply ignoring the toxicity, as petulant behaviour probably resulting from stresses in his own life, but still.
Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#287This isn't particularly well-argued. Just a lot of handwavy grievance about "elites" as though there's some kind of coordinated conspiracy.
You don't need a coordinated conspiracy if the incentives of each person in the chain line up to this inevitability.
This is the part I’m missing. The players who own space are either corporations or landlords who rent to corporations.
Corporations have an incentive to not lose money on real estate that they’ve already purchased, whether or not they have employees warming that space.
Landlords have an incentive to make money through rent, but they can’t really exert pressure on corporations to rent the space landlords own.
Where is the chain of incentives?
Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
Social democracy is not socialism. Please don’t confuse the two because they are still miles away from each other.
I think that it is. Socialism is where the workers own the means of production. I think a democracy that's nationalized significant industries fits that description, e.g. France: > 1982 François Mitterrand's proposals in the 110 Propositions for France and alliance with Jean-Pierre Chevènement's Socialist Party faction CERES, committed France to an explicitly socialist ‘rupture with capitalism’. Full nationalisation…
>Socialism is where the workers own the means of production.
Clearly that is not the case in any European country.
>Dassault
Literally family owned.
I don't think you realize just how capitalist European countries really are. State owned corporations are usually quite rare and generally known for being run extremely badly. On the other hand many of the largest corporations are still controlled by the families of their founders.
Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#289Earlier 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…
I’m just confused about causal chain that would lead to this happening…perhaps it’s a lack of imagination. Like, do we think that landlords are bribing corporations to lease their properties?
Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
A core element of socialism is that all industries and natural resources are state-owned. European countries are capitalist, not socialist, and got where they are by being so.
Technically, kind of, but not exactly. Anytime this point comes up, someone on the right/Republican will say any taxation is Socialism, that Europe is Socialist. So, to compare Europe/Nordic socialist policies, to US policies is not a large leap. You can't just say, "well technically that isn't really socialism so we can't use that as an example in this argument", when literally for a decade the 'right' has specifica…
>taxation is Socialism
Nonsensical strawman. Socialism has a real meaning and "taxation" isn't it.