The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Welcome and General Discussion => Topic started by: blackomen on January 02, 2021, 11:21:57 AM
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I'm always outraged when I see articles like this:
https://marker.medium.com/remote-work-is-killing-the-hidden-trillion-dollar-office-economy-5800af06b007
The logic goes: People are working from home more and more these days due to the pandemic. Because they're working from home, they're going out to eat less. And because of that the restaurant industry is dying. Therefore, we need to get people to stop working from home and go back into the office again.
Guess what, although I'm not enjoying the pandemic in general, I'm definitely enjoying working from home. No more commutes and I'm saving a lot of time and gas and wear and tear on my car.
Prior to the pandemic, I rarely ate out when at the office anyways. And even now, when I'm working from home and don't wish to cook, I still order food from Uber Eats, Grubhub, etc which continues to support the local restaurant industry. Having me return to the office isn't gonna be much of an economic boost to the local restaurant industry and may end up lowering my productivity as well and possibly end up as a net loss for the economy.
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So... we should make people less efficient to support industries that are very wasteful. How about no.
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Continue to destroy mental health & environment to give restaurants more biz? tough call there
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There’s a lot of short-sighted analysis about how a particular industry is suffering, with the implication that it should be saved simply because it is large and employs a lot of people.
I remember a similar article about how electric cars could cause many local auto repair shops to go out of business because they need far less servicing and our currently network of service stations would be far too large if there was widespread adoption of electric vehicles. The author concluded that we should limit EV adaptation to save car mechanics.
If you take a step back that suggestion is absurd and amounts to “we ought to keep inefficiencies alive because they employ a bunch of people”. Ditto for this article, lamenting about the loss of ‘the office economy’. For decades we’ve been warned against the high cost of commuting (Trillions!). By change (Covid) this has been curtailed somewhat. Now people are saying “let’s go back to wasting more money!”
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There’s a lot of short-sighted analysis about how a particular industry is suffering, with the implication that it should be saved simply because it is large and employs a lot of people.
I remember a similar article about how electric cars could cause many local auto repair shops to go out of business because they need far less servicing and our currently network of service stations would be far too large if there was widespread adoption of electric vehicles. The author concluded that we should limit EV adaptation to save car mechanics.
If you take a step back that suggestion is absurd and amounts to “we ought to keep inefficiencies alive because they employ a bunch of people”. Ditto for this article, lamenting about the loss of ‘the office economy’. For decades we’ve been warned against the high cost of commuting (Trillions!). By change (Covid) this has been curtailed somewhat. Now people are saying “let’s go back to wasting more money!”
Is it just me or has the government been more of the “we ought to keep inefficiencies alive because they employ a bunch of people” mentality lately than in the past (say the 50s to the 80s)?
Many optimistic futurists say that in 30 years, we'll have nanobots everywhere that'll cure nearly all of the diseases we know today, increase life expectancy to 120+, and provide food out of thin air but I see this sort of wasteful outdated thinking as a major barrier to ever achieving technological greatness that'll enable a much better standard of living.
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When people's ability to keep a roof over their head is dependent on their continued employment, then efficiencies that reduce employment are going to be a bad thing for a lot of people. Given that problem, you can try to prop up those jobs even though we know they don't really need to exist, you can change the system to make sure people can keep a roof over their head even if they aren't employed (UBI, etc.), or you can decide not to address the problem and let lots of people suffer.
That said, I think the death of the office has been overblown. Google, for example, still plans to reopen all of its offices after the pandemic (https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/14/22175150/google-return-office-september-flexible-work-week-coronavirus-pandemic-sundar-pichai). They say they will be experimenting with allowing people to work from home part of the time. We've been doing this 100% work-from-home thing long enough for these big companies to collect some real data on how fast teams are able to accomplish their work now compared to before. These companies spend billions of dollars on their offices. The fact that they still intend to do so even after trying the alternative for a while indicates that they have strong reason to believe the cost is worth it.
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I've been working with my employer to close offices and consolidate them as quickly as we can. We're going from a model where we provision 1 desk per employee, to one where we provision 0.6 desks per employee. I've got really no idea how things are going to shape out, but for me, doing to work back at my desk isnt possible. It's gone.
There are some people who will come into work each day, but our current models forecast them to be about 10% of people. We recently opened up our largest office (1700 people) on a fully voluntary basis. We thought there might be about 170 people turn up, and we enabled 400 socially distanced desks for people to work at. Over all of december, the maximum number of people that turned up. 13. less than 1% of people
I initially thought that only provisioning 0.6 desks per person was crazy and would never work. I'm now thinking why did we bother building so many.
It costs anywhere from about $5000/yr/desk in a LCOL area, to $15k upwards in a major city. (no idea how much in the super expensive west coast US, Atlanta is the most expensive city where we have desks) There is a very great incentive to get them closed off.
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The “fact” that going to work at an office is at all related to eating in restaurants is the problem, right there. There’s no reason for one to cause the other.
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I would like to see more people going back to the office as soon as possible. There's plenty of slacking off in the office, but people are even worse when working from home. If I had a business, I wouldn't want my staff working from home. Now having said that, I've worked from home most days since the pandemic started, and it has been nice.
In regard to the OP, this wasn't anecdotally about you. Of course, not everyone going into the office is eating in restaurants. That includes me - I normally just ate in the work cafeteria..
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There's plenty of slacking off in the office, but people are even worse when working from home.
You get this stance from where?
My wife has gone from commuting nearly 3 hrs/day to WFH. She works longer hours and also finds less destractions than when at office.
I on other hand am probably about same or maybe slightly less efficient WFH, but nowhere near as bad as you make it.
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There's plenty of slacking off in the office, but people are even worse when working from home.
You get this stance from where?
My wife has gone from commuting nearly 3 hrs/day to WFH. She works longer hours and also finds less destractions than when at office.
I on other hand am probably about same or maybe slightly less efficient WFH, but nowhere near as bad as you make it.
I look after a big (2000 people) telephone contact centre. We can prove with a frightening amount of data that people are more productive at home that in the office.
What is a lot harder is skilling people up. It something that wasnt a problem for 6 or 9 months, but as we're onboarding new hires, its starting to get tricky. We're going to need a drastic rethink on how we train up the new guys
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I would like to see more people going back to the office as soon as possible. There's plenty of slacking off in the office, but people are even worse when working from home. If I had a business, I wouldn't want my staff working from home. Now having said that, I've worked from home most days since the pandemic started, and it has been nice.
I definitely slack off more at home.
Because I don't get distracted so often, I can work 1/2 as much and accomplish the same value (or more).
It's great.
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There's plenty of slacking off in the office, but people are even worse when working from home.
You get this stance from where?
My wife has gone from commuting nearly 3 hrs/day to WFH. She works longer hours and also finds less destractions than when at office.
I on other hand am probably about same or maybe slightly less efficient WFH, but nowhere near as bad as you make it.
For me, the distractions at home are positively offset by no longer being near this large cluster of middle aged women who spend the whole day cackling like crows in the cubicle area next to mine at the office. I tried noise cancelling earphones and earlugs to no avail. The biggest offender is a pretty big shot director or something at my company so I didn't feel comfortable asking her (or even asking my supervisor to ask her) to be quiet. But now that I work from home, I no longer have to deal with this BS which easily cuts my productivity in 1/2 (since I'm a programmer and it's so important to be able to concentrate.)
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I am absolutely against make-work / protectionism of obsolete jobs. However, I also realize that any transition will dislocate people, who will find themselves without the right skills, in the wrong location, or with investments which have been rendered worthless. I am supportive of short-term measures to help them adjust to the new reality, and find a new direction.
Will WFH habits survive the pandemic? To a degree, yes. I think It's as much about "work from anywhere" (meaning LCOL locales) than just about commuting in a single city. If so, that would cause more dislocation than just business-center restaurants.
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I am absolutely against make-work / protectionism of obsolete jobs. However, I also realize that any transition will dislocate people, who will find themselves without the right skills, in the wrong location, or with investments which have been rendered worthless. I am supportive of short-term measures to help them adjust to the new reality, and find a new direction.
Will WFH habits survive the pandemic? To a degree, yes. I think It's as much about "work from anywhere" (meaning LCOL locales) than just about commuting in a single city. If so, that would cause more dislocation than just business-center restaurants.
IMO, the best perk of WFH is "work from anywhere" which is a godsend for 2 income families when one person is pursuing a career that isn't as WFH friendly. My wife's planning on starting her professorship in the next year or so and most of her connections are on the West Coast so we might have to end up moving there back to a HCOL locale (although Dallas where we're at isn't exactly a LCOL locale either.) Still, it beats me having to find another job though I'm probably in one of the most WFH-friendly professions as a programmer.
That and also the fact that we totaled our 2001 Prius (with 230K miles) a month ago and we only got 1 car now.. ending WFH means I'd have to pony up for another car.
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We should absolutely organize our behavior to spread Covid even faster and kill or debilitate as many Americans as possible as quickly as possible.
Benefits:
Restaurants will make more money.
Funeral Homes and Cemeteries will make more money.
People will inherit their parents estates sooner.
Cost of housing in HCOL areas will drop as the population does.
Will strengthen social security because payments will drop significantly.
Greeting card industry will make more money on "Sorry for your loss" cards.
Medicare will save money on long term patient costs because they'll die earlier, plus the hospitals will be overloaded so they'll die in the hospital sooner.
Putin will be happy.
Really, the only downside I'm seeing is a lot more 6' deep holes in the ground, but they get filled back up again, so I guess it's not really that bad after all.
Edited to add that the above should be read as sarcasm, not a policy prescription. Given that some Republicans have actually voiced some of those "benefits" as actual social benefits, I thought it best to make my opinion clear.
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I would like to see more people going back to the office as soon as possible. There's plenty of slacking off in the office, but people are even worse when working from home. If I had a business, I wouldn't want my staff working from home. Now having said that, I've worked from home most days since the pandemic started, and it has been nice.
I definitely slack off more at home.
Because I don't get distracted so often, I can work 1/2 as much and accomplish the same value (or more).
It's great.
Same. I've been working from home for almost 8 years and get so much more done than I ever did in an office. Plus, no commuting, and I can do laundry and start dinner during my breaks.
It's personality dependent, though. I wrote my dissertation entirely at home because I couldn't focus as well in the lab. I don't work well if I have to tune out other people in the vicinity.
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Save the buggy whip manufacturers!
The great thing about capitalism is that it always wins. People who adapted to the reality of Covid have continued to work, switching fields if necessary. Dine-in restaurants aren’t coming back to cities at the same scale. When commercial real-estate rents reset to something reasonable, businesses will be back, but not before then. A few of the banks have already publicly expressed their desire to leave NYC and other pricey locations. If there was political negotiation room, they’d have already negotiated before making that pronouncement.
In the meantime, swimming pool installers were booked well into 2021 before the middle of 2020’s summer. Nearly every bathroom remodel for a client over the age of 50 involves removing a bathtub and making a very large (accessible) walk in shower. All the fields that support ‘staycations’ and aging in place are going to do just fine for quite a while.
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I would like to see more people going back to the office as soon as possible. There's plenty of slacking off in the office, but people are even worse when working from home. If I had a business, I wouldn't want my staff working from home. Now having said that, I've worked from home most days since the pandemic started, and it has been nice.
I definitely slack off more at home.
Because I don't get distracted so often, I can work 1/2 as much and accomplish the same value (or more).
It's great.
Same. I've been working from home for almost 8 years and get so much more done than I ever did in an office. Plus, no commuting, and I can do laundry and start dinner during my breaks.
It's personality dependent, though. I wrote my dissertation entirely at home because I couldn't focus as well in the lab. I don't work well if I have to tune out other people in the vicinity.
My work hasn’t suffered at all from WFH. I like being able to get up a little later due to having no commute, wearing slippers during work, being able to have a coffee break midway through the day when I couldn’t before, etc. I’m being forced to return to the building to work on Jan. 11th, even though I haven’t been able to get the vaccine yet.
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The “fact” that going to work at an office is at all related to eating in restaurants is the problem, right there. There’s no reason for one to cause the other.
Right? I don't get that either. The only time I've eaten at a restaurant during work hours in the past ten years is when they paid for a holiday lunch. I went to the company cafeteria once in 2019 because I forgot to bring my lunch that day, but that's it.
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When people's ability to keep a roof over their head is dependent on their continued employment, then efficiencies that reduce employment are going to be a bad thing for a lot of people. Given that problem, you can try to prop up those jobs even though we know they don't really need to exist, you can change the system to make sure people can keep a roof over their head even if they aren't employed (UBI, etc.), or you can decide not to address the problem and let lots of people suffer.
To me, this seems to conflate two problems: 1) propping up inefficiencies in order to retain jobs, and 2) having a robust safety net that can reduce the hardships from replacing these inefficiencies.
In the US we are particularly bad with the latter, to our own detriment. It starts with our rather meager unemployment benefits, but snowballs into our complete lack of affordable retraining and job placement. If you lose your job at best you might get half your salary for a few months, and little/no support to learn a new trade or skill. Continuing education is prohibitively expensive for the unemployed, and few programs are designed to take ‘older’ workers (i.e. those over 35) and train & place them into a new career.
So long as we have a crappy safety net, it makes [political] sense to retain dying occupations (coal anyone...?) at the expense of our own collective prosperity.
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I would like to see more people going back to the office as soon as possible. There's plenty of slacking off in the office, but people are even worse when working from home. If I had a business, I wouldn't want my staff working from home. Now having said that, I've worked from home most days since the pandemic started, and it has been nice.
You're just wrong according to the people who've done studies on this (they produce more and do so more efficiently, they're happier too).
People go to restaurants less often if WFH but they also save on commuting costs. Some of those savings will go to increased consumption of leisure activities, vacation, home improvement, etc. These things are best not analyzed linearly.
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I would like to see more people going back to the office as soon as possible. There's plenty of slacking off in the office, but people are even worse when working from home. If I had a business, I wouldn't want my staff working from home. Now having said that, I've worked from home most days since the pandemic started, and it has been nice.
In regard to the OP, this wasn't anecdotally about you. Of course, not everyone going into the office is eating in restaurants. That includes me - I normally just ate in the work cafeteria..
A true micromanager.
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To me, this seems to conflate two problems: 1) propping up inefficiencies in order to retain jobs, and 2) having a robust safety net that can reduce the hardships from replacing these inefficiencies.
In the US we are particularly bad with the latter, to our own detriment. It starts with our rather meager unemployment benefits, but snowballs into our complete lack of affordable retraining and job placement. If you lose your job at best you might get half your salary for a few months, and little/no support to learn a new trade or skill. Continuing education is prohibitively expensive for the unemployed, and few programs are designed to take ‘older’ workers (i.e. those over 35) and train & place them into a new career.
So long as we have a crappy safety net, it makes [political] sense to retain dying occupations (coal anyone...?) at the expense of our own collective prosperity.
Nereo, I agree unemployment benefits in the US are particularly bad.
But when it comes to retraining, are you aware of cases in any other countries that have a lot of success at job retraining and placement when industries go away?
My suspicion/fear is that the problem is not that we don't have good retraining and job placement programs in the USA but that training and replacement into equivalent paying jobs is a really hard or impossible thing to do, particularly for people in their 40s/50s/60s. Even for folks who qualify for TAA job retraining when their jobs go away, which is comparatively quite well funded, the outcomes seem to be pretty poor: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/01/27/512060753/episode-750-retraining-day
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There's plenty of slacking off in the office, but people are even worse when working from home.
Don't project your personal issues on the rest of us. My team's productivity is up since we went 100% WFH.
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So... we should make people less efficient to support industries that are very wasteful. How about no.
I entirely agree with "how about no", and this is why I'm also against stimulus measures generally.
If the economy needs to tank, let it tank.
Keep some money left over for genuine welfare (in the form of food stamps, emergency shelters, medical/health services and emergency payments based on declared need - no need for heavy examination, just require some form of proof eg. payslips, bank account statements or statutory declaration) - and let the economy otherwise sort itself out.
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There's plenty of slacking off in the office, but people are even worse when working from home.
Don't project your personal issues on the rest of us. My team's productivity is up since we went 100% WFH.
Well, I'm glad I'm NOT working for him
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Work from home has exposed a large number of people at my tech company who are not valuable. They have survived on drop in office chats and meetings for years. Some are very worried about their jobs and others have found excuses to not be engaged at all without using sick leave. There is talk of getting rid of people on the next round of layoffs that are in this camp.
Then there are people who are good, but they are extroverts and really you can tell they are depressed and not happy about the situation as work is a major part of their social life which is pretty much gone now. Going back to the office would be to help this group of people out which tend to be the younger and newer folks.
Then you have a group that are introverts and self starters who are completely thriving in this environment and enjoying the work situation a lot more and that is where I am and starting to rethink the RE part of FIRE as I can basically get my job done in 2 hours instead of 8 if I focused on it due to not having so many useless meetings, chats, and traffic. I'm sure that hurts my perception, but my work output is the same. The great thing about software is you can get more efficient and reduce your hours to do the same tasks over time. Working remotely allows you to step away when done with minimal repercussions. My company sounds like we are going to go to a flexible situation after the all clear to cater to all groups which is probably going to be great unless you are one of the exposed slackers who is discovered to not do much of anything.
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Work from home has exposed a large number of people at my tech company who are not valuable. They have survived on drop in office chats and meetings for years. Some are very worried about their jobs and others have found excuses to not be engaged at all without using sick leave. There is talk of getting rid of people on the next round of layoffs that are in this camp.
Then there are people who are good, but they are extroverts and really you can tell they are depressed and not happy about the situation as work is a major part of their social life which is pretty much gone now. Going back to the office would be to help this group of people out which tend to be the younger and newer folks.
Then you have a group that are introverts and self starters who are completely thriving in this environment and enjoying the work situation a lot more and that is where I am and starting to rethink the RE part of FIRE as I can basically get my job done in 2 hours instead of 8 if I focused on it due to not having so many useless meetings, chats, and traffic. I'm sure that hurts my perception, but my work output is the same. The great thing about software is you can get more efficient and reduce your hours to do the same tasks over time. Working remotely allows you to step away when done with minimal repercussions. My company sounds like we are going to go to a flexible situation after the all clear to cater to all groups which is probably going to be great unless you are one of the exposed slackers who is discovered to not do much of anything.
One of the things covid also does is it amplifies the impact bad managers have too.
I just changed jobs (also in tech) and part of it is that my manager did not adapt well to remote at all and it brought out his weaknesses significantly. He didn't really change anything he did tactic wise and it resulted in his gaps as a leader being really pronounced.
One thing I like is that covid levels the playing field a lot for people as you say. It means competent managers now have to evaluate performance not based on "who sits in their seat the longest" or other variants on the standard "I'm the boss, you're my peon" approach which AmericanGenX seems to have so perfectly described.
Personally I think fully remote brings out the best or worst in someone as far as work abilities go. If you lean towards being mediocre as an employee/manager in the office you're going to be significantly worse in a remote context and vice versa. Extroverts suffer more, but realistically all the suffering extroverts had to deal with since covid started is basically the flip side of what introverts have had to deal with in office for their whole lives, so I'm a bit less sympathetic.
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Personally I think fully remote brings out the best or worst in someone as far as work abilities go. If you lean towards being mediocre as an employee/manager in the office you're going to be significantly worse in a remote context and vice versa. Extroverts suffer more, but realistically all the suffering extroverts had to deal with since covid started is basically the flip side of what introverts have had to deal with in office for their whole lives, so I'm a bit less sympathetic.
Hard same. My boss is a hard extrovert, I'm a hard introvert, and watching him chew the wallpaper in frustration for the past few months has been enlightening (and some sweet payback for the constant "if we talk loudly about football for an hour a day as a team, that's team building, right? RIGHT?!" stuff I had to put up with for five years). I sometimes joke we need to put extros all in one room so they can talk to their hearts' content and are out the way while the intros get their work done.
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I would like to see more people going back to the office as soon as possible. There's plenty of slacking off in the office, but people are even worse when working from home. If I had a business, I wouldn't want my staff working from home. Now having said that, I've worked from home most days since the pandemic started, and it has been nice.
You're just wrong according to the people who've done studies on this (they produce more and do so more efficiently, they're happier too).
I'm right. There are studies that show how much people slack off as well. Are you one of them? You sound a little defensive to me. lol
There's plenty of slacking off in the office, but people are even worse when working from home.
Don't project your personal issues on the rest of us. My team's productivity is up since we went 100% WFH.
With that attitude, you sound a little defensive in the way you felt that you had to make a personal attack on me. I'm guessing you are one of those people I was talking about. lol
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NO. I think a lot of people have been less productive working from home during the pandemic because they’re trying to homeschool their kids at the same time. Let’s not forget these aren’t optimal conditions. A lot of other people are horrible workers with no self-motivation who already waste time in the office and even more so at home. I’ve been fully work from home for about ten years though and have always gotten larger than average raises and bonuses because I get stuff done. I am very efficient about it though (I’m a programmer and I automate everything), so like others in this thread I rarely have to work 40 hours a week to accomplish twice as much as your average unmotivated worker who is used to bullshitting in person all day with coworkers.
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With that attitude, you sound a little defensive in the way you felt that you had to make a personal attack on me. I'm guessing you are one of those people I was talking about. lol
If you make immensely judgmental and ignorant statements, you shouldn't be surprised if people react strongly.
NO. I think a lot of people have been less productive working from home during the pandemic because they’re trying to homeschool their kids at the same time. Let’s not forget these aren’t optimal conditions. A lot of other people are horrible workers with no self-motivation who already waste time in the office and even more so at home. I’ve been fully work from home for about ten years though and have always gotten larger than average raises and bonuses because I get stuff done. I am very efficient about it though (I’m a programmer and I automate everything), so like others in this thread I rarely have to work 40 hours a week to accomplish twice as much as your average unmotivated worker who is used to bullshitting in person all day with coworkers.
+1 to all of this.
Any family with kids and both parents working has been through a hellish 9 months.
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With that attitude, you sound a little defensive in the way you felt that you had to make a personal attack on me. I'm guessing you are one of those people I was talking about. lol
If you make immensely judgmental and ignorant statements, you shouldn't be surprised if people react strongly.
It was based on facts and not directed to anyone in particular, but I guess it's not surprising that those who see themselves in my words would react strongly. But really, people should not make personal attacks or call someone ignorant just because they don't want to hear it.
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It was based on facts and not directed to anyone in particular, but I guess it's not surprising that those who see themselves in my words would react strongly. But really, people should not make personal attacks or call someone ignorant just because they don't want to hear it.
I would like to see more people going back to the office as soon as possible. There's plenty of slacking off in the office, but people are even worse when working from home. If I had a business, I wouldn't want my staff working from home. Now having said that, I've worked from home most days since the pandemic started, and it has been nice.
What you wrote is judgmental and ignorant.
Unless, of course, you were intentionally trolling in which case 10/10 well played, you successfully trolled.
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NO. I think a lot of people have been less productive working from home during the pandemic because they’re trying to homeschool their kids at the same time. Let’s not forget these aren’t optimal conditions. A lot of other people are horrible workers with no self-motivation who already waste time in the office and even more so at home.
Yeah, that would describe most people. Of course anyone replying here is proclaiming how much more productive they are at home. Funny how that happens. lol
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It was based on facts and not directed to anyone in particular, but I guess it's not surprising that those who see themselves in my words would react strongly. But really, people should not make personal attacks or call someone ignorant just because they don't want to hear it.
I would like to see more people going back to the office as soon as possible. There's plenty of slacking off in the office, but people are even worse when working from home. If I had a business, I wouldn't want my staff working from home. Now having said that, I've worked from home most days since the pandemic started, and it has been nice.
What you wrote is judgmental and ignorant.
Unless, of course, you were intentionally trolling in which case 10/10 well played, you successfully trolled.
I see you continue with personal attacks instead of just giving your own opinion in response. I wonder who is really trolling here? LOL
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I see you continue with personal attacks instead of just giving your own opinion in response. I wonder who is really trolling here? LOL
In the off chance you are actually serious and not blatantly trolling...
First, your implication is that people are intentionally slacking off in the office and moreso at home. Which is a baseless claim in the broader sense, but let's roll with it.
Why might people be "slacking off" as a result of Covid? Also I'll use, instead of "slacking off" the phrase "less effective" since "slacking off" is inherently a value judgment on your part.
Let's see... a large number of my colleagues went from two working parents to two parents + young children at home. Many lived in 1br apartments either by themselves or with partners. Imagine someone being less effective when:
- There's been a global pandemic (maybe you aren't impacted and have no impact on your effectiveness as a result)
- Almost all companies had only a few weeks to prepare for mass remote work, assuming they prepared at all
- Families with children had minimal time to line up childcare and have been managing parenting + teaching
- Many employees had no home office provisions and in some case, live in small apartments with their partners and had to scramble to figure out an arrangement
- Most companies did not previously have great remote/not in office culture around productivity, etc
- Change is inherently stressful. Externally imposed change is more stressful
- Many people's daily/weekly/monthly routines changed instantly
- Many people had massive disruption in their social support circles
That's just a sampling of factors that result in covid-remote being challenging to be as effective as before (there are more, but that's a good start).
But covid remote is not the same as what remote has been for the decade prior. Everyone I know who was working remotely even before covid has talked about the massive impact covid had on their effectiveness and it's pretty clear that changing to remote had nothing to do with it for them... since they already were.
What you wrote is ignorant because you miss the entire context of covid/instant remote and its effect on work effectiveness.
What you wrote is judgmental is because you seem to not care and ascribe "slacking off" as the cause, rather than, uh, well, I guess there's not a nice way to say this - having empathy or interest in understanding actual factors impacting remote work effectiveness. Instead, you jumped straight to a value judgment about motivations.
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Personally I think fully remote brings out the best or worst in someone as far as work abilities go. If you lean towards being mediocre as an employee/manager in the office you're going to be significantly worse in a remote context and vice versa. Extroverts suffer more, but realistically all the suffering extroverts had to deal with since covid started is basically the flip side of what introverts have had to deal with in office for their whole lives, so I'm a bit less sympathetic.
I totally agree with this and I personally do not like the idea of wasteful inefficiencies of the old and going back to the office... I just know I am outnumbered.
My only sympathy is for the newbies that are pretty much failing in this environment. This is the fault of management and has been for many years as they pretty much dumped this task on the engineers sharing offices without compensating their time for this (same amount of tasks are due).
I think another issue is people are lot less loyal to the company because people are not "real" and just an image over a video chat call. You will see more and more engineers working multiple jobs and not being fully engaged in your company, ESPECIALLY if you start cutting benefits and lower total compensation due to the economy excuses like they did at my company after 2008 for several years. That was extremely demoralizing and I could see people giving the finger to the man and working on their amazon business, working for multiple tech companies, or just playing video games most the day... Remote work could cause problems for companies that treat their employees like crap and want to monitor them closer to avoid people taking advantage of low moral and lack of loyalty.
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NO. I think a lot of people have been less productive working from home during the pandemic because they’re trying to homeschool their kids at the same time. Let’s not forget these aren’t optimal conditions.
I want to work remote with my kids in school. That is the only real problem for us and when that is no longer the case remote work will be almost perfect for me.
A lot of other people are horrible workers with no self-motivation who already waste time in the office and even more so at home.
This is exactly what I see and remote work has exposed many of them. I think this is going to be the bulk of the first round of white collar layoffs.
I’ve been fully work from home for about ten years though and have always gotten larger than average raises and bonuses because I get stuff done. I am very efficient about it though (I’m a programmer and I automate everything), so like others in this thread I rarely have to work 40 hours a week to accomplish twice as much as your average unmotivated worker who is used to bullshitting in person all day with coworkers.
This is the way it should be, as we get more efficient we should not be expected to work more then others that make the same as us. We should not be required to endure useless small talk all day from the slackers trying to hold onto the job without producing much of anything. I want to work, get the goal accomplished, then log off. I spend more time giving status and explaining things with non engineers then coding which is because we have so many stupid layers of non engineers. I am going to try to avoid that this year so I don't burn out. I need to do more writing in the task database. If they want status, they can look in the task database and stop asking me over and over again.
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FWIW, my team's overall productivity was definitely up in 2020. Now only two people in that group have small children at home. One of whom is really struggled. The other had a rockstar year (but in fairness I should know this second person has a spouse who doesn't work and the first person's spouse also works full time).
Personally I feel like I worked significantly less hard in 2020 than in '19 or '18. However I'm currently working on my annual evaluation for 2020 and based purely on the concrete metrics I have to pull together each year for this annoying document, this was my most productive year since I started with my current employer. It's not even close.
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I have heard from the boss, but have not seen the numbers myself, that our department has been very productive during the work from home period, 9 months+ SO I know that remote workers can be pretty productive in a general sense.
I think the decrease in pollution and the decrease in commuting is so benificial to the planet and to individuals as well. I think it is crazy to end WFH if you can keep production to a reasonable level. I have found that When I do drive the traffic is so reduced, a boon to most drivers.
The office was going to be moved to a new location and now poof they now do not have to rent extra space to house us ( and that was the plan renting more office space).
The pandemic has taught us so much can get done remotely with zoom or star leaf or whatever! I have had 3/4 of my nad my mothers Doctor appointments by Telemedicine either in zoom or on the phone, that saves the patient from traveling to the crowded hospital, and saves the Doctor from getting Covid, and saves time no waiting for the late patient to arrive.
I hope we never go back to the way it was.
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NO. I think a lot of people have been less productive working from home during the pandemic because they’re trying to homeschool their kids at the same time. Let’s not forget these aren’t optimal conditions. A lot of other people are horrible workers with no self-motivation who already waste time in the office and even more so at home. I’ve been fully work from home for about ten years though and have always gotten larger than average raises and bonuses because I get stuff done. I am very efficient about it though (I’m a programmer and I automate everything), so like others in this thread I rarely have to work 40 hours a week to accomplish twice as much as your average unmotivated worker who is used to bullshitting in person all day with coworkers.
Not just parents trying to deal with kids. I worked on the couch for months. I got a desk and proper chair a few months ago, and I just bought a 2nd monitor. It is not ideal trying to work with one small monitor while physically uncomfortable. I've had coworkers switching between the kitchen table, the couch, and other less than ideal setups. It matters.
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I'm right. There are studies that show how much people slack off as well. Are you one of them? You sound a little defensive to me. lol
First few google searches for working from home effect on productivity shows studies from Stanford Business, Harvard Business, and Rescue Time. Don't know anything about Rescue Time, but Stanford and Harvard business schools aren't your labor loving economic left wing institutions, they are neo-liberal and pretty pro business. The only links I saw even remotely not on my side said WFH is better in some ways and worse in others. Weight of the evidence is on my side. Sorry but you're not right at a minimum and likely very wrong.
Also I'm FIRED haha so I have no dog in this fight, I just don't like when people post bullshit that's bereft of evidence.
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The pandemic has taught us so much can get done remotely with zoom or star leaf or whatever! I have had 3/4 of my nad my mothers Doctor appointments by Telemedicine either in zoom or on the phone, that saves the patient from traveling to the crowded hospital, and saves the Doctor from getting Covid, and saves time no waiting for the late patient to arrive.
I hope we never go back to the way it was.
I have a family member who just got hearing aids. She only had to go in for one short consultation. The hearing aids were posted out to her, and she provides feedback on them via an app to the provider.
The provider then adjusts them via the app and Bluetooth. No need for sitting in waiting rooms and doctors offices anymore, it’s amazing what can be done with just a phone these days.
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I'm right. There are studies that show how much people slack off as well. Are you one of them? You sound a little defensive to me. lol
First few google searches for working from home effect on productivity shows studies from Stanford Business, Harvard Business, and Rescue Time. Don't know anything about Rescue Time, but Stanford and Harvard business schools aren't your labor loving economic left wing institutions, they are neo-liberal and pretty pro business. The only links I saw even remotely not on my side said WFH is better in some ways and worse in others. Weight of the evidence is on my side. Sorry but you're not right at a minimum and likely very wrong.
Also I'm FIRED haha so I have no dog in this fight, I just don't like when people post bullshit that's bereft of evidence.
I'm much more productive working from the office which I pay for (rent) myself, because it's got all my work stuff in one place, it's associated in my mind with being a pure work environment, it's quiet, it has colleagues nearby but also a lot of privacy, etc
At home I have a lot of distractions. Plus home to me means a lot more than just work so I don't always get into the right mindset.
I can work from either place and I'm self-employed so the question of slacking off doesn't come into it.
One data point FWIW.
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I'm always outraged when I see articles like this:
https://marker.medium.com/remote-work-is-killing-the-hidden-trillion-dollar-office-economy-5800af06b007
The logic goes: People are working from home more and more these days due to the pandemic. Because they're working from home, they're going out to eat less. And because of that the restaurant industry is dying.
Therefore, we need to get people to stop working from home and go back into the office again.
I oppose particular measures aimed at curbing WFH.
However, my consistent partiality in favor of WFH does not preclude my support of current, short-term policies or supplemental ones to remediate the jolting disequilibrium of the demand shock caused by the rapidity and magnitude of the surge in WFH employment.
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Personally I feel like I worked significantly less hard in 2020 than in '19 or '18. However I'm currently working on my annual evaluation for 2020 and based purely on the concrete metrics I have to pull together each year for this annoying document, this was my most productive year since I started with my current employer. It's not even close.
If I switched from "working at the office" to WFH and my performance metrics were equal to or better than when I worked at the office I'd tell management: "I've demonstrated I can WFH and meet all your requirements. I want to continue to WFH and if you don't let me I'm quitting."
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Here's the thing...
Over the last decade Tesla and other companies have stated the fossil fuel is killing the planet and it would take decades to replace fuel/diesel cars on the cheap and by then it would be to late.
1.Work from home has move the goal post from decades to a few years.
2.Many countries have shown proof of the pollution in the air clearing up and can now see things that were not possible before.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-covid19-air-pollution-enviroment-nature-lockdown
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-before-and-after-how-lockdown-has-changed-smog-filled-skylines-11976473
Restaurants, just need to adapt and invest in delivering services.
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My working from home has not changed my use of restaurants at all. I still get food about once a month.
Nor has it shortened my commute, it has doubled it, as I still have to go to daycare, right by my office, then drive home.
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I used to work in restaurants and hotels before getting my first real job. I was always pretty impressed by how busy these places were and thought that those diners/travelers must be so wealthy to visit so often! Then I started traveling for work, with my unlimited hotel budget and $85 food per diem, and I realized that these restaurants and hotels were sustained by traveling workers' monopoly money. It felt really wasteful to me, even as I took advantage of it.
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Here's the thing...
Over the last decade Tesla and other companies have stated the fossil fuel is killing the planet and it would take decades to replace fuel/diesel cars on the cheap and by then it would be to late.
1.Work from home has move the goal post from decades to a few years.
You think it will take just a few years to replace all or most fuel/diesel cars? That's quite a prediction.
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I can't really speak to my productivity in concrete numbers but I feel like I'm more efficient and definitely happier working from home.
I have a job with an hour-long commute each way, up an interstate that goes through a city. You can imagine how I felt about that. I was tired all the time and there was never enough time after work to feel like I was able to do anything. During busy periods, if my boss wanted me in on the weekends (salary, so no OT) I had to put in another 2 hours of driving beyond whatever I needed to do in the office. When covid started, I had just finished a horrible project I felt completely untrained and unprepared for, but which my boss felt I should have been able to figure out. As a result of this, I was put on probation, and as a result of probation, my request to WFH 1 day per MONTH was denied as they "couldn't trust me to get work done remotely".
Well.
In the 10 months I've been FT WFH, I'm off probation, my relationship with my boss has improved (their management style has changed a bit too), I received high praise on a project I worked for in another department, and all of my other work is getting done on schedule. This is in addition to me being much happier because I don't have to deal with traffic, spend $$ on gas, I get more sleep, I can wear casual clothes every day, and I see my parents much more often because we live fairly close to them but I never had time or energy while commuting. Even in the winter I can go for a walk after work and it's light out! How awesome is that?
I didn't eat out at the office, since why would I spend my dining budget on a work lunch? Now that we see my parents more often, and they eat out a lot, I feel like I eat out more than I otherwise would. We've also made a concerted effort to support local restaurants, so there's that too.
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There's plenty of slacking off in the office, but people are even worse when working from home.
Don't project your personal issues on the rest of us. My team's productivity is up since we went 100% WFH.
My company president was really worried about WFH and not being able to get things done.
It has resulted in adjustments to new tech...some people only respond to phone calls and texts, and ignore you otherwise. But in general, most people are more productive when not having to be at the office.
Not all, though. Those of us with kids at home sometimes are struggling. Particularly those with very small children. For that reason, I let my officemate use the office.
I knew that I could be more productive when WFH already though. Many times in the last decades, I'd take work home for the weekend to get caught up, or I'd have to WFH with a sick kid - I'd take home what I thought was 5-8 hours of work and get it done in half the time.
At the office, I have an officemate. I have 2-3 coworkers who come in and ask questions or complain about things. Or they need something and it's distracting. Then the same number of coworkers who come in and talk to the officemate. Even my 8 yo isn't that annoying. (At home, I can compartmentalize better. If I need to concentrate for 2 hours to develop something new, I can do that much more easily at home.)
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To answer the topic question, I am against any governmental intervention that would meddle with the way we work, whether it's forcing people back into offices or forcing them to work from home. Let the chips fall where they may.
This work shift has been amazing for me, a software developer. I no longer have to pretend to be busy at a cubicle despite having completed everything. At home there are fewer meetings, fewer distractions, no commute, no restaurant temptations, no traffic, etc. I can sleep in longer, power through my work, and then monitor things for support issues as I do whatever I want. After I'm finished with my work responsibilities I'll often take on a home project, such as painting a room or repairing an appliance. I've gotten so much done on my house since March. Plus I have a newborn now and I can help my wife out with childcare sometimes during the day.
If the company/my supervisor decides I need to return to the office, I'll just quit and move to another IT position. Plenty of work out there. However, they know this. The company has been closing offices around the country and postponing return to office discussions until further notice.
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As a chef...albeit one who no longer works in the retail sector (restaurants/hotels/banquets), I find it laughable that we should prop up one business over another. These restaurants that are struggling, and it's sad, all opened to take advantage of a situation or market opportunity that they saw. There is inherent risk in that. Now, no one could predict this, but if a business isn't providing value anymore, then it's not a viable business...as sad as that is to say. I won't support any business that I don't think that I'm getting at least equal value than what I'm giving up...that's how all commerce works. To single out particular industries that are deemed "more important" is crazy.
I did listen to a podcast where the Chinese did a huge study on WFH, and they found that those that chose to work in the office got promoted quicker, got higher raises, and were offered more learning opportunities/career advancement, than those that chose to work from home.
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As a chef...albeit one who no longer works in the retail sector (restaurants/hotels/banquets), I find it laughable that we should prop up one business over another. These restaurants that are struggling, and it's sad, all opened to take advantage of a situation or market opportunity that they saw. There is inherent risk in that. Now, no one could predict this, but if a business isn't providing value anymore, then it's not a viable business...as sad as that is to say. I won't support any business that I don't think that I'm getting at least equal value than what I'm giving up...that's how all commerce works. To single out particular industries that are deemed "more important" is crazy.
+1
Bold mine.
Why should anyone prop up a business simply because it's failing? Why reward failure? Why not give it more money because/when it's doing well instead?
As I see it, the economic dislocations will result in as-of-yet unforeseeable efficiencies. Unproductive workers will get sacked, thus they will be free to find productive work. Marginal restaurants (and other businesses) will close and free up resources for more efficient and productive businesses.
Pandemic induced creative destruction.
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As so many in this thread has stated, it doesn't make any sense to prop up businesses that are failing due to shifts in society. We didn't prop up the whip-makers, blacksmiths or the typographers.
As for working at home it has become a dual-edged sword for me personally. On the positive side it allows me to focus and accomplish in a few hours what would normally take around a full working day. I also get to listen to my own music and work when I feel like it.
The negative side of the WFH situation is definitely that the team has lost some cohesion and most of us are "socially lonely" in our work situation. I am blessed with a team where there is a high level of trust and the office environment is one of the best I have ever known. On a typical day you would hear laughter as jokes and banter flew around the office, social gatherings in our soft-chair-corner. I miss this so much, and the entire team regularly expresses how they all want to come back to the office together.
I know a team like ours is a rarity and we have an extremely high level of trust between us. There is this internal joke that the only difference between our software development team and Navy Seals is that they carry weapons.
I can only say that I miss it and 2020 sucked.
But all that being said we are discussing what we would like going forward and we want to get into a 3/2 or 2/3 situation when this is eventually over. So WFH for 3 days and 2 days at the office or vice versa.
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I can't calculate the number of hours workers have wasted commuting from home to work and back to home. In the future, it will seem barbaric that people have to devote an hour or two per day just to go from one place to another to work.
I've WFH for quite some time. I can't ever imagine willingly giving up hours of my day to travel from one place to another *for free* so some boss can be happy that I'm physically in one place just to earn a paycheck.
You want me to go into the office? You pay me for the travel time back and forth. Otherwise it's WFH. It's nice being close to FIRE and having options.
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The negative side of the WFH situation is definitely that the team has lost some cohesion and most of us are "socially lonely" in our work situation. I am blessed with a team where there is a high level of trust and the office environment is one of the best I have ever known. On a typical day you would hear laughter as jokes and banter flew around the office, social gatherings in our soft-chair-corner. I miss this so much, and the entire team regularly expresses how they all want to come back to the office together.
One thing I was very intentional about on this front is setting up a during work hours happy hour with my immediate team, every week, from the start of covid.
I also setup a dedicated "not work" channel for my team on our Slack. I was deliberate in sharing there.
Those aren't perfect reproductions of the in office camaraderie but even though I was only on that team for about a year I felt like we had the strongest team cohesion of any team I've been on to date and almost all of it was virtual.
I don't know if you all have tried anything like this but I found it pretty effective.
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@ender Those are good ideas. Hopefully others can use them.
The only caveat I can see is, the team dynamics should have been healthy in the first place, pre-WFH. If the relationships were already strained, I could easily see these ideas backfiring.
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I can't calculate the number of hours workers have wasted commuting from home to work and back to home. In the future, it will seem barbaric that people have to devote an hour or two per day just to go from one place to another to work.
I've WFH for quite some time. I can't ever imagine willingly giving up hours of my day to travel from one place to another *for free* so some boss can be happy that I'm physically in one place just to earn a paycheck.
You want me to go into the office? You pay me for the travel time back and forth. Otherwise it's WFH. It's nice being close to FIRE and having options.
Life is finite.
Requiring "working at the office" also requires commuting to and from it and all of commuting's drawbacks.
This is an unforgivable requirement if the employee wants to WFH and demonstrated that when they WFH they meet or exceed all performance metrics.
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I like working in the office, but I don't like commuting. Showering, putting on nice clothes, driving in. It's a slog. However, since I live alone, I have far too much alone time. Besides, it's nice to see something other than the inside of my house. Now if I could only get this teleporter working.
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I like working in the office, but I don't like commuting. Showering, putting on nice clothes, driving in. It's a slog. However, since I live alone, I have far too much alone time. Besides, it's nice to see something other than the inside of my house. Now if I could only get this teleporter working.
In principle could a teleporter also handle dressing and showering? (Teleport me from one set of clothes and into another, and don't teleport and dirt/grime/sweat.)
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ctrl+f "buggy whip".
Yep! There it is.
I think we should pump the break on "the office economy" until the pandemic is over. It's very possible that people simply don't want to stay in their homes all day and will invent reasons to go to cafes or collaborate in work spaces or do a mid-day escape room. If there's still a net drag on the consumption economy, then we can reorganize and hopefully find more productive work for the displaced to do. If not, UBI time baybeee!
More holistically, I do worry about permanent WFH having negative effects, but on the people who WFH. Human beings need community, and while the office isn't the only place to get community, it's a big one.
The Internet is a great source of community too of course. I have friends all over the country and the world thanks to the Internet. I've hung out with friends on both coasts from the Internet. I've gone to weddings of people I've met online. But even with occasional meetups, online relationships are not the same as flesh and blood relationships.
A few years ago I was getting drinks with a local friend at a bar when she started having an emotional breakdown. I had to quickly settle the tab and drive her somewhere safe so she could calm down and unload on what was bothering her. If a friend has an emotional breakdown in a Discord chat, I have the option to just put my phone away and assume someone else will handle it. But how well does the person really "know" the people in chat who are going to be "there for them"? Is some creep going to try to take advantage of an emotionally compromised person? Are people splintering off into smaller group chats to discuss "how crazy it is that so and so is breaking down?" This stuff happens all the fucking time online.
Something is clearly lost in translation there. We can treat each other however we want online because at the end of the day, we don't have to be together. In some sense, that's good. The optionality of friendship. I encourage everyone to cut toxic people out of their lives. But for other challenges, in person, you're more likely to push through and come out better. If it's just the people who live in your phone, you can just switch apps and see what's up on Twitter instead.
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Speaking to the article itself, I do think it's important to consider what we're giving up when we start making major changes. Value will absolutely be lost if workers don't return to offices. Is that enough to outlaw WFH? Almost certainly not, but it's worth considering.
What are we losing, and do we have a suitable replacement for it? These are questions we should always be considering as a society.
Some other examples: What is lost in the transition from defined benefits to defined contribution retirement plans? What do we lose when we stop going to church?
That kind of stuff.
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More holistically, I do worry about permanent WFH having negative effects, but on the people who WFH. Human beings need community, and while the office isn't the only place to get community, it's a big one.
The Internet is a great source of community too of course. I have friends all over the country and the world thanks to the Internet. I've hung out with friends on both coasts from the Internet. I've gone to weddings of people I've met online. But even with occasional meetups, online relationships are not the same as flesh and blood relationships.
I actually think that it isn't healthy to have the workplace be the main source of community. I've seen the effects of that on my parents. It's been isolating on my dad since his retirement, and I think it's one of the reasons why my mom refuses to retire. She has no idea what she'd do without the workplace. Neither of them have non-work friends, and they only socialize with their few siblings who are alive and haven't moved out of state.
There are options for community between the extremes of only the workplace and only online forums. Since I've worked from home full time for 8 years, I've been able to do volunteer work and join community groups for socialization. It's been great because I'm an introvert and was able to socialize because I wanted to, which is way less draining on my energy levels than being forced to spend 40+ hours a week in an office or lab. This year has been really difficult in large part because all of my in-person volunteer work and community groups have been put on hiatus or moved online.
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I actually think that it isn't healthy to have the workplace be the main source of community. I've seen the effects of that on my parents. It's been isolating on my dad since his retirement, and I think it's one of the reasons why my mom refuses to retire. She has no idea what she'd do without the workplace. Neither of them have non-work friends, and they only socialize with their few siblings who are alive and haven't moved out of state.
...
Yeah, this is my parents as well. Definitely pushed me to build my friend group outside of work. I'm still friends with a few old coworkers, but I find that once you switch jobs most coworkers magically forget about you. Meanwhile, I've been friends with my local knitting group through 3 job changes wand two moves.
Anyway, I think this pandemic has proven that a whole bunch of "essential office jobs" are actually essential "doesn't matter where the employee's butt is" jobs. I tried to get my job to consider full time WFH about 5 months into the pandemic and was told that (a) some people were voluntarily going back to the office and (b) full or even partial time WFH was impossible for us, despite meeting goals for 5 months.
Which was the business's priority. I job hunted and took a slight paycut to get a full time WFH job that will remain WFH after the pandemic. Life is too short to waste on commuting.
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More holistically, I do worry about permanent WFH having negative effects, but on the people who WFH. Human beings need community, and while the office isn't the only place to get community, it's a big one.
The Internet is a great source of community too of course. I have friends all over the country and the world thanks to the Internet. I've hung out with friends on both coasts from the Internet. I've gone to weddings of people I've met online. But even with occasional meetups, online relationships are not the same as flesh and blood relationships.
I actually think that it isn't healthy to have the workplace be the main source of community. I've seen the effects of that on my parents. It's been isolating on my dad since his retirement, and I think it's one of the reasons why my mom refuses to retire. She has no idea what she'd do without the workplace. Neither of them have non-work friends, and they only socialize with their few siblings who are alive and haven't moved out of state.
There are options for community between the extremes of only the workplace and only online forums. Since I've worked from home full time for 8 years, I've been able to do volunteer work and join community groups for socialization. It's been great because I'm an introvert and was able to socialize because I wanted to, which is way less draining on my energy levels than being forced to spend 40+ hours a week in an office or lab. This year has been really difficult in large part because all of my in-person volunteer work and community groups have been put on hiatus or moved online.
Of course I agree. I also think people should have communities outside of church too. But a working age adult, full time, spends around 35% of their waking hours at work. So a god fearing worker had much of their community built for them for the past however many years.
As secularization and WFH become the norm, I think we're going to end up with a lot of lonely people unless we have ready made alternatives because trying to make new friends as an adult, with no prebaked structure is a fucking beatdown.
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I like working in the office, but I don't like commuting. Showering, putting on nice clothes, driving in. It's a slog. However, since I live alone, I have far too much alone time. Besides, it's nice to see something other than the inside of my house. Now if I could only get this teleporter working.
In principle could a teleporter also handle dressing and showering? (Teleport me from one set of clothes and into another, and don't teleport and dirt/grime/sweat.)
Calibration would be key. It could take the old "caught in the zipper" problem to a whole other level...
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More holistically, I do worry about permanent WFH having negative effects, but on the people who WFH. Human beings need community, and while the office isn't the only place to get community, it's a big one.
The Internet is a great source of community too of course. I have friends all over the country and the world thanks to the Internet. I've hung out with friends on both coasts from the Internet. I've gone to weddings of people I've met online. But even with occasional meetups, online relationships are not the same as flesh and blood relationships.
I actually think that it isn't healthy to have the workplace be the main source of community. I've seen the effects of that on my parents. It's been isolating on my dad since his retirement, and I think it's one of the reasons why my mom refuses to retire. She has no idea what she'd do without the workplace. Neither of them have non-work friends, and they only socialize with their few siblings who are alive and haven't moved out of state.
There are options for community between the extremes of only the workplace and only online forums. Since I've worked from home full time for 8 years, I've been able to do volunteer work and join community groups for socialization. It's been great because I'm an introvert and was able to socialize because I wanted to, which is way less draining on my energy levels than being forced to spend 40+ hours a week in an office or lab. This year has been really difficult in large part because all of my in-person volunteer work and community groups have been put on hiatus or moved online.
Of course I agree. I also think people should have communities outside of church too. But a working age adult, full time, spends around 35% of their waking hours at work. So a god fearing worker had much of their community built for them for the past however many years.
As secularization and WFH become the norm, I think we're going to end up with a lot of lonely people unless we have ready made alternatives because trying to make new friends as an adult, with no prebaked structure is a fucking beatdown.
There's two sides to this. I loved the people on my floor at my old job. We joked around, shot the breeze, just generally got along really well. The job I'm WFH from...I like my coworkers, but in the office environment I often felt like I didn't really fit in. As an example, several people from my cube cluster would IM each other to get together for lunch in the break room. At a predetermined time they'd all get up to go eat, passing by my cube in the process, and then I'd go out for a walk and see everyone (except me) huddled around a table having lunch. I hadn't felt left out like that since high school. So I don't miss that at all.
But I do agree that humans are built to have in-person interaction and face-to-face relationships. More than just work, I worry about how pretty much every aspect of our lives has turned online (you can't bump into a neighbor at the grocery store if you're having groceries delivered).
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There's two sides to this. I loved the people on my floor at my old job. We joked around, shot the breeze, just generally got along really well. The job I'm WFH from...I like my coworkers, but in the office environment I often felt like I didn't really fit in. As an example, several people from my cube cluster would IM each other to get together for lunch in the break room. At a predetermined time they'd all get up to go eat, passing by my cube in the process, and then I'd go out for a walk and see everyone (except me) huddled around a table having lunch. I hadn't felt left out like that since high school. So I don't miss that at all.
But I do agree that humans are built to have in-person interaction and face-to-face relationships. More than just work, I worry about how pretty much every aspect of our lives has turned online (you can't bump into a neighbor at the grocery store if you're having groceries delivered).
Fair point. Not all work interactions are good.
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I'm right.
Thanks for confirming you are a "butts-in-seats-you're-the-peon" type manager.
Really burned you up that my team is more productive WFH, eh?
Oh, and as far as the aspersions you have been casting: My boss agrees with my assessment, as does his boss. I just had a "rockstar, walks-on-water" type annual eval.
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NO. I think a lot of people have been less productive working from home during the pandemic because they’re trying to homeschool their kids at the same time. Let’s not forget these aren’t optimal conditions. A lot of other people are horrible workers with no self-motivation who already waste time in the office and even more so at home. I’ve been fully work from home for about ten years though and have always gotten larger than average raises and bonuses because I get stuff done. I am very efficient about it though (I’m a programmer and I automate everything), so like others in this thread I rarely have to work 40 hours a week to accomplish twice as much as your average unmotivated worker who is used to bullshitting in person all day with coworkers.
Not just parents trying to deal with kids. I worked on the couch for months. I got a desk and proper chair a few months ago, and I just bought a 2nd monitor. It is not ideal trying to work with one small monitor while physically uncomfortable. I've had coworkers switching between the kitchen table, the couch, and other less than ideal setups. It matters.
Oh, absolutely. Huge difference for me. Back in March when we got the word "Get what you need, work from home" - I set up a dedicated, separate work area with a large desk desk, dock, external monitors, my good keyboard and mouse, notepads, etc.
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I'm vaguely curious as to what @blackomen 's occupation is that is so invaluable to our economy and society that we can live without their contributions. Because of course sandwich makers, air traffic controllers, business travel hospitality workers seem so expendable in their world. So tell us, please, what it is you do.
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I'm vaguely curious as to what @blackomen 's occupation is that is so invaluable to our economy and society that we can live without their contributions. Because of course sandwich makers, air traffic controllers, business travel hospitality workers seem so expendable in their world. So tell us, please, what it is you do.
Computer programmer
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I was slightly less productive at first, but I gradually bought a desk, office chair, second monitor, etc etc etc.
Then I moved and the new house had an entire dedicated office for me and another for my wife, complete with large desk, two big monitors, all kinds of stuff. I’m now equally as efficient in the office as before because it’s literally identical to what I used to have.
However now I work modified hours. Rather than being tied to a train schedule (almost always in about 8:20 and rushing to leave to make the 5:25 or 6:15) I am on at about 715, take a 30 min break to bring the kids to school, come back and work, lunch is 10 steps away in the kitchen instead of going to the cafeteria or a restaurant, maybe knock out a 30 min Peloton ride, then it’s another pickup break around 330, back to work at 4, work until 530ish, eat dinner, and then hop back on after the kids go to bed if necessary, whatever. If it’s slow I can do laundry. If I get up early on the weekends I’ll pop into my office to knock out an hour of work while the family sleeps. Work stops being one giant chunk of my day and more of something I do around the other things I have going on. I work probably more hours in exchange for much more flexibility. Everyone wins and everyone is happy.
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I'm vaguely curious as to what @blackomen 's occupation is that is so invaluable to our economy and society that we can live without their contributions. Because of course sandwich makers, air traffic controllers, business travel hospitality workers seem so expendable in their world. So tell us, please, what it is you do.
No one is saying that sandwich makers shouldn't have a job, more that we shouldn't go out of our way to keep them in a job if we have no need for their services.
The OP has said he or she is a computer programmer, which is a great example of a job where low-skilled workers are mercilessly outsourced while high-skill workers still command good pay and good conditions. That's just modern life. Adapt or get used to the welfare safety net.
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I'm vaguely curious as to what @blackomen 's occupation is that is so invaluable to our economy and society that we can live without their contributions. Because of course sandwich makers, air traffic controllers, business travel hospitality workers seem so expendable in their world. So tell us, please, what it is you do.
No one is saying that sandwich makers shouldn't have a job, more that we shouldn't go out of our way to keep them in a job if we have no need for their services.
The OP has said he or she is a computer programmer, which is a great example of a job where low-skilled workers are mercilessly outsourced while high-skill workers still command good pay and good conditions. That's just modern life. Adapt or get used to the welfare safety net.
It's hard to argue that from a quality-of-life or environmental standpoint that WFH can be very beneficial. It's also important that many, many resources and jobs go to support a business as usual commuting, 9 to 5 workforce. Not to mention business travel, which is way off. And sure many of the jobs are low-level baristas or office cleaners. But remember Marriott, Delta, Starbucks and Cushman Wakefield employ far more than entry level workers, computer programmers and software developers as well. Many of whom currently WFH. It goes without saying that if business is down in those sectors, it will impact all of the workers. And affect those of us who have commercial real estate or Starbucks in our investment portfolios.
Yes, of course, we can pivot. But how much? What happens to millions of square feet of commercial property that's suddenly on the market?
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Yes, of course, we can pivot. But how much? What happens to millions of square feet of commercial property that's suddenly on the market?
This isn’t anything new. When the Great Recession hit there was a ton of discussion about how the US built way too much commercial and retail space. The buzzword was/is “over-stored”. We’ve got more than any other country and (at least through 2019) more than we’ve ever had on a per-capita basis. In short, it’s a bubble.
>..and the crappy thing is, bubbles pop. Which seems like what’s ongoing right now (ok, it’s more like the air leaking out of an overinflated balloon rather than a ‘burst’). Our policy tools are fairly limited; we can try to prop up the industry for a while (which we’ve done and the Administration/ Fed continue to support through programs like the PPP), and/or we can ease the financial burden via our social safety net, which in the US is pretty terrible.
What seems ludicrous to me is trying to maintain a level of commercial real-estate space that we all knew was absurdly high just for the sake of maintaining the status quo. Malls will close, hotels will shutter and many brick-and-mortar stores will go vacant. We had far too many, and the decade+ boom allowed a lot to survive that probably shouldn’t have.
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I think on the whole relatively few employers will fully shift to 100% remote work.
My company has hired a bunch of fully remote folks (myself included) but there are a ton of folks really eager to get back to the office.
WFH is not for everyone. I love it. But not everyone will love it.
I do think there are some considerations on what happens if everyone works remotely too, or at least a sizable percentage of population. Does this mean consumption on the whole will go way up as people move away from city centers and buy larger homes vs renting smaller apartments? It might not be such an obvious win environmentally or from a sustainability perspective.
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I'm vaguely curious as to what @blackomen 's occupation is that is so invaluable to our economy and society that we can live without their contributions. Because of course sandwich makers, air traffic controllers, business travel hospitality workers seem so expendable in their world. So tell us, please, what it is you do.
No one is saying that sandwich makers shouldn't have a job, more that we shouldn't go out of our way to keep them in a job if we have no need for their services.
The OP has said he or she is a computer programmer, which is a great example of a job where low-skilled workers are mercilessly outsourced while high-skill workers still command good pay and good conditions. That's just modern life. Adapt or get used to the welfare safety net.
It's hard to argue that from a quality-of-life or environmental standpoint that WFH can be very beneficial. It's also important that many, many resources and jobs go to support a business as usual commuting, 9 to 5 workforce. Not to mention business travel, which is way off. And sure many of the jobs are low-level baristas or office cleaners. But remember Marriott, Delta, Starbucks and Cushman Wakefield employ far more than entry level workers, computer programmers and software developers as well. Many of whom currently WFH. It goes without saying that if business is down in those sectors, it will impact all of the workers. And affect those of us who have commercial real estate or Starbucks in our investment portfolios.
Yes, of course, we can pivot. But how much? What happens to millions of square feet of commercial property that's suddenly on the market?
The latter is actually a great development in my country with a massive housing shortage and tons of commercial real estate. Many employers see those opportunities as well. There are many projects being developed to convert former office spaces into apartments. These days companies often only have 0,6 desks per employee, or even less.
I don't think most companies or employees will want to WFH 100%, but I do also think that the days of 9 to 5 butts in seats is over. People will come to the office for meetings and for social contact, but probably not 40 hours a week anymore. 9 to 5 was already on the way out, Covid has just accelerated that. But I don't think it's the end of coffee shops and fastfood chains. The patterns will shift. People may want to meet their friend for coffee before going back to home to work. They may want to go on a lunchtime walk and grab a sandwich somewhere. People are still going to want social contact and they will still enjoy the hospitality industry. Just in different patterns than they used to.
Business travel was already a lot less common than it was in the 80s and 90s - I remember how often my parents went on business trips. I hardly ever had them in a similar line of work, even pre-Covid, because these days we don't have to wait days for international mail to arrive and international phone calls aren't as extremely expensive as they used to be. Dads spend much more time with their children than they did in the past. In the 80s many business trips included entertainment for the "travelling spouse" because it was almost the norm that a wife would join her husband for all his trips. Thos days are long gone.
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Yes, of course, we can pivot. But how much? What happens to millions of square feet of commercial property that's suddenly on the market?
This isn’t anything new. When the Great Recession hit there was a ton of discussion about how the US built way too much commercial and retail space. The buzzword was/is “over-stored”. We’ve got more than any other country and (at least through 2019) more than we’ve ever had on a per-capita basis. In short, it’s a bubble.
>..and the crappy thing is, bubbles pop. Which seems like what’s ongoing right now (ok, it’s more like the air leaking out of an overinflated balloon rather than a ‘burst’). Our policy tools are fairly limited; we can try to prop up the industry for a while (which we’ve done and the Administration/ Fed continue to support through programs like the PPP), and/or we can ease the financial burden via our social safety net, which in the US is pretty terrible.
What seems ludicrous to me is trying to maintain a level of commercial real-estate space that we all knew was absurdly high just for the sake of maintaining the status quo. Malls will close, hotels will shutter and many brick-and-mortar stores will go vacant. We had far too many, and the decade+ boom allowed a lot to survive that probably shouldn’t have.
How much of this overbuilding is because of REITs?
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I don’t know. Certainly REIT’s played some part, but how much I’ll let someone else guess...
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I don’t know. Certainly REIT’s played some part, but how much I’ll let someone else guess...
I've never given REITs much thought, as my (now our) portfolio has always been rather heavy in Real Estate, thanks to being homeowners in a HCOLA. I recently read somewhere on this forum that those who run REITs are under constant pressure to put deals together. It makes sense that they're profit motivated and "What can we build that investors will buy into?" was the real question, not, "Does the world need another shopping center/strip mall/movie theater complex/office park/whatever?"
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More holistically, I do worry about permanent WFH having negative effects, but on the people who WFH. Human beings need community, and while the office isn't the only place to get community, it's a big one.
The Internet is a great source of community too of course. I have friends all over the country and the world thanks to the Internet. I've hung out with friends on both coasts from the Internet. I've gone to weddings of people I've met online. But even with occasional meetups, online relationships are not the same as flesh and blood relationships.
I actually think that it isn't healthy to have the workplace be the main source of community. I've seen the effects of that on my parents. It's been isolating on my dad since his retirement, and I think it's one of the reasons why my mom refuses to retire. She has no idea what she'd do without the workplace. Neither of them have non-work friends, and they only socialize with their few siblings who are alive and haven't moved out of state.
There are options for community between the extremes of only the workplace and only online forums. Since I've worked from home full time for 8 years, I've been able to do volunteer work and join community groups for socialization. It's been great because I'm an introvert and was able to socialize because I wanted to, which is way less draining on my energy levels than being forced to spend 40+ hours a week in an office or lab. This year has been really difficult in large part because all of my in-person volunteer work and community groups have been put on hiatus or moved online.
It isn't healthy but it is a way to pass the time for some who already have to spend 40 hours a week assigned to a task. The real shift in this would come not from work at an office vs work from home, but in having to dedicate less hours to a job which would allow more time for personal interests and socialization.
My husband is an introvert and had a really hard time assessing his coworker's meanings / attitudes / wishes for the first few months of working from home. He found it easier to be in person and have some structure, rather than kind of aimlessly doing work and attending zoom meetings.
My work cannot be done from home, I don't imagine it would be good for me mentally to be at home.
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NO. I think a lot of people have been less productive working from home during the pandemic because they’re trying to homeschool their kids at the same time. Let’s not forget these aren’t optimal conditions. A lot of other people are horrible workers with no self-motivation who already waste time in the office and even more so at home. I’ve been fully work from home for about ten years though and have always gotten larger than average raises and bonuses because I get stuff done. I am very efficient about it though (I’m a programmer and I automate everything), so like others in this thread I rarely have to work 40 hours a week to accomplish twice as much as your average unmotivated worker who is used to bullshitting in person all day with coworkers.
Agreed. I was also WFH before the pandemic and it was a lot easier to get work and other stuff done while my daughter was in school. Now she's home doing virtual school, which gives me a bit of a break, but I still need to help her with some of it, so it's not like I can get long, focused amounts of work done. I'm doing chunks here a there and taking more breaks to help out when needed. So now I'm doing 30 minutes to maybe an hour if I'm lucky at a time, instead of the 2-3 hour stretches I used to be able to do.
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Why should anyone prop up a business simply because it's failing? Why reward failure? Why not give it more money because/when it's doing well instead?
As I see it, the economic dislocations will result in as-of-yet unforeseeable efficiencies. Unproductive workers will get sacked, thus they will be free to find productive work. Marginal restaurants (and other businesses) will close and free up resources for more efficient and productive businesses.
Pandemic induced creative destruction.
I'm not sure that anyone is strictly propping up a failure of a business. In my town, if we don't visit the Mom n' Pop shops and restaurants they will close up and fade away leaving us no alternatives but McDonalds or WalMart of TacoBell or similar. I'm very over these brands.
Its the Mom 'n Pop businesses that give this place soul, otherwise it becomes very much the same as every other exit on every other interstate.
The mediocre, discount shopping and eating establishments have deeper pockets and will weather 2020-2021 better.
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This is another repackaging of the "Broken Window Fallacy".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
If we all started throwing rocks at windows, it would stimulate the economy: more revenue for glass production industries, and more work for glaziers; both of which spend their earnings in our economy, providing jobs and higher pay to everyone.
I mean, if we want to save the office-space businesses that we don't need or want, we could just give them the money, and it would be more efficient than making buildings and occupying them for the sake of form.
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Why should anyone prop up a business simply because it's failing? Why reward failure? Why not give it more money because/when it's doing well instead?
As I see it, the economic dislocations will result in as-of-yet unforeseeable efficiencies. Unproductive workers will get sacked, thus they will be free to find productive work. Marginal restaurants (and other businesses) will close and free up resources for more efficient and productive businesses.
Pandemic induced creative destruction.
I'm not sure that anyone is strictly propping up a failure of a business. In my town, if we don't visit the Mom n' Pop shops and restaurants they will close up and fade away leaving us no alternatives but McDonalds or WalMart of TacoBell or similar. I'm very over these brands.
Its the Mom 'n Pop businesses that give this place soul, otherwise it becomes very much the same as every other exit on every other interstate.
The mediocre, discount shopping and eating establishments have deeper pockets and will weather 2020-2021 better.
I actually see the opposite happening in my city. Due to the pandemic, people are very aware of the situation local businesses are in and have suddenly realized that they may cease to exist if we don't support them through this period. A lot of people make a conscious effort to shop locally now. A lot of people (and businesses) bought Christmas gifts from local independent shops. Way more than usual. The big chains are suffering now, especially fastfood chains, because they are located in high-traffic areas that are now deserted. No one is driving home from work and passing a MacDrive, but people do go on a lunchtime walk and pass by the local independent bakery or coffee shop. And as for retail, a lot of independent stores offer fast home service now. You don't have to wait days until your parcel is finally delivered, they load up your order and drive to your house the second the order comes in. Especially for clothing this is very efficient and I've seen several people in my street use this: you order online, the shop employee drives to your house with several sizes, you try it on while the employee waits outside and they take back what doesn't fit. Much more convenient than ordering online and only smaller shops can organize these kind of services fast.
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My brothers employer that is a major employer in the city with app 2300 employees gave giftcards of the equivalent of app. 50 usd to every employee for christmas to be used in local shops. My brother got two of those that we used in a local deli. They did the same thing in two other cities they have operations in. Normally, they give some expensive household thing to every one.