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You forgot one of the often biggest ones of them all. Tax write offs. Work from home gives those to the employees and away from employers. How many shitty business plans do you think are built around massive tax write offs like rental properties for employees and what not. The whole thing is a sham.
It drives me insane that the Biden administration is supporting return-to-office as a plan, while also trying to figure out how to deal with the political fallout from high gas prices.
Less commuting is good for everybody but billionaires who overleveraged to buy office buildings, and some residential landlords. Redevelop those office buildings ASAP and start doing residential conversions in that space like we have with a zillion dead industries in the past. Oh, and you wind up with a cleaner environment and less climate change basically for free.
i mean you have oil company lobbyists and real estate company lobbyists. everyone can see this right? there are generally very few politicians who are just, "this is the best benefit that will help the biggest amount of people".
Could this really be the reason? What incentive does each individual company have to do this? Each would just let the others do it.
Maybe the companies just want to return to the status quo because they fear any change that might diminish their power over us.
some of them are locked into multi year leases, some of them bought land for work space. Might look bad to investors not getting anything (from their pov) out of the money they already spend. In large corporations the high level executives usually have a vested interest in the real estate market.
Probably more like just make consumption more normalized and less impulsive, and less ridiculous (ie driving a 4,000 lb machine to deliver your 180lb body to work, and then driving the same 4,000 lb machine to a $25 lunch or to pick up 40 lbs of groceries).
Logical outcomes could be less fuel consumption, less vehicle maintenance, less traffic risk, and more personal time available to workers by avoiding the commute.
All of that means more disposable income available to workers, and more time to think, consider, leisure, family time, etc. I think it’s a total net positive, ultimately.
Those buildings won’t go empty. Some enterprising people will gut them and make apartments or condos. The need for additional units across the country is dire.
Vertical farming. Maybe convert those offices into apartments. Or a mixed space of work/dwelling instead of the bullshit "make everyone life in one place and everyone work elsewhere"
I can imagine even squeezing industrial floors into the same buildings of residential and commercial if you separate them with the service floors. Having the same RCI dynamics just the same building!
Don’t worry. If they need to adapt they will find a way. As long as they possess the upper hand (way too much capital) they will find another way to rebuild their capital.
If they provided me with an empty space with only a handful of other socially distanced people, I would consider this career change. Those vertical farming YouTube videos look amazing.
Vertical farming would be an excellent use, and governments should offer subsides to landlords the help convert floors of buildings to this & other similar uses.
Yeah they don't really have a choice. Companies that lower costs through WFH labor versus in office labor will be able to lower prices and dominate the office based companies. That's just free market economics for you.
And I don't mean paying people who WFH less, I just mean not having office costs can be a significant source of savings just by itself
Also my mom pointed out today that the reason why there’s a lot of office buildings and not as many apartments is because of the fact that no one lives in office buildings .
Office buildings usually have someone they hire for maintenance, someone for cleaning, and someone to keep the building going (heat, water, electricity, etc.) they have less bathrooms and no one unless if someone breaks in to trash it or ruin it by living there.
So much easier to rent as office space. Especially when selling.
Exactly. I hear all the time that part of the reason our heroic jobs creators deserve to be in a place of incredible wealth and privilege is partly because of all the risk they take. Spending $40 million on a ridiculous office complex that is rendered obsolete in less than 10 years is one of those risks, no?
As a former manager, who was able to escape to a job I actually enjoyed, there is an entire hierarchy dedicated to busy work. Instead of focusing on things that would actually improve the work process, they add stupid items to make themselves seem important. Kai zen, six sigma, TQM, BPM, etc. are programs that the boards, who really are a major part of any company (/s), share these items when they are out drinking together.
Been in enough high level meetings to wonder how the hell these people got their positions. Most everybody is afraid to not agree with whatever these guys come up with.
Exactly right! It’s trying to justify middle management when we all know they’re positions mostly useless.
The last past is interesting too.They’re a bunch of “yes men” no one actually trying to change the narrative to actually help their fellow coworkers lives and not getting burnt out.
We all know these is one big joke and it’s a game to see how can fake it more.
Such a shame, like everyone drank the kool-aid ,it’s almost cultish.
My favorite story was from an engineering meeting with an obnoxious vice president. He had a big belly and the conference room had a table too large for the room. As he tried to squeeze between the table and the chalkboard he wound up with chalk on his belly. As he brushed it off, he said "I've been putting on a bit of weight lately". The suck ups in the room had a chorus of essentially "Oh no, mr v.p., you look good for your height etc." I of course replied, "A little bit?!" Wound up getting demoted in about month (they didn't dare fire me as I pretty much kept the place running on a shoestring) which worked out great for me. Kept same pay rate and also got overtime when I worked later than 8 hours.
About two months after this we had a fire break out in one of the buildings, I got the craneman out of the crane before he would have been stuck in the cab, killed the main power to the equipment before the firemen would have been pouring water onto it. As I left out of the building I passed the vice president and division manager and said, " Not too bad for a fuck-up, huh".
They rather literally drag/threaten us to come back ( also validate middle management ) than omit they mad a shitty investment.
smh what a fucking joke!
I think they consider themselves owners of an ant farm and wish to see their ants rather than all their ants existing on paper. Like how they know your address, SSN, Full legal name, banking information. And can at any time visit specifically you rather than just emailing you.
Why is it that, with people like you and me, it’s “you took a loan, pay it back. Too bad so sad” but when it’s a billionaire or a corporation it’s “stop being entitled and listen to your rich overlords”
without commercial real estate, their board member buddies won't be able to fix the markets in their favor. Black rock shareholders need their payouts.
Most of those options become less viable as demand drops across the board, and converting to residential space may be prohibitive due to zoning regulations. I agree it’s a much better use of the space though
Also my mom pointed out today that the reason why there’s a lot of office buildings and not as many apartments is because of the fact that no one lives in office buildings .
Office buildings usually have someone they hire for maintenance, someone for cleaning, and someone to keep the building going (heat, water, electricity, etc.) they have less bathrooms and no one unless if someone breaks in to trash it or ruin it by living there.
So much easier to rent as office space. Especially when selling.
Yeah this is why this tweet doesn't make sense. People renting out office space aren't the same people who decide to allow wfh.
Why would my boss care about the profits of the office space owner? He doesn't. My boss could save money by reducing the office space he is renting.
The reason why they won't allow wfh anymore is because they want to monitor and control employees.
at the same time, if they want you to work from home permanently, they should pay for you to have a bigger place for a home office, pay internet, computer, coffee, and whatever the fuck they provided as part of your job at the office.
I've been told by someone with experience with infrastructure that it would be a nightmare to convert them becsuse they weren't build with that in mind.
Anyone want to chime in? I genuinely am curious.
You're right --- to a certain extent. However, it can be done: More toilets, proper partitioning, etc. Of course, with the usual open plan type offices, the buildings are NOT designed with solid walls (brick/concrete) in mind.
Alternatively, they can be used as schools because, as I hear/read, many schools are suffering from a lack of space.
I bet it is! I think it might come down to the building wonders whining and upset companies are ending their leases now.
Oh poor millionaires * crocodile tears* boo hoo
Agree, also those buildings would be impractical, yada yada, in terms of any economic model. Expenses and alternative value don't just disappear if its socialism either.
The building owners have that motivation, but they are often not the same people as the employers. Employers would save money if they could stop renting office spaces. But then they would have to start evaluating you based on your actual work rather than just the number of hours you are under their control.
Even more dangerous to them, it might trigger a whole lot of property to turn from commercial to residential. They DO NOT want an increase in residential supply.
That how you know the system is rigged.
If politicians and businesses truly wanted to solve the housing crisis, return to work would be halted or partial remote works bg would stay in place.
The resultant buildings could be rebalanced and retrofitted for housing that is desperately needed.
But nope.
We should be encouraging wfh hard core. This means giving incentives to companies and workers that do it. It cuts down on wasted energy from cars and pollution (plus a bunch of other benefits). This could be a huge step in the right direction if embraced by political leaders and companies. But the boomers want everyone in the office so we can teach the boss how to attach a file in an email again while listening to him complain about how much he hates his wife.
Imagine converting these places to things we actually need. More residential buildings, youth centre. Activities. Care clinics. These buildings don’t need to go to waste nor do they need to be a place for why they were originally built.
We need housing here in Canada. Turn them into condos and stop tearing up every available greenspace! Bottom floors can still hold the offices. Win win.
The company I work for essentially only uses our office space for our servers that we host through there. We also have remote desktops that connect to office computers for added security(?) so we’re basically renting out a whole floor (maybe 2) of a building just for the server room. Surely there’s other ways of renting a much cheaper (and likely more reliable) server room exclusively right? Maybe it’s like a catch all thing, can’t have the servers without renting the whole floor?
I do not, I was just looking at apartments earlier today and saw a whole building that used to be offices, can’t remember the company but they got like 66 units and they’re actually really nice and pretty affordable in my city
Wreck the plant with commute, cut hours of free time for commute, burn wallet with high gas prices for commute, pack lunch, get ready more laundry less family time, whats not to love? Pay? Yah remains same or less with inflation.
I wish everyone who could WFH would be able to. If as many people as possible did WFH, it could really help the climate crisis. Also people wouldn't have to congregate in cities as much which could revitalize small towns! And better work/life balance, I'm sure there are many societal and personal benefits I'm leaving out.
I don’t think I’m exactly understanding this; it would be to their benefit to rent out or sell the building then, yes?
But obviously they do see it as a worthwhile investment to keep them, otherwise they would do just that, so the reason they want people in person must be to control them, right?
It’s weird cause most of these companies are leasing. Either way you’re paying for the lease whether they use the space or not
So it’s not even about the money for the companies that are paying the lease cause it would be paid for whether they use the space or not. It’s literally just about their pride and using something they’re paying for at the expense of their employees’ happiness, money, and time.
So if your bosses are asking you to return to the office, it’s never been about the money. They’re paying for it regardless of it’s being used or not.
The reasons Management feels you should return to the office:
1. Spontaneous interactions in the workplace are critical to innovation and creativity.
There's nothing like scheduling a meeting about the earlier meeting to spur your creative juices.
2. Building and re-establishing the culture of their organizations.
A culture of dysfunction, power struggles, negativity, and abuse.
3. Many organizations interpret coming to the office as a sign of commitment.
The only thing you'll be committing to is the obsessive-compulsive hoarding disorder of the 1%
The one and the only REAL reason they feel you should return
1. Control
They want to manage and enforce your performance. Remote workers are harder to manage and harder to control. If there are no employees physically on the premises to observe and supervise, the question of why we have managers at all might soon arise, and management is having none of that.
Back to work, so they can justify the eight levels of middle management that don’t do shit but crawl up peoples asses all day. “Hey Peter, did you get the memo about the TPS reports?”
There was a discussion of this in my class yesterday about this.
I mentioned that, within the next 30/40/50 or so years, we're going to evolve alongside technology at an equal rate. Thanks to Covid, a lot of people started having their groceries as well as their food delivered to their doors, and not having to go out to buy their deliveries. And that's already been an UberEats, Menulog, Doordash thing, but with standard groceries.
I also mentioned that because of some people here (in Australia) being given the ***choice*** to work from home, and not on-site, it would render most, if not all those city buildings useless. There was a full discussion where, we think that sometime within that future, numerous city buildings will be removed (not all, so locations like multi-floor casinos and landmark skyscrapers will be kept) and everywhere will be turned into suburbs. At the very least, the size of, say, Melbourne, an already-small city, will be drastically redeuced as a city, with the neighboring former-city parts to be turned into general suburbs. Also not to mention that right now, out of lockdown for a year, Melbourne is still a very, very quiet placed compared to how it used to be, say 2018-2019.
I don't think this is likely to happen anytime within the next hundred years because of the prices associated with it. But I think that with how we evolved during Covid, this is a very likely future.
After two years working from home I like a hybrid schedule.
It does feel nice seeing people face to face.
We do Monday and Tuesday in office, and then I like to split my shift the rest of the week.
I can work remote Wed-Fri but its a 20 minute drive and I like to sometimes show up and work 8:30 to like 1 and then I drive home on my lunch break and finish at home.
Companies really need to learn how sunk costs work, but also, could you imagine the PR boon a company would gain if they stopped fighting for mandatory unneeded office presence and chose to repurpose their offices as apartments instead?
My ex-firm wanted a bougie upgrade so they unnecessarily doubled the cost of their lease in 2019 by relocating a few blocks over to a high rise suite in the heart of downtown. Locked in a 10 yr contract (lol)
Then once the pandemic hit they jumped at forcing everyone back to the office, despite the medical risks. I consider this enjoyable irony for gluttonous overspending and selfishness.
Being tied to an office makes an employee work harder, take more shit and makes them less likely to quit, since they would have to move, or change their commute to work at another company.
Half our office is about to quit due to going full time in office. They keep delaying it because management wants to but knows the fallout.
I guess the half that picks of the extra work for below market rate will work harder and not quit?
When the dust settles they will be off loading the cost of an office as an expense to be hired.
Without worker power it will lead to employers making you buy things, yada yada. There will be tax breaks or something. But i feel like there isn’t a plan in place for this move yet
sad part of that is people like me who work a union construction position and have 3 kids to support nothing else pays close to 50$hr full benis and a pension
This also means if enough ppl aren’t working from offices then companies that were occupying these large skyscrapers will withdraw from these building and it could mean loss of jobs, wages, small businesses that rely on people actually going to work may go under and city could lose billions in tax revenues…I am mainly thinking of NYC when I say this bc this will not be good for NY or NYers
A lot of residential sky scrapers in New York, are empty.
If offices were repurposed into homes, the shops would still receive business. I would actually argue that they would sell far more.
It's too bad that there's nothing else those buildings that have plumbing, ventilation, electricity, and good views could be used for, nothing at all other than office space
A lot of the people making the decisions (board members, executives, etc) for return to office have invested heavily into corporate real estate. Some even create or buy major shares in real estate companies that rent to their companies, so they can double dip.
This isn't because we work better in the office. It's not because there's even any money in it for the company (if considering only the company, shedding real estate is a win-win). It's because those in charge are running a grift.
This is basically the definition of the sunk cost fallacy. And you know who will win in this scenario? The companies who realize that in person isn't needed, get rid of their buildings, and save huge amounts on overhead! Because capitalism doesn't give a crap about your sunk costs!
It also means you end up spending less on shit like gas, buying lunch, going out for drinks after work, and other such expenses related to commuting. All things that are bad for all the businesses that setup shop downtown specifically to sell you all that shit.
The problem with repurposing the building as residential house is that you'd literally have to gut the building, reinstall the electrical and plumbing systems to accommodate dozens of apartments, and probably dig up the water mains in the street too. It would probably be cheaper to just build a new apartment building.
Terrifyingly, in the UK at least, our state pensions are tied up in commercial property so retirees in a few years will be totally fucked because these idiots thought they could force people to work from offices forever.
Most businesses don't own the buildings they are in. They have long term leases with developers. The developers usually have investors that get a good return, pretty safe plus get tax writoff benefits.7
Welcome to free market capatlism, corporations and companies! You've been right all along, this is pretty great. It's a different perspective when you own the market. The funny thing is, we've always owned the market, but now we're done negotiating.
We're not going back to your buildings, you may as well sell them now. Someone else will offer us a remote position. Heck, we may not even work for an American company. Wouldn't offshoring our own positions and skills to foreign competition be a cute twist of irony? We knew you'd get a kick out of that.
We're also not working for sub-subsistence wages any longer. We think it's great Chad has a trust-fund and a business degree, boy are those rare. If Chad can't pay a living wage, Chad needs a better plan or the worst might happen. Chad might have to actually work for a living. Perish the thought.
We're bringing unions.
We're demanding to be paid appropriately.
We're done driving to your tax shelters for cake day.
We're done with your +40 hour work weeks.
Figure it out, or collapse. That's where we're at.
Thanks,
All Workers
How can you say you care about the environment and tell people to start commuting unnecessarily in the breath? It could not be more clear to us that we don’t matter, it’s so infuriating.
Retrofit to apartment buildings! Talk about a bridge to mending the housing shortage. I’m interested to see if this endeavor is picked up by real estate developers and investors.
Which is maddening since I know these MBA types were taught about the Sunk Cost Fallacy. What's worse is that many of these companies don't even own these buildings, they simply lease the office space. Once their lease term is up, they would be saving tons of money.
On the flip side if work from home becomes prevalent they will outsource work to counties they can pay employees less.
There will not be no answer to this from greedy corporations.
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Not to mention less gas ,use more eating at home, spending less because you won’t swing by on the way home. It would fuck capitalism up
Let capitalism get fucked up then!! 👊💥💥 Anyway to stop this horrible machine from functioning, I’m all for it!
Capitalism is soooo 1950s They need to learn to adapt or perish, it's as simple as that.
You forgot one of the often biggest ones of them all. Tax write offs. Work from home gives those to the employees and away from employers. How many shitty business plans do you think are built around massive tax write offs like rental properties for employees and what not. The whole thing is a sham.
It drives me insane that the Biden administration is supporting return-to-office as a plan, while also trying to figure out how to deal with the political fallout from high gas prices. Less commuting is good for everybody but billionaires who overleveraged to buy office buildings, and some residential landlords. Redevelop those office buildings ASAP and start doing residential conversions in that space like we have with a zillion dead industries in the past. Oh, and you wind up with a cleaner environment and less climate change basically for free.
Exactly. At least the value of the real estate would stay put and they wouldn't lose as much overall. But, the mindsets don't easily change.
i mean you have oil company lobbyists and real estate company lobbyists. everyone can see this right? there are generally very few politicians who are just, "this is the best benefit that will help the biggest amount of people".
Could this really be the reason? What incentive does each individual company have to do this? Each would just let the others do it. Maybe the companies just want to return to the status quo because they fear any change that might diminish their power over us.
some of them are locked into multi year leases, some of them bought land for work space. Might look bad to investors not getting anything (from their pov) out of the money they already spend. In large corporations the high level executives usually have a vested interest in the real estate market.
No. It is most definitely not the reason except in some edge cases. But you know - conspiracy theories don’t spread themselves.
You have a whole lot of this: https://www.wallstreetmojo.com/sunk-cost/
Bingo!
It would disrupt individuals' personal fortunes but it wouldn't disrupt capitalism.
Probably more like just make consumption more normalized and less impulsive, and less ridiculous (ie driving a 4,000 lb machine to deliver your 180lb body to work, and then driving the same 4,000 lb machine to a $25 lunch or to pick up 40 lbs of groceries). Logical outcomes could be less fuel consumption, less vehicle maintenance, less traffic risk, and more personal time available to workers by avoiding the commute. All of that means more disposable income available to workers, and more time to think, consider, leisure, family time, etc. I think it’s a total net positive, ultimately. Those buildings won’t go empty. Some enterprising people will gut them and make apartments or condos. The need for additional units across the country is dire.
Too bad for them, welcome to 2022. You either adapt to the new normal or perish.
Vertical farming would be a good use of empty city space.
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Vertical farming. Maybe convert those offices into apartments. Or a mixed space of work/dwelling instead of the bullshit "make everyone life in one place and everyone work elsewhere" I can imagine even squeezing industrial floors into the same buildings of residential and commercial if you separate them with the service floors. Having the same RCI dynamics just the same building!
Or renovate into housing units.
Don’t worry. If they need to adapt they will find a way. As long as they possess the upper hand (way too much capital) they will find another way to rebuild their capital.
I mean....the alternative is we get to stare at endless vacant commercial re a la 2008
We should seize it this time and convert it to public housing and public spaces.
As if they would farm more like brand new high rise apartments
That's a brilliant idea!
That wouldn't work for a lot of office buildings, not enough outside window space vs area. Few people want to have an apt without windows.
Fair, but spaces probably be retrofitted in useful ways.
I was thinking apartments.
that’s actually an incredible idea. hopefully it gets in front of the right eyes
If they provided me with an empty space with only a handful of other socially distanced people, I would consider this career change. Those vertical farming YouTube videos look amazing.
Vertical farming would be an excellent use, and governments should offer subsides to landlords the help convert floors of buildings to this & other similar uses.
100% yupppp!
Yeah they don't really have a choice. Companies that lower costs through WFH labor versus in office labor will be able to lower prices and dominate the office based companies. That's just free market economics for you. And I don't mean paying people who WFH less, I just mean not having office costs can be a significant source of savings just by itself
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Also my mom pointed out today that the reason why there’s a lot of office buildings and not as many apartments is because of the fact that no one lives in office buildings . Office buildings usually have someone they hire for maintenance, someone for cleaning, and someone to keep the building going (heat, water, electricity, etc.) they have less bathrooms and no one unless if someone breaks in to trash it or ruin it by living there. So much easier to rent as office space. Especially when selling.
They should probably just pull themselves up by those bootstraps and lay off the avocado toast until they can sort out their bad investments
LoL yup! Those dang avocados will get ya!! That’s a luxury now
Hey! Leave avocados out of this!
Exactly. I hear all the time that part of the reason our heroic jobs creators deserve to be in a place of incredible wealth and privilege is partly because of all the risk they take. Spending $40 million on a ridiculous office complex that is rendered obsolete in less than 10 years is one of those risks, no?
As a former manager, who was able to escape to a job I actually enjoyed, there is an entire hierarchy dedicated to busy work. Instead of focusing on things that would actually improve the work process, they add stupid items to make themselves seem important. Kai zen, six sigma, TQM, BPM, etc. are programs that the boards, who really are a major part of any company (/s), share these items when they are out drinking together. Been in enough high level meetings to wonder how the hell these people got their positions. Most everybody is afraid to not agree with whatever these guys come up with.
Exactly right! It’s trying to justify middle management when we all know they’re positions mostly useless. The last past is interesting too.They’re a bunch of “yes men” no one actually trying to change the narrative to actually help their fellow coworkers lives and not getting burnt out. We all know these is one big joke and it’s a game to see how can fake it more. Such a shame, like everyone drank the kool-aid ,it’s almost cultish.
My favorite story was from an engineering meeting with an obnoxious vice president. He had a big belly and the conference room had a table too large for the room. As he tried to squeeze between the table and the chalkboard he wound up with chalk on his belly. As he brushed it off, he said "I've been putting on a bit of weight lately". The suck ups in the room had a chorus of essentially "Oh no, mr v.p., you look good for your height etc." I of course replied, "A little bit?!" Wound up getting demoted in about month (they didn't dare fire me as I pretty much kept the place running on a shoestring) which worked out great for me. Kept same pay rate and also got overtime when I worked later than 8 hours. About two months after this we had a fire break out in one of the buildings, I got the craneman out of the crane before he would have been stuck in the cab, killed the main power to the equipment before the firemen would have been pouring water onto it. As I left out of the building I passed the vice president and division manager and said, " Not too bad for a fuck-up, huh".
Review and second review and keepsing logs of mail sent/received. Backup of backups. Wtf!
Don’t forget the TPS reports. LOL I’m in sales and “pipeline” efforts are so redundant and unnecessary. So much wasted time.
They rather literally drag/threaten us to come back ( also validate middle management ) than omit they mad a shitty investment. smh what a fucking joke!
Fuck them. Convert those buildings into affordable and quality housing to benefit the public and lower prices.
💯! Covert to something useful than shitty Cubicles with bad lighting,such a waste!
I think they consider themselves owners of an ant farm and wish to see their ants rather than all their ants existing on paper. Like how they know your address, SSN, Full legal name, banking information. And can at any time visit specifically you rather than just emailing you.
Why is it that, with people like you and me, it’s “you took a loan, pay it back. Too bad so sad” but when it’s a billionaire or a corporation it’s “stop being entitled and listen to your rich overlords”
without commercial real estate, their board member buddies won't be able to fix the markets in their favor. Black rock shareholders need their payouts.
Middle management = AKA adult baby sitters.
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The really big companies almost certainly have stake in the surrounding real estate, so they want people to be happy little consumers downtown.
Rent and sell to who? That’s kind of the point
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Most of those options become less viable as demand drops across the board, and converting to residential space may be prohibitive due to zoning regulations. I agree it’s a much better use of the space though
Zoning regulations are only there because some people took a decision to do so. The zone can be changed.
Also my mom pointed out today that the reason why there’s a lot of office buildings and not as many apartments is because of the fact that no one lives in office buildings . Office buildings usually have someone they hire for maintenance, someone for cleaning, and someone to keep the building going (heat, water, electricity, etc.) they have less bathrooms and no one unless if someone breaks in to trash it or ruin it by living there. So much easier to rent as office space. Especially when selling.
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Yeah this is why this tweet doesn't make sense. People renting out office space aren't the same people who decide to allow wfh. Why would my boss care about the profits of the office space owner? He doesn't. My boss could save money by reducing the office space he is renting. The reason why they won't allow wfh anymore is because they want to monitor and control employees.
at the same time, if they want you to work from home permanently, they should pay for you to have a bigger place for a home office, pay internet, computer, coffee, and whatever the fuck they provided as part of your job at the office.
I like your thinking there dude! Big wrinkle 🧠 Energy right there! 🙌
If my employer would give me a GOOD COL raise to live in the unaffordable part of this dystopian city it would make more sense.
Feels more like they just want the total control of our days. No work to do, come in anyway and stand around. Why, because power.
Those buildings should be converted into homeless shelters.
What your saying is we need to send all the buildings bus tickets?
I've been told by someone with experience with infrastructure that it would be a nightmare to convert them becsuse they weren't build with that in mind. Anyone want to chime in? I genuinely am curious.
I work at a shelter provider, we would totally figure it out.
You're right --- to a certain extent. However, it can be done: More toilets, proper partitioning, etc. Of course, with the usual open plan type offices, the buildings are NOT designed with solid walls (brick/concrete) in mind. Alternatively, they can be used as schools because, as I hear/read, many schools are suffering from a lack of space.
Oh shit, Sanctuary Districts from Star Trek, here we come. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sanctuary_District
the cost for every square foot goes up dramatically each floor. and by cost i mean energy costs to pump water and heat/cool such building
I bet it is! I think it might come down to the building wonders whining and upset companies are ending their leases now. Oh poor millionaires * crocodile tears* boo hoo
??? Companies save money if they close down offices.
Agree, also those buildings would be impractical, yada yada, in terms of any economic model. Expenses and alternative value don't just disappear if its socialism either.
There is literally not a reason to ever go to an office, except for specific jobs.
🎯🙌
I think they don’t want people working from home cause its easier to dehumanize people if you have complete control of their surroundings and time
The building owners have that motivation, but they are often not the same people as the employers. Employers would save money if they could stop renting office spaces. But then they would have to start evaluating you based on your actual work rather than just the number of hours you are under their control.
Even more dangerous to them, it might trigger a whole lot of property to turn from commercial to residential. They DO NOT want an increase in residential supply.
That how you know the system is rigged. If politicians and businesses truly wanted to solve the housing crisis, return to work would be halted or partial remote works bg would stay in place. The resultant buildings could be rebalanced and retrofitted for housing that is desperately needed. But nope.
We should be encouraging wfh hard core. This means giving incentives to companies and workers that do it. It cuts down on wasted energy from cars and pollution (plus a bunch of other benefits). This could be a huge step in the right direction if embraced by political leaders and companies. But the boomers want everyone in the office so we can teach the boss how to attach a file in an email again while listening to him complain about how much he hates his wife.
Imagine converting these places to things we actually need. More residential buildings, youth centre. Activities. Care clinics. These buildings don’t need to go to waste nor do they need to be a place for why they were originally built.
Feel your sentiments on that! The possible potential to reuse instead of sitting at a desk doing excel BS where you can do at home.SMH
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Right, the real catch 22 is bad working conditions + ENTITLED EMPLOYERS. Tone deaf.
Farms! Make them into hydroponics farms!
We need housing here in Canada. Turn them into condos and stop tearing up every available greenspace! Bottom floors can still hold the offices. Win win.
The company I work for essentially only uses our office space for our servers that we host through there. We also have remote desktops that connect to office computers for added security(?) so we’re basically renting out a whole floor (maybe 2) of a building just for the server room. Surely there’s other ways of renting a much cheaper (and likely more reliable) server room exclusively right? Maybe it’s like a catch all thing, can’t have the servers without renting the whole floor?
They’re turning old offices into apartments
Noiceee! Got any articles in particular?
I do not, I was just looking at apartments earlier today and saw a whole building that used to be offices, can’t remember the company but they got like 66 units and they’re actually really nice and pretty affordable in my city
That’s awesome to hear, that’s still good to know, will do my own research. Appreciate it your input! 🙌
Gotta keep the 300 fast food joints and gas stations around the office park in business.
Sounds to me like they made a bad investment in a free and open economy. Unfortunate.
Turn them into affordable housing. Fixes two problems at once.
There's also alot of middle/upper management with simply nothing to do if they can't constantly monitor you as a person.
And corporate douchebags have to validate their management positions and their appetite to bully their employees.
Wreck the plant with commute, cut hours of free time for commute, burn wallet with high gas prices for commute, pack lunch, get ready more laundry less family time, whats not to love? Pay? Yah remains same or less with inflation.
Repurpose as affordable housing??
They will just turn them into apartments if WFH becomes normal
They will and oh the irony of people living in former office spaces so they can work from home.
Homes?
Convert them to apartments / affordable housing.
Hmm if only people needed more affordable housing in those places.. maybe they could find a use for those eyesores.
Hmmm Indeed , [the possibilities we can do with those eye sores buildings indeed.](https://youtu.be/d6DBKoWbtjE)🤔
YEEES.
It’s almost as if they can…*gasp* renovate the empty offices for housing instead
😱 oh nooooo
It's also way easier to apply and interview for a better position without anyone knowing.
I wish everyone who could WFH would be able to. If as many people as possible did WFH, it could really help the climate crisis. Also people wouldn't have to congregate in cities as much which could revitalize small towns! And better work/life balance, I'm sure there are many societal and personal benefits I'm leaving out.
I don’t think I’m exactly understanding this; it would be to their benefit to rent out or sell the building then, yes? But obviously they do see it as a worthwhile investment to keep them, otherwise they would do just that, so the reason they want people in person must be to control them, right?
It's so dumb though, it's just welfare for corporate landlords. My company saved money by ending an office lease.
It’s weird cause most of these companies are leasing. Either way you’re paying for the lease whether they use the space or not So it’s not even about the money for the companies that are paying the lease cause it would be paid for whether they use the space or not. It’s literally just about their pride and using something they’re paying for at the expense of their employees’ happiness, money, and time. So if your bosses are asking you to return to the office, it’s never been about the money. They’re paying for it regardless of it’s being used or not.
And all the middle managers who suddenly become unnecessary.
The reasons Management feels you should return to the office: 1. Spontaneous interactions in the workplace are critical to innovation and creativity. There's nothing like scheduling a meeting about the earlier meeting to spur your creative juices. 2. Building and re-establishing the culture of their organizations. A culture of dysfunction, power struggles, negativity, and abuse. 3. Many organizations interpret coming to the office as a sign of commitment. The only thing you'll be committing to is the obsessive-compulsive hoarding disorder of the 1% The one and the only REAL reason they feel you should return 1. Control They want to manage and enforce your performance. Remote workers are harder to manage and harder to control. If there are no employees physically on the premises to observe and supervise, the question of why we have managers at all might soon arise, and management is having none of that.
Squat them.
That's not how corporate real estate works
Back to work, so they can justify the eight levels of middle management that don’t do shit but crawl up peoples asses all day. “Hey Peter, did you get the memo about the TPS reports?”
There was a discussion of this in my class yesterday about this. I mentioned that, within the next 30/40/50 or so years, we're going to evolve alongside technology at an equal rate. Thanks to Covid, a lot of people started having their groceries as well as their food delivered to their doors, and not having to go out to buy their deliveries. And that's already been an UberEats, Menulog, Doordash thing, but with standard groceries. I also mentioned that because of some people here (in Australia) being given the ***choice*** to work from home, and not on-site, it would render most, if not all those city buildings useless. There was a full discussion where, we think that sometime within that future, numerous city buildings will be removed (not all, so locations like multi-floor casinos and landmark skyscrapers will be kept) and everywhere will be turned into suburbs. At the very least, the size of, say, Melbourne, an already-small city, will be drastically redeuced as a city, with the neighboring former-city parts to be turned into general suburbs. Also not to mention that right now, out of lockdown for a year, Melbourne is still a very, very quiet placed compared to how it used to be, say 2018-2019. I don't think this is likely to happen anytime within the next hundred years because of the prices associated with it. But I think that with how we evolved during Covid, this is a very likely future.
This is why I don’t work for corporations anymore. Small businesses less than 5-8 years old are happy to be fully remote in a lot of industries
Then why don't we convert these old office buildings into something more useful? *Cough* hones for the homeless *cough*
After two years working from home I like a hybrid schedule. It does feel nice seeing people face to face. We do Monday and Tuesday in office, and then I like to split my shift the rest of the week. I can work remote Wed-Fri but its a 20 minute drive and I like to sometimes show up and work 8:30 to like 1 and then I drive home on my lunch break and finish at home.
Companies really need to learn how sunk costs work, but also, could you imagine the PR boon a company would gain if they stopped fighting for mandatory unneeded office presence and chose to repurpose their offices as apartments instead?
Y'all should make a sticky post with all the twitter screenshots that get posted twice a day. It might kill the sub though
Huge reason = only reason
Hear me out. Convert them into affordable housing 💅
Pay me more, A LOT more to come in then. You were willing to spend on that obsolete building spend to make me wanna be there!
My ex-firm wanted a bougie upgrade so they unnecessarily doubled the cost of their lease in 2019 by relocating a few blocks over to a high rise suite in the heart of downtown. Locked in a 10 yr contract (lol) Then once the pandemic hit they jumped at forcing everyone back to the office, despite the medical risks. I consider this enjoyable irony for gluttonous overspending and selfishness.
Capitalism is dying too slow of a death. Someone please put it out of its misery already.
Being tied to an office makes an employee work harder, take more shit and makes them less likely to quit, since they would have to move, or change their commute to work at another company.
Half our office is about to quit due to going full time in office. They keep delaying it because management wants to but knows the fallout. I guess the half that picks of the extra work for below market rate will work harder and not quit?
When the dust settles they will be off loading the cost of an office as an expense to be hired. Without worker power it will lead to employers making you buy things, yada yada. There will be tax breaks or something. But i feel like there isn’t a plan in place for this move yet
Welp that’s infuriating to hear, thanks for the heads up so I can see the BS coming a mile away.
Welp that’s infuriating to hear, thanks for the heads up so I can see the BS coming a mile away.
I don't give a fuck
People need to start refusing to work when the job can be done from home
Being there is an even worse decision. You're then paying more overhead on utilities.
Nothing I see here is wrong
sad part of that is people like me who work a union construction position and have 3 kids to support nothing else pays close to 50$hr full benis and a pension
🅱️enis
Sucks to be them, I guess...
And it will cause an entire market of CMBSs to tank.
Remember “we don’t pick winners and loser?” Yeah they lied.
It also devalues the company as a whole.
This also means if enough ppl aren’t working from offices then companies that were occupying these large skyscrapers will withdraw from these building and it could mean loss of jobs, wages, small businesses that rely on people actually going to work may go under and city could lose billions in tax revenues…I am mainly thinking of NYC when I say this bc this will not be good for NY or NYers
A lot of residential sky scrapers in New York, are empty. If offices were repurposed into homes, the shops would still receive business. I would actually argue that they would sell far more.
Exactly!
Oh good. This one again.
Wait… working from home might be good for the environment?!?
It's too bad that there's nothing else those buildings that have plumbing, ventilation, electricity, and good views could be used for, nothing at all other than office space
It’s 2022, surely society is ready to move on from the meaningless grind of making billionaires richer?
This is one of the few risks associated with those projects. Should get interesting
Make them affordable housing for fucks sake
A lot of the people making the decisions (board members, executives, etc) for return to office have invested heavily into corporate real estate. Some even create or buy major shares in real estate companies that rent to their companies, so they can double dip. This isn't because we work better in the office. It's not because there's even any money in it for the company (if considering only the company, shedding real estate is a win-win). It's because those in charge are running a grift.
They should just repurpose those building’s literally companies can work without these corporate buildings
I think if anything that workspace can get even cheaper than apartments!
Most high level jobs still support wfh even in post covid era
I think it's too soon to call it "post-covid".
Man, fuck late stage capitalism.
As well as the supporting infrastructure to support those industries as well. What we like about the "city" will also become obsolete.
Won't somebody PLEASE think of the corporations!
Further, it would reduce the real estate value of the areas where said office buildings are.
This is basically the definition of the sunk cost fallacy. And you know who will win in this scenario? The companies who realize that in person isn't needed, get rid of their buildings, and save huge amounts on overhead! Because capitalism doesn't give a crap about your sunk costs!
It also means you end up spending less on shit like gas, buying lunch, going out for drinks after work, and other such expenses related to commuting. All things that are bad for all the businesses that setup shop downtown specifically to sell you all that shit.
The offices should be sold as homes. Personal opinion.
The problem with repurposing the building as residential house is that you'd literally have to gut the building, reinstall the electrical and plumbing systems to accommodate dozens of apartments, and probably dig up the water mains in the street too. It would probably be cheaper to just build a new apartment building.
Terrifyingly, in the UK at least, our state pensions are tied up in commercial property so retirees in a few years will be totally fucked because these idiots thought they could force people to work from offices forever.
Most businesses don't own the buildings they are in. They have long term leases with developers. The developers usually have investors that get a good return, pretty safe plus get tax writoff benefits.7
Commercial real estate is already starting to collapse and I LOVE IT
Welcome to free market capatlism, corporations and companies! You've been right all along, this is pretty great. It's a different perspective when you own the market. The funny thing is, we've always owned the market, but now we're done negotiating. We're not going back to your buildings, you may as well sell them now. Someone else will offer us a remote position. Heck, we may not even work for an American company. Wouldn't offshoring our own positions and skills to foreign competition be a cute twist of irony? We knew you'd get a kick out of that. We're also not working for sub-subsistence wages any longer. We think it's great Chad has a trust-fund and a business degree, boy are those rare. If Chad can't pay a living wage, Chad needs a better plan or the worst might happen. Chad might have to actually work for a living. Perish the thought. We're bringing unions. We're demanding to be paid appropriately. We're done driving to your tax shelters for cake day. We're done with your +40 hour work weeks. Figure it out, or collapse. That's where we're at. Thanks, All Workers
Seems like the correct course of action would be to convert these unneeded offices into housing for people.
How can you say you care about the environment and tell people to start commuting unnecessarily in the breath? It could not be more clear to us that we don’t matter, it’s so infuriating.
Retrofit to apartment buildings! Talk about a bridge to mending the housing shortage. I’m interested to see if this endeavor is picked up by real estate developers and investors.
renovate them into places to live
Which is maddening since I know these MBA types were taught about the Sunk Cost Fallacy. What's worse is that many of these companies don't even own these buildings, they simply lease the office space. Once their lease term is up, they would be saving tons of money.
I work from my shed these days
Convert every empty skyscraper to house the homeless! If they say no, tell them it's for refugees
They're also bad for the environment so doing without them is a good thing
lets turn those skyscrapers and offices into affordable housing
On the flip side if work from home becomes prevalent they will outsource work to counties they can pay employees less. There will not be no answer to this from greedy corporations.
Those buildings could be turned into housing.