The Absurdity of the Return-to-Office Movement::The return-to-office demands make little sense from an overall economic perspective, while working parents, in particular, benefit from not having to waste time commuting to an office, writes Peter Bergen.
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Rich people are having their fee-fees hurt because no one wants to (unnecessarily) come to the office
Rich people’s real estate investments would lose value if we suddenly didn’t need massive office buildings.
Did we really need spmeone to say this? Is it not self evident? If a company requires hybrid work for me it’s a huge red flag
Remote work forever, and repurpose the useless office buildings into conveniently located downtown living space to help ease housing shortages and drive urban density.
Then you need mass transit to pick up the slack, otherwise there’s just as much pollution and waste.
Living downtown typically means a lot more walking, biking, and public transit, precisely because you’re there in the middle of everything. When you’ve got everything from grocery stores, pubs, cafes, parks, cultural attractions, etc all within walking distance, your need to drive anywhere becomes occasional at most.
Who wants to live in a city centre though?
The only appeal is that it’s close to work, and we no longer need to go to that.
Students
Downtowns can become very nice neighborhoods once all those offices and car space are transformed in housing, parks and walkable spaces.
It’s so nice to have everything within a 5 block radius. Everything I need is there. No cars, no traffic, just lots of constant exercise and fresh air. When I want to go to a museum, I go to a museum–no gas, driving, parking. When I want to go to a concert, I jump on the subway and go to a concert. But go on, tell us how living in suburbs and breathing the fumes from the car in front of you is better.
The one thing i disagree about is the fresh air
This isn’t 1980. Cities are really not polluted. Those who live in the suburbs tend to be less healthy due to lack of activity and increased exposure to the pollution emitted from cars.
If you are in the US or EU, maybe? Look at the third words though. This fresh air claim does not apply to everywhere in the world: especially when talking about downtown.
We’re going to take the exception and apply it to the whole, gotcha.
Looks like you love opening your mouth without thinking much so here are a few Actual stats before i block your ass.
I was not even disagreeing with you as a whole but apparently even arguing one point with you makes you entitled to a point you become defensive stale and resort to indulge in the mindset a 5 year old would be ashamed of.
https://www.unep.org/interactives/air-pollution-note/?gad_source=1
https://earth.org/data_visualization/pollution/
Now tell people again exactly how the air is actually fresh in cities, downtown, nonetheless where traffic is peaking. Adios.
I generally don’t care about going to the office, it’s not a problem, but what my company did was to hire 3x as many people as before the pandemic and simply move to hot desk system instead of expanding the office. So now we have more people but less desks and less parking spots. We have to use some app to make reservations and it’s just a constant struggle to book a desk so that I can sit next to guy I don’t know talking on a video call all day. What’s the fucking point?
What if one were to… reserve a desk and proceed to work from home? Possibly with a custom background that looks like the office :P
I sympatize with folk that want to stay home, but I personally am functioning much better in an office environment with those talked-about chance encounters. I am interested to see where we will be in 10-20 years when it comes to working from home.
Return to office has nothing to do with the people who do better in an office environment. It’s about forcing those who don’t do as well in an office, and those who the commute or time away from the house isn’t feasible, back into the office.
Sometimes that “chance encounter” is really just one mouthy coworker cornering another coworker who doesn’t like saying no even though they have work they need to attend to. For those people, just avoiding chatty coworkers is a challenge and they get less done because people won’t leave them alone with tangential bullshit.
Some of your coworkers have sensory issues that are constantly irritated and distracted by being in a loud, bright, and chaotic office.
This isn’t about you. You were always allowed to be in the office (save for pandemic lockdowns). So don’t make it about you.
I’m not going to down vote you - some people do like the social experience at work. I just respectfully disagree. I’m at work to make money and to keep my skills sharp - I don’t (and have never really) enjoy hanging out with coworkers outside of the normal work related areas.
As a mostly introverted person, work from home has been a godsend. I can focus on communicating with my manager and coworkers in ways that are more comfortable for me - and thus result in a more positive experience for everyone.
Plus the amount of work I get done at home is easily double what I was doing when working from the office 5 days a week.
For me, while I have worked from home in past jobs, I enjoy going to office as it puts me into a different mind set all together. I have found that I need a separation of environments, otherwise I would spend my off time at home working into the late hours. Also, I would easily spend the entire time sat down in a chair instead of walking around every now and then in an office setting. But that’s me and how I function. I know not everyone is like that.
Having a dedicated “office” space in your home helps a lot with that environment separation. If you have kids, that space needs to have a door that can close, too.
Don’t work in your pajamas on the couch, that’s the worst thing ever for your mental health.
Yes, I can attest that WFH was a hell of a lot easier when I didn’t have kids. It was 100 times harder with them around. Unfortunately while I carved out a space in my house for WFH, it didn’t prevent my kids from interfering with work tasks lol. It may be a little different now that they are both in school for the day.
That’s an education issue. The kids need to learn that mom/dad is working and to avoid disturbing them. I’ve WFH for almost 10 years now, and I’ve had homeschooled kids at home the whole time. Yes, they had to learn to leave me alone at first, but it only took a few months.
I’m a “dont shit where you eat” type and just cant do any productive work in my home. Doesn’t mean i would force people to work in an office with me, but lots of people do benefit from a office environment.
As an non-office worker remote work is quite foreign to me to begin with but I imagine that if I had to do such work I wouldn’t get any of it done at home. For the very least I’d need a proper home office that’s only for work but I bet that even then I would just fuck around doing other stuff rather than put in the hours I would if I actually had to go to work.
ok? and they aren’t, that’s the point. it’s absolutely bewildering seeing so many people now defend the hellish grind that previously was at most grudgingly accepted as most of adult life - working 5 days in a row, out of the house all day, commuting, up early, no matter the weather or your mood or health. insane.
I’m really in a “don’t give a shit” phase because there’s valid reasons for WFH as well at RTO and I’d argue those in the extreme on both sides are idiots.
That said, pragmatically everyone needs to understand the complexity of how we got here and no it’s not fully “the ruling class” demanding this. If we can’t justify commerical retail prices the economy is fucked and I mean that with a capital FUCKED.
Now the reasons for that are multifaceted but how it involves all of us not just the rich, many pension plans around the world have aggressively invested in real estate. Those pension plans are for average people like all of us here. If commercial real estate prices tank there goes social security. There goes your 401k. There goes your RRSP.
It’s very easy to blame an elite class but this problem is systemic and a result of how we have built the micro and macro economy.
So to those that are on the extreme on both sides, calm the fuck down.
I’m sorry but I’m not RTO because someone has made a bad investment. That’s between them and their bad investment.
The stone tools market will tank if we start smelting bronze!!!
Think about what it will mean to the economy if people can afford to buy a flat down town, though… it might make people’s lives better.
You realize if you pay taxes there’s a high likelihood that bad investment is on your head? If you are Canadian you contribute to the CPP. We have huge amounts invested in commercial real estate globally. If that value tanks there goes old age pensions for everyone. Is anyone ready to own that? Would you vote in someone that would make grandma and grandpa live on the streets? What about you when you reach retirement age?
There are solutions which include divesting in this poison pill but you think anyone can do that overnight?
I seriously question the expectations some people have. Try coordinating a get together with 20 people and see how hard it is then imagine that group exponentially increased. We are lucky we haven’t killed ourselves yet lol
The value of commercial buildings doesn’t go to zero. They’re just cut in half (based on recent sales prices).
Just because the price of an asset goes down doesn’t mean the economy crumbles. In fact, buyers / renters are now better off. I’m sure poor Grandmas are in that category.
Pensions are paid off based on the booked value. If the asset you own is worth half of what you paid for it that is a problem. If you bought a house for 1 million and you need to sell it to pay for something else and can only get 500k are you prepared for eating that loss?
Of course I can guess your answer because you probably feel you know better than the vast majority of governments and economists but that’s a moot point by now.
I’m not claiming to know the answer because I understand it’s complex enough to not.
What I am confident in is that despite what you or I say is but a drop in how serious the issue is. The difference is I’m not wasting energy screaming into the wind.
If governments and economists got us into this mess, then yeah, I guess we do know better than them.
No pension fund owns only commercial real estate. If anything, it’s like 5% of their entire portfolio. Still, it’s not necessarily a problem.
So in your simplified scenario, you have a pension paying retirees that owns 100% of a building. Say few businesses want to lease space in the building, and the value goes down.
They don’t have to sell the building. They can just refurbish it and put the retirees in it. That’s actually more tax efficient than paying the retirees who then pay their retirement home.
My retirement position is 100% in the U.K, where state pensions (pitiful as they are) are pay-as-you-go (ie the contributions of the current labour market are used to pay the current retirees). There is no collective state fund that accumulates and then later pays out. I have a personal pension, like most, which doesn’t have a defined position in real estate (although I’m sure some of the stocks in the fund would be affected by a real estate crash, both up and down).
So yeah, like most people, I don’t want to socialise losses in somebody else’s investment nor do I expect anyone to come and rescue my personal pension if it tanks based on some global change.
According to the latest report from the CPP Investment Board, the Real Assets investment department managed $52 billion of real estate as of March 31, 2023 . This represented about 9.1% of the total net assets of $570 billion .
The CPP is considered to be one of, if not the best investment, and most stable option in the entire world.
This problem is systemic because the rich made it so.
LOL I can’t believe I just watched someone “both sides” the RTO argument.
