None of my coworkers drive to the office and we actually like seeing each other… Hybrid remote work is great for us
I think 90% of the problem is people being forced to drive everywhere
Traffic would be so much better with a staggered work force. We might actually enjoy the commute.
Or if they actually cared, they could build trains.
Because of traffic, the workforce started staggering by themselves here if possible. The result was that bad traffic was spread out over the entire day instead of just two peaks in the morning and evening. Good traffic is only at night and working at night defeats the purpose of having business hours.
Another factor is the spaces that offices take up or the power used whilst unoccupied, these space could be used for housing or maybe even industry.
Its great that no one drives to your work but this is more uncommon than common.
In conclusion: work from home is better.
Some companies are doing it to create a hostile workplace to increase attrition. If an employee quits, they don’t have to pay unemployment or severance. Other companies have huge investments in corporate real estate. They have been sitting on short-term loans that are coming due. The property owners are keeping their real-estate values artificially high, but to one wants to rent/lease them, so they aren’t as valuable as in practice as they look on paper. Some companies get tax breaks from cities to put their offices there and will not continue to reap those rewards if their workers are not coming into the city. Don’t let them gaslight you about culture or face time because that has all been debunked. A lot of remote workers are coming in to the office and sitting on Zoom/Teams calls in their cubicles.
The dumbest most mismanaged bullshit in history.
A history that includes the fucking Bolsheviks!
You think the Bolsheviks were bad, just look at the guy they replaced. He made the Bolsheviks look good!
Korensky? He wasnt great, but I don’t think he was as bad as those dipshits. At least he didn’t murder all the communists.
I actually meant the tsar, and I can understand feeling bad for Kerensky (poor man must have been so confused, when all he had to do was get on a train out of Dodge as of mid-late September 1917 and anyone with an ounce of sense could have told him this), but don’t hold him up as a leading light of proper management and doing shit the smart way, okay?
Yeah I’m just bitter about the Bolsheviks betraying the revolution so they could be on top before it was even finished, abd doing it so completely.
Yes, monarchs were often worse, and Nick was particularly spectacular in that regard. But the USSR is sort of a recognizable legibly-modern example; they had tell communications and (shitty, because they had a chance to be decades ahead of everyone else and noped out) computers and airplanes and stuff. And while they’re not the worst, they’re well past the “there is no fucking excuse to suck this much” line. So that’s my “worse than x” line, and I think the american empire fails on every metric.
To be clear, while I do have criticisms of centralized communism (the centralized part), I think if it were substantially at fault for how much the USSR sucked, Cuba wouldn’t have lasted five seconds, much less outlived it and still squeaked by even with the spectacular bullshit challenges it face(d/s)
Yup, it was a shitshow. If you’re a socialist, it’s good to study, but maybe in the same spirit as bourgeois revolutionaries might have studied the wreckage of the French Revolution. Or, you know, in the same spirit as Marx and Engels reflecting on the failures of 1848.
Well, having the office was nice because I like my colleagues. I’m lucky in that regard though, and as nice as it was to socialise at work, working from home is nicer. Not to mention much much cheaper by every metric. In conclusion fuck ever going back to the office, thank you for coming to my TEDx Talk.
Working from home reduces emission much faster than electric cars.
Working from home is also considerably safer. The most dangerous part of most people’s work day is their drive to and from work. If that time had to be covered by workplace injury insurance, management would be begging for as many people as possible to stay home just to keep insurance costs down.
agree
If unions and OSHA really had teeth, they’d point out the significant health risks of having workers commute to work versus work from home. In terms of lives saved, work from home is much safer and we should fine companies accordingly when they force workers to commute when instead they could simply work from home. They should also be fined for environmental impact as well :)
2802 - 7006 lives saved every year if wfh was allowed partially or all the way.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/remote-work-literally-saves-lives-peter-watridge
those first 3 months or so of covid were bliss. every office drone was off the road. it was so fucking easy to get everywhere, and it was quick too
It was mostly quicker on my pushbike too. I wasnt having to keep swerving and braking for idiots. Though I did get chased 3 times, by special kinds of idiots (one in a dinosaur suit ffs).
Ok, I need to tell someone else. The other day I ran into an acquaintance, John. He was telling me about his new manager job. Currently, everyone is working remote. An email was sent out to John’s team inviting them to lunch so that the team could meet John in person.
Apparently, only 1 person showed up. John got butthurt. John told his boss that he thinks his team doesn’t “engage enough” at work and that he thinks remote work is to blame. John told me he likes to test people randomly by sending them a Slack message and seeing how long it takes to respond. Apparently, he thinks 5 minutes for a response means people aren’t at the computer working. John has convinced his boss to force people back in the office…
Fuck John. All my homies hate John.
Meanwhile, my lead, who insists I drive 40km which takes 70 minutes one way:
“I can’t do teams meetings for design discussions, I don’t like drawing with my mouse”
Me: “OK, get a Wacom tablet or wtv and draw with that?”
Him: “No, just come to the office” for our 5 min talks we have occasionally and the once every two weeks 1 hr discussion
Them: I need you in the office so I can keep you under my finger!
Me: Bro do you know how much in rent and power you’re gonna save keeping them at home?
It’s hypocrisy all the way down. Microsoft is telling people to run their 144hz screens at 60hz to save the planet while sending thousands of good computers to the landfill with their stupid TPM requirements. Never believed this “carbon footprint” garbage, never will. You are the carbon that they want to reduce.
Majority of the wealthy higher ups in corporate management don’t care about reducing emissions. They care about making their companies look good.
Talking about working towards climate change goals or talking about supporting marginalized groups is easy. Actually doing something is a lot different, but even today very few people look for actions.
Changing policy is actually pretty easy. Sure there are probably laws and regulations that need to be taken into account, but employing the right people to look into it can save huge amounts off their budget after only a few months. To me it shows poor leadership at the top that they dont.
It’s not entirely true though. It is a lot of work. It doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done, but often times unless you can incentivize it then they won’t.
Even then, many companies find ways around it, such as dealing with carbon credits, which basically allow them to continue harming the environment for a cost, because apparently it’s still cheaper that way.
Big business has shown its power in that very way with the carbon credits. This proves they have the power and the manpower to implement actual positive environmental change.
Only if the environmental narrative was cohesive and consistent lol.
If govts really cared about the environment they would push companies into remote working as much as possible instead of pushing for electric cars that are a hazard to the planet.
My job forced us back to the office. The eating area has a big dumb sign that says the company is helping solve climate change… because they use paper cups…
The only inconsistent thing is how much worse we find out it is as new studies come out.
Boss: you are not allowed to with from home
Same boss: I’ll be working from work, I need to service my car
Honestly I think we’re going to hit a wall where we realize we need about half as many “office drones” as we have in a couple years.
So many people with office jobs drive in, sit at a desk, and do maybe 2 hours of actual work in the entire day. Or they work from home and do the same. And then they collect their 95k/year salary.
I really dunno if people are prepared for businesses to start going “wait, what are all of these people doing?” And axing their workforce and replacing most of them with AI or existing other employees
The thing you’re not accounting for is that work that primarily involves thought, which is what “office drones” are doing, aren’t productive in the same way that physical or service jobs are.
Looking off into space thinking is part of the work. People average about four hours of productive work in an eight hour day.The thing you can’t do is get rid of half the people and then expect the other half to magically be eight hours productive per day. Businesses keep trying and weirdly it just tanks their output.
AI is not the panacea that so many people think it is. Do you feel happy when you need help with something you bought and you get an AI trying to offer you helpful articles or tips? I don’t. Do you want the same level of service from the entity that controls where your paycheck gets deposited or fixed your HSA contributions?
If you definition of work is butts in chairs typing, office workers don’t do too much work. But that’s a very naive definition of what most office workers are actually doing.
Incredibly well said. I’m saving this.
Me thinks thou dost protest too much
If offices REALLY want their workers in their buildings they’ve known for years that they have the options of using the real estate of the surface area* on the building itself to place solar and offset their demand massively. They can also incentivise massively to help their workers use electric vehicles - no not cars but ebikes, scooters and electric motorcycles and provide secure parking and charging. For those that use these, give them a bonus, buy the bike for them. Bikes free up staff parking to be used for other things.
*the sides of the building can also be used to hang panels, so if the roof is occupied with air con systems etc you still get power. There is usually just a 10% drop off in daily power generation, too, but an advantage is both that the panel cools more effectively in this position, and it also cools the building passively by shading the sun.
