What happens to cities and suburbs if commuting doesn’t bounce back to former levels?

There's been talk - in the UK at least - of turning excess office space into affordable housing. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

That would be an absolute boon where I live r1

[quote]Maybe offices will be uprooted and replaced with green space?

Huh? What corporation or other commercial property owner or developer is going to pay to demolish perfectly good buildings and replace them with wholly unprofitable "green space"? Capitalism will find a way to repurpose vacant commercial real estate into something else.

🤞, R2.

R1, my friend works as an apt manager in Manhattan and that's the scuttlebutt she's hearing.

[quote] turning excess office space into affordable housing.

The world's tallest slum. Coming soon to Central Park West.

If things don't bounce back to the way they were there then everything will have to change and adjust. I wonder what changes were made after the 1918 pandemic? There isn't that much info about it.

But there will be a lot of pressure, noise and arm twisting from certain political lobby groups like real estate, retail, hospitality etc. to get everything back to the way it was because it was safely known to make money. Trillions are invested in big city real estate, retail and hospitality and if everything moves out of big city centers it spells very bad financial things for those sectors. This is our chance to change the way our future will be but there will be a lot of pressure for governments to return to the pre-Covid normal.

I just realized that I was saying that office space in Manhattan will be repurposed into affordable housing. Housing yes, affordable, no.

R7 Very little had changed in the 30 years preceding the Spanish Flu Pandemic (air travel was still in its infancy) and it coincided with the end of the 4 year long WW1. Things just carried on as they were before, largely.

This is different because of the technological revolution in communications of the past 30 years.

Employers who were unwilling to accommodate staff based at home have been forced to deal with it and it's been overwhelming positive in terms of productivity and reduced costs. Things will be very different when things return to normal(ish). Cities will adapt and survive.

In a way we've been dealing with this phenomenon in the UK on a smaller scale for 40 years, as business has moved out of expensive city centre offices they have become Apartments (not affordable) and Hotels.

R1 It's been a Tory policy for a while before the pandemic to allow developers to convert unused office space into residential - without any requirement for affordable housing. And they do so without going through the planning process, so there's no controls on space, sunlight, soundproofing, etc, creating really awful prison-like homes.

So if it is pursued, there needs to be proper regulation, and yes, hopefully there is an encouragement for affordable. But given how property developers have politicians in their pockets, I wouldn't hold your breath on either of those points.

The building in the preview image at R10 looks far nicer than the ghastly glass-and-steel (but mostly glass) eyesores that have been slowly rising all over NYC. We look like fucking Dubai now.

I live in New Jersey, which is largely defined by being within commuting distance to New York. If people don't need to commute into NY anymore, the state will definitely suffer.

[quote] We look like fucking Dubai now.

I'm going to Dubai!

[quote] I live in New Jersey, which is largely defined by being within commuting distance to New York. If people don't need to commute into NY anymore, the state will definitely suffer.

Confused about this. Which state will suffer? NJ? Why?

R12 I live close (3 miles away) to Manchester City Centre in the UK which is also a draw for many people but not because of employment, it's mainly due to the nightlife, restaurants and shopping. They will exist after all of this is over, it's sort of Disneyland for adults based in a 2,000 year old City.

I'm wondering what happens to all of those empty office buildings.

What brings a lot of people to New Jersey is they have a job in NY and need to live within commuting distance r14. It's especially popular with families that don't to raise kids in the city.

If those workers don't need to come into the office anymore, why would they necessarily want to stay in New Jersey which has the highest property tax rates in the country and expensive real estate.

My company has made it clear they want everyone back eventually. Can't imagine many employers can entertain a WFH arrangement permanently, for several reasons. It's naive to think so.

The only ones who'll really consider it are those with leases expiring in the next year or two. I'm sure they'll play up the threat though to ensure their buddies in real estate get a big bailout. Like the developers of Hudson Yards trying to get even more public funding for the next phase

Why can't everyone just work from home?

My company announced this past week that week that we can work from home forever if we want. And we have office towers with the company name going up in several cities. The plan is to convert office spaces into collaboration spaces so that people can come in as needed for critical meetings, conferences, etc. But the expectation is that most people will continue to work from home.

I don't think the decision has much to do with whether leases are coming up for renewal. I think it has more to do with whether the company in question has sufficiently prepared for a digital workforce over the past decade. Most large companies sensed something like this coming, with large percentages of employees already working from home near- to full-time. Those that prepared for the eventuality handled the transition well. Those that did not are probably itching to get their folks back at their desks.

People will go back to their offices. If nothing else, people will be sick of working from home. Is there anyone who hasn't complained about Zoom meetings? No way do most people want to do that forever. A lot of companies that tried the work from home model over the years have gone back to in person.

[quote]The nearby restaurants that always seemed to bustle with my co-workers were depressingly empty.

This, however, is the main reason it won't happen.

My boss told they will probably want us back full time at some point. I’m really confortable working from home so it sucks.

But I would think large companies will be pressured by the state gov’t to bring people back in to support all the businesses and get the tourists coming again.

A taste of freedom...not to last.

Plus, we know you're all spending at least half your day fucking around and doing nothing.

[quote] No way do most people want to do that forever.

I do. Just skipping the commute alone makes it worthwhile for me. Why fucking get up an hour and a half before you need to? That time can be better spent working or doing personal stuff.

The good companies are adjusting up their employees preferences. The inefficient mom and pop companies that monitor everyone’s comings and goings want people back at their seats. Nobody wants to work at those places and frankly I feel sorry for anyone who has to.

The only thing that will change is partial work from home policies will be more flexible. Companies will be more open to people with a cold or during bad weather working from home. Maybe you’ll get 1-2 days every week you can do so too.

[quote]Why can't everyone just work from home?

I prefer outcalls.

I worked for British Telecom for years from the 80s. We had large numbers of people working from home back in the 90s!

In this day and age where we have collaborative tools at hand, office work in cities only makes sense where there is a clear business need. Most large organisations have staff spread over many offices anyway. IT support in India, Ginny in Billing was in a building in a different city, let alone building. I can see a lot of corporates closing expensive offices and investing in home working for their employees.

[quote]A lot of companies that tried the work from home model over the years have gone back to in person.

This is absolute made-up horseshit R22. Where's your link?

WFH productivity gains have been well documented over the past 12 months and workplace incidents/issues have almost ceased for large corporates.

A rich field for conjectural sociology. I've worked from home for 20 years but i wonder how social relationships will change if WFH becomes the norm. Most of my friends are work friends.

My boss in the Philly area is anti-work from home. When my company allowed it one day a week, my boss instituted a series of incredibly convoluted rules to prevent what he saw as people ‘getting to take a day off on the company dime”.

At the start of Covid, he had the same mentality. Then something switched. He ended up renting a place in Florida over the winter and has now been pushing folks to feel free to work from home. We did a workplace survey a couple weeks ago: 70% of my department wants to work from home full time, and 20% wants to come in one or (maybe) two days a week. Only 10% of the department wanted to be in at least three days a week.

My boss announced he’s in the 70%.

I hope we get national job protection. Someone talk to Biden! You know corporations are now going to try to send all the office jobs to cheaper places. If the job can be done by Jane Doe working from the Philly suburbs instead of in Center City, then her job can also be done for a fraction of the cost by anyone working in West Virginia. Or Ghana. Or India.

R31 my boss was one of the anti WFH folks too, now he’s saying he’ll do a 3 day in / 2 day wfh split once vaccinated. I’m fine with doing the same, hoping we don’t start going in until Sept.

I would hate to be in commercial real estate. And honestly, a lot of corporations ae going to realize how much money can be saved by shedding those high rises.

[quote]Can't imagine many employers can entertain a WFH arrangement permanently, for several reasons. It's naive to think so.

Three of my clients have told their employees they can work from home forever. Two others have told employees they won't be going back to the office until 2022 at the earliest.

They (the extroverts) are going to force us all back. We have a large office building which I’m sure costs just as much to keep running with 3 or 3,000 people in it. Enjoy it while it lasts!

The utility bills for our 18 story office building dwindle to nothing during quarantine.

No office, no office supplies.

Yes, and the utility bills of people working from home go up! And companies don’t pay those.

I once read 40% of (hetero) are between people who met at the workplace. How will breeders breed?

The Dim Gym (for dimmies)

R40 Population decline, yet another of the countless benefits of WFH!

R12, I actually think places like Jersey might do better post-pandemic. My partner's company has announced they'll likely all be coming in "occasionally" (maybe a couple of times a month) for meetings. So we still need to be within commuting distance but can put up with a much longer commute. Places like Jersey will become more convenient for people who only need to come in once a week or less and are willing to do a long commute less frequently.

[quote]Most large companies sensed something like this coming, with large percentages of employees already working from home near- to full-time. Those that prepared for the eventuality handled the transition well. Those that did not are probably itching to get their folks back at their desks.

Two years ago my company gave its full-time (or nearly) WFH employees a choice: move to full-time office work or accept a severance package. They offered a pitiful relocation allowance for those not near an office. With about 10-15% of the workforce affected, they targeted a group of employees whose years of tenure and proven responsibility had allowed them to forge individual arrangements to work from home and, in some cases, to relocate far from the office with which their business group was associated. This was all done in the name of "collaboration," but was simply a cover for cost-trimming.

With Covid, my firm shifted easily to everyone working from home (only a year before everyone had done it regularly at least one day a week.) This was an emergency situation and all would return to normal they said, yet not even half a year in, the message changed. The easy switch and unexpected substantial profits during this period put to bed all the past talk of "collaboration." Now the idea is that offices will re-open, probably not at mid-year, but late 2021 or early i2022. Where office leases have come due for renewal they are being let go. Working from home full-time will be permitted again, no one will be expected to work not more a more than four days in office week, and most people will be encouraged to adapt a work week of 4 days at home and 1 day in office. The company now sees profits in letting leases lapse and reducing leased space substantially.

My company's roundabout turnaround will be shared by many: maintaining some sort of office presence but reducing that in time as office space lease renewals arise and some better sense emerges of who will be using leased space, for what purpose, and on what schedule -- figuring out what works.

Going back to the Marissa Mayer scheme of "asses in desk chairs in a proper office, goddamnit" just doesn't make sense now, not for a lot of types of work. To what extent companies need offices and for what purposes will be a while in the sorting out. Executives who want to continue to live in Switzerland or NYC like not having to make a big show of appearing to have a working office at the HQ in Sheboygan. People at the office end of the pay scale like that they can live in Sheboygan with its cost of living at 80.7 (median home cost $127K) instead of NYC with its cost of living at 187.2 (median home cost $680.5K)

As for cities and suburbs? In cities like NYC and Chicago and London with a lot of historic buildings in prime center city locations that these will be easy conversions to luxury housing, the spaces more attractive to buyers than a big International Style glass tower with a deep core that doesn't lend itself to housing conversion. Newer buildings will take on more tenants and smaller spaces as corporations downsize their office building presence and rethink spaces more for meetings and special activities rather than everyday pod farm life. In the long term, I think it's the suburbs that will lose out. Their appeal as cheaper than the city yet reasonably accessible will plummet as people seek bigger, better houses in farther out, no longer tied to 5 days a week in the city center. Suburbanites will lean toward the exurburbs and distant small communites or to city centers. Inner cities will turn more on amenities that support residents than white collar workers trooping in by trains: restaurants and cafes geared to residents not the lunch crowd, more prepared food options as eating at home alternatives to cooking at home. It might eventually be a boon of sorts to artists and art galleries, opening up spaces at lower rents in the city centers -- as cities reinvent themselves as destinations for arts and entertainment.

I can’t even give it away on 7th ave

Most comments are at one extreme or the other.

I think it will shake out somewhere in the middle. Hopefully one thing it changes is the glut of resources in big cities, and the insistence everyone has to live in those cities. The win-win would be that real estate bubbles will pop, and a little investment wil trickle into the hinterlands.

center City philadelphia has had the lunch time businesses basically implode. Likely years before any of it will return. Everything from pizzerias to fancy bistros, belly up

They're going to send all you WFH cunt's jobs off shore, then you snotty bitches will be flipping burgers and driving for Uber from now on. You'll see what real people have to do to survive, no more zoom meetings for you cunts. Step into reality you uppity bitches. I love it for you.

????

R48 = Walmart Greeter

Here ya go, asshole at R29.

You'll all be back in the office for the majority of the time as soon as Covid allows. And, R48 has a great point, too. If your job can be done remotely, why bother to pay American wages when they could pay 1/10th of that and get the exact same remote work from the other side of the world? Be careful what you wish for.

fascinating read

We did a survey in our company: 83% of employees said they‘d want to work ca. 3 days from home, with 2 flexible days spent in the office.

I predict the following:

Offices will become more about hosting events, workshops and brainstorming meetings.

Only a small percentage of the workforce, say 20% will need/want a permanent desk, 5 days a week.

The remaining 80% will prefer to work mostly from home. You’ll only need bookable flex desks for them.

Investing in meeting rooms and community spaces will become key. But, and this is the biggest game changer:

This way, companies will have the best of all worlds, with probably half the office space. The annual costs saved on this will be too good to miss out on.

as teacher I'm willing to do certain things online, but most teaching is horrendous online

An acquaintance does systems maintenance in a skyscraper in Manhattan, dozens of stories tall. He says that on most days there are not more than 60 people in the entire tower - and 1/2 of them, he says, work in IT.

How many tenants are going to renew million dollar leases for employees who are happily working from home?

I think that once the proclamation of “herd immunity reached” has been made, that things will return to some very high percentage of “normal,” 80%+. Hell, there’s a chance that we could overshoot out of exuberance.

I used to do that as a teenager. Not anymore.

R50 there you go you snarky elitist cunt, back to the office bitch, Raj in Bangalore or Esmeralda in Manila will being your job now, for 1.30 an hour and they won't be a cunts about it.

US Federal Government here. We’ll be back in the offices full time by September.

[quote]And we have office towers with the company name going up in several cities.

What company is this?

R59 but the vast majority of your agencies already had a partial wfh policy (at least friends at DOJ, Health and NHS have).

R51, the only thing you are proving is that you don't know what you are talking about. You really think whether someone telecommutes is the deciding factor in determining whether to offshore their job? Companies aren't really offshoring all that much anymore anyway.

You really don't understand how large, modern corporations function. And that's okay. You work for a small company, no shame in that. But stop pretending like you know what you are talking about, because you clearly do not.

Irrespective of what dusty, decrepit IBM is doing, here is what Forbes says about the future of work after coronavirus:

[quote] Another recent Gartner CFO survey revealed that over two-thirds (74%) plan to permanently shift employees to remote work after the Covid-19 crisis ends. As expected, Big Tech companies are paving the way. Twitter, based in San Francisco, told employees in May that they could work from home indefinitely. Square, which is also led by Twitter's Jack Dorsey, adopted a similar policy around the same time and will allow employees to work from home indefinitely, even after offices reopen. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees in late May that many would work remotely indefinitely and plans to keep staff remote through 2020.

R60: I work for Salesforce

I don't see why turning workplace buildings into residential would hurt restaurants etc so badly, I order/do take out more from home than in office. They'll adjust.

In areas that could use more afforable housing due to demand. I can see repurposing in Bay Area, LA, NYC, and Chicago. Maybe Austin

All this talk or outsourcing lol. My job involves having an excellent grasp of the English language. Trust me, Shilpa or Raj aren’t capable of doing it.

Of 😂 I’m going to get raked over the coal for that!

Wishing you many happy returns of the day, R67!

Working from home must be great if your an executive with a big enough house to have a home office. For junior staff with roommates or small apartments it’s not so fun.

I worry that there might be a bit of a domino effect- a lot of those in finance etc are enjoying working from home but the business going bust around the empty corporate offices are eventually their clients or clients of clients...

R12 I live in Weehawken across the Hudson from midtown NY and a 10 minute commute by bus, car or ferry. I'm a former New Yorker who moved here in 2006 and commuted to work in NY like many of my neighbors. Since September Weehawken and neighboring Hoboken has seen a notably large increase in the number of available apartments that remain on the market for months something that only 3 years ago was unheard of. If people work from home, then they can move to a place less expensive and more suburban and don't need to live close to the city.

“Trust me, Shilpa or Raj aren’t capable of doing it.”

Shilpa and Raj have a better command of the language, a more humane tone, are just as smart or smarter, have been doused in our pop culture so they can connect. And they’re 1/10th our salary.

As soon as companies realize how much money they can save by allowing employees that can work from home effectively to continue to do so, they'll abandon that expensive real estate as fast as they can end the contracts. In addition, as younger generations become the majority of work force, they'll definitely be able to request a work-from-home status as part of their hiring conditions.

I’ll be interested to see if there is going to be a decline in the number of people who want to be teachers. I think a lot of people, especially women, became teachers because, in a pre-covid world, it was widely viewed as a career track that tends to allow for family life. If in our new normal after the pandemic, many industries allow former office workers to mostly work from home, making it easier for someone to do housework and meal prep during the day, stay home with sick kids and avoid rush hour commutes, I wonder if teaching will attract the same level of interest.

Maybe kids can pick teachers anywhere instead of the local talent.

Whatever the case, if a majority of people would be happier with the opportunity to spend at least a portion of their work week in a wfh situation then this kind of massive audit of how people work can only be a good thing. Commuting is a major stressor, so the effects on society of reducing that stress will be good for the general populace. Fewer people commuting will also make the commute for people that either choose to work at an office or have to work at an office easier and thusly their stress will also be reduced. Less environmentally damaging too.

What it boils down to is that you’re being paid a certain amount of money to produce certain work, if the work is being completed correctly then idk why anyone would have an issue of where it’s being done. Seems controlling.

It's the local economy (booming), but while prices dropped only a bit last summer, now they're up to and beyond pre-pandemic levels. A friend who's a RE agent says people see the prices rising (10% last year, 7% predicted for 2021) and now they want to get back in before they go higher.

It's not about offices emptying out (Greater Boston's money is in education, finance, life sciences, and medicine and in all but one of those fields your work requires you to be there - surgeons don't operate from home, researchers work in labs, and teaching by Zoom is sub-optimal) but rather the lack of places to buy: lots of demand but too few places to buy.

It is nice to get downtown in 10 or 15 minutes now instead of the previous 30-40 minute commute, though. I'll miss that.

I know 8 people who had to go to work in London via the Northern Line last year and 5 of them got COVID.

A bunch of property owners (with significant holdings) in England are pressuring the govt to make the public go back to work in offices. boris johnson has been pushing this too. They're afraid businesses will give up their leases. This is just more of the government looking out for the 1%

The BBC is basically pushing this lie, that people desperately want to go back to working in the office. They are actually wrote a fake news reports about it. They didn't even question a single office worker, they just spoke with a property owner. The only thing this article is good for, is to print it out and wipe your ass with it

98% of people don't want to ever go back to working in offices

Stay tuned for more bullshit lies about this subject. I expect doctors will soon be shilling this nonsense and saying they are seeing more people who are depressed because they miss their coworkers.

You people are raging CUNTS you dont seem to get that most people dont sit in front of screens typing all day, they have real jobs keeping everything running. You all live in your office bubbles whining about shit. I guess your mother should just telemedicine her pap smear so the doctor can WFH, who is picking your order gluten free bon bons at whole foods and delivering to your lazy typing ass at home? You sound like the Republicans, pull yourself up by your bootstraps! Do you even get it, THE VAST MAJORITY OF JOBS ARE GRUNGE WORK. You are a bunch of selfish narcissistic cunts.

It seems to me that the forced acceptance of remote working the pandemic has caused has made it seem like it's just as productive doing as being in the workplace with other workers. Certainly there is a lot that people can do remotely, but it's not the same thing. For most businesses, there's an immediacy and synergy that happens in a workplace that simply cannot be reproduced with remote workers. Yes, things will shift, but people will be going back to work in a physical office, perhaps just not as many hours a week.

Goldman Sachs wants people back to work in their offices. I expect the white house to start parroting bullshit about people wanting to work in their offices

It's always the real cunts who call everyone else a cunt, R80, you cunt.

Slowly peeling back the kimono to expose there is nothing there. The majority of office jobs are make work. As a consultant, being on site was a way for the client to feel they were getting attention and something for their money. This has started to expose the fraud of consulting and the reality is all you get is a nicely worded, well presented document by a bunch of smart sounding people who you have been convinced know more than you,

R81 I think that works both ways. There’s an enormous inefficiency in the way that people used to commute, 80% of the workforce wasting enormous amounts of time because of group delay. If people are smart about the time that they use the office and the time at home they can definitely be more productive than a forced either / or.

There’s a small amount of my work that is benefitted by meeting up with colleagues, the rest is more efficient if I’m not being interrupted constantly. I’ve gone in maybe once a week for 3hrs a week for the last year, and I’m definitely getting more work done in a shorter amount of time. I’m also able to exercise, I’m not stressed from commuting, eating better and not wasting fossil fuels by commuting.

This only of course speaks for myself but it’s definitely the same case for all my contacts in the industry, and my numbers are up on last year so is validated by that too.

R79 Your inability to read does that make it a fake article. They were reporting on one person's opinion. Here they report on someone in favour of WFH - I assume you don't think this one is fake?

[quote]You people are raging CUNTS you dont seem to get that most people dont sit in front of screens typing all day, they have real jobs keeping everything running. You all live in your office bubbles whining about shit.

Right bitch, and this discussion is about OFFICE work and returning to the OFFICE. Obviously the only place where you can be Paul Fucking Bunyan is in the woods somewhere, but we are not talking about logging trees. We are talking about the service economy. Because that is the type of work that is done in OFFICES.

wtf

[quote]It seems to me that the forced acceptance of remote working the pandemic has caused has made it seem like it's just as productive doing as being in the workplace with other workers.

You do know that we have the ability to actually measure these things, right? We don't have to rely on your suppositions about worker productivity. Companies can measure it.

WFH won't hurt the suburbs, because they're the "H."

working from home was the answer to grid lock/traffic, employers were against it. I am more interested in cutting the hours of full time work.

3 days off per week

longer vacation times.

Universal health care.

Free to low cost education

Longer medical leave.

Higher pensions but through the SSA.

Most of the people I know who are longing to get back onsite/volunteer to go into the office NEED to get away from their family at home for their own sanity.

While you're busy working from home and cleaning up your kid's throw up, I will be at the office, having lunch with the boss and getting the deal done for the customers/clients that need my attention. And which one of us get the promotion? Here's a clue: It's not you.

R92 will be junior account manager and nobody will tell her otherwise!

Okay, R92. Like most large companies aren’t already working in distributed teams anyway.

I’m surprised by how many of you dinosaurs here really don’t seem to grasp what we’re talking about. Do you guys also look in the newspaper classifieds when you’re on the job market?

R74, it wouldn't surprise me if people leave teaching. I got hired by a school in a non-teaching position in the middle of the pandemic (I really needed a job), and the schoolw seems desperate for staff at all levels. I'm in the UK, and we're going back next week and risking exposure to COVID, while my partner gets to stay comfortably working from home. My hours are also non-negotiable and start far earlier than a standard job, on top of adding in a commute. I'm hoping to take the experience I get here and move into non-school based position once the economy improves.

People like R94 are just so precious. Can't wait until life shows him some things.

R70, I know this won't be the same for everyone, but I personally prefer working from home even though I'm crammed into a 1-bedroom with my partner.

I think companies will continue to allow more work from home options, but not all the time. Perhaps companies will allow for a 70/30 split, or at least make people come into the office for pointless meetings.

I personally think that would be the best. There are a lot of as advantages to being in an office. I don’t want it all the time, but I also don’t want to be fully work from home.

So, I do not see office buildings going away. And anyone who thinks they would be turned to affordable housing is kidding themselves. They said the same thing about malls and department stores.

However the increase of work from home on even a part time scale will mean less cars on the road, less pollution, less crowded buses, and happier people.

Who is the guy in the pic at r79?

IBM isn't the best case study as they have been successfully challenged for using "back to the office, telecommuting is over" policies as a cover for age discrimination. Worried it was top-heavy with older employees (and more costly employees), it was one of the means they used to oust experienced works and replace them with college graduates who are more flexible about taking what is offered them. The articles cited date to 2017.

In a more recent article, the former CEO (as of this year) says "remote work is here to stay" even after successful vaccination campaigns.

I'm hoping that city centres will actually undergo a creative renaissance amid the coming upheaval and devastation. After the decline of the 190s, Manhattan was the place to be for the creative, the artistic, and the just plain weird. The stabbings, shootings, beatings, and thefts were a bit of a pain, mind you, but it was a glorious time to be alive and young and in New York. London as well.

^^ Oops, I meant to say 'the decline of the 1970s' in the previous post.

Working from home is great if you’re already worked there for years and know the ins and outs. Onboarding a new hire from home is a nightmare. And you can forget about hiring new graduates. No one will take a chance on them remotely.

Covid 19 is like a reset. Unfortunately, over 500,000 people died unnecessarily, in the US. That's the tragedy. I remember in the first months of the lockdown, the skies looked cleaner and brighter, nature was renewing without the interference of humans being out and about as normal. There are less cars. I can drive during the commuter hours and not hit any traffic. It's a pleasure. I hope that there's a rethinking of how people work...working from home, if they want. It's better for the environment in the long run. Bring back more green spaces!

COVID also showed how greedy and selfish we humans are, hoarding foods and toilet paper, flouting social distancing laws, and the backlash, shaming texans - some of the worst covidiots at times - because of a snow storm they couldn't have anticipated.

I do hope that people reassess their values, but I doubt that will happen

[quote] shaming texans - some of the worst covidiots at times - because of a snow storm they couldn't have anticipated.

You think that’s why we were shaming Texans? Because of a storm?

Uh, no. We were shaming them because of their complete and utter ineptitude in dealing with it, in spite of having been warned 10 years ago. Then throw on their Senator fleeing and their governor blaming it on a program that doesn’t even exist yet.

^we would NEVER in the blue states

I agree, Texans aren't very good candidates for civic awareness, especially since many are accustomed to tornado and hurricane awareness. but my point stands, COVID has shown all of us how badly we can treat each other and what utter disregard for the community most of us can have.

R107, your argument would have far more merit had the eastern states literally been given a play-by-play of what was to come, informed them exactly how to prevent any outages or devastation from it, and what needs to be done to prevent it from happening again. IN ADVANCE.

Ya know, like Texas had but failed to act on.

^lol that’s not how it happened up here

My sex life has def improved working from home. On a faceless muted zoom call last week, my straight married fuck bud was banging the daylights out of me. He's also a remote office worker. His little wifey is a nurse who's outta the house most of the day. You have another guess coming if you think I'm gonna give up that arrangement in order to come back to the office.

Cities will be fine, I suspect. There will always be a need for offices and nightlife, etc.

I'm actually excited to see if there's new life injected into small towns. I own some rental properties in a resort town. We're seeing a lot of folk from relatively near cities (1.5 to 3 hour drives) relocating to our area. Because why the hell not? My job is going completely remote after Covid so I'll never have to work in an office again, thank God!

that would be of interest

Going into work maybe two or three days a week, or every other week, could give some people the break away from working from home...seeking to see their co-workers and getting "back" into the world. I think that would be a good compromise. Go in Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday...with Mondays and Fridays off would be nice, if your boss agrees.

[quote] shaming texans - some of the worst covidiots at times - because of a snow storm they couldn't have anticipated

That's not true. They had very bad storms in 2011 and 2014

you don't have to be a scientist to know that Texas will have other bad snow storms or freezing weather. It may not be for a few more years, but THEY WILL HAVE THEM. And they won't be ready for those either

The executives will want everyone back in the office for 3 reasons:

1) They don't want to be home with the spouse and family - this goes for men and women.

2) They need to feel important and admired by the staff. Plus they will miss the expensive lunches, drinks and business dinners.

3) They need to be in close proximity to their younger staffers to steal ideas.

There's too much invested in commercial real estate. The rents in commercial space are multiple times higher than if it was residential space. The owners of these buildings are going to FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT to keep the status quo.

I can’t imagine companies allowing people to relocate to low COL areas and wfh full time while still paying them the same salary. I could be wrong but why wouldn’t companies try to lower their salaries and save even more that way?

Either way I see a partial wfh hybrid becoming the new norm. 1-2 days in the office, the rest at home.

Though I worked from home before Covid, R117, that is exactly what I did and the company had no problems with it.

I wonder for those of you who say everyone will go back to work, what type of work you do? This morning I've been on calls all day with people in Dallas and Chicago, and this is my normal day. There is no point in going in since I'd never see these people anyway. I work in IT.

I can see perhaps advertising or some other creative collaborative job, but stuff like IT and finance. Forget it. It can be done from home.

[quote]Working from home is great if you’re already worked there for years and know the ins and outs. Onboarding a new hire from home is a nightmare. And you can forget about hiring new graduates. No one will take a chance on them remotely.

This is the real issue. Prior to all this, we had to work in office at least 2-3 years to be eligible to WFH. It is really hard to on-board someone remotely. My fortune 10 company has been giving up office space left and right when they can. It think new hires will be expected to come in for a while. Perhaps some hourly people (though that, to my surprise, I head hasn't been an issue). I would have thought OT would be abused left and right but no.

Think of what this could do to global emissions? This could be an abrupt social switch that could actually work to reduce climate change.

Of course, oil and car companies aren't going to be very happy.

There are so many things this could affect - it would really upturn our society, mostly in a good way.

[quote] We did a survey in our company: 83% of employees said they‘d want to work ca. 3 days from home

I’ve never seen ‘ca.’ used before anything other than a date (year).

I once accidentally presented hole on a zoom call.

Jeffery Toobin is that you?

I'm not surprised the studies are showing an increase in productivity. At at my last employer, I was more on the cutting edge of working from home. I started doing it a couple days a week and then eventually worked up to full-time at home. On my last day, I hadn't been to the office in almost 3 years.

I started a new job a few years ago. I had to start over doing the 1-2 days from home, that increased to 3, and then often 1-2 weeks at a time where I'd be full-time at home. I got my office time down to an average of 1-2 days a week, but usually 1 day if that.

What I found with both experiences was that I could do a typical 8 hour day of work in 5-6 hours when at home and devoid of all the office distractions, particularly office drama of which there was always plenty. I'm not surprised workplace incidents have greatly decreased. The drama types must miss stirring the shit at work, but for the rest of us that didn't sink to those petty levels we are gloriously free of that at home (well, for the most part).

Luckily we've been told that if we want to work full-time from home after the pandemic, we can. I've already indicated I will. It's hard to see this not changing things. I had a lot of co-workers who couldn't understand why I didn't like going to the office now all saying they want to work from home full-time and they're getting more done.

Lastly, I had to laugh at that 2017 article about IBM. My brother used to work for them and said they were just an old dinosaur that wasn't on the cutting edge anymore. He remembered when that came out and a bunch of people quit to go to competitors who had better work-from-home policies. Way to lost your good employees, IBM!

[quote]I'm hoping that city centres will actually undergo a creative renaissance amid the coming upheaval and devastation. After the decline of the 190s, Manhattan was the place to be for the creative, the artistic, and the just plain weird. The stabbings, shootings, beatings, and thefts were a bit of a pain, mind you, but it was a glorious time to be alive and young and in New York. London as well.

It won't happen.

The 1980s-mid 1990s resurgence of inner cities was down to young and creative people making use of cheap real estate thanks to 19th century slums, factories and warehouses.

All that space has been developed, Taylor Swift has moved into those spaces. There simply isn't room for them.

*lose

R124 Sorry, you're wrong there. Both in your dates (the creative boom in New York was long dead by 1990) and in your reasoning. Areas that develop can un-develop. Gentrification can become de-gentrification. And the worst recession in 300 years can have one hell of an impact.

I guess I'm lucky, but my company is filled with great people, not only fun and hilarious, but friendly and kind as well. The company's official motto is: Work hard, have fun and make money.

Thus, many of my best friends are also co-workers, so I am actually looking forward to getting back. I've actually had enough of being at home all the time. (Caveat: I do not have a long commute.)

In NYC anyway, the more established neighborhoods (UES, UWS, Greenwich Village) don't take much of a hit during downturns. They're conveniently located, have excellent housing stock and infrastructure.

Recently gentrified neighborhoods however, especially where real estate prices were out of line for the property, will take massive hits. So Crown Heights, Bushwick, Sunset Park--those areas will not hold their value.

I suspect most people will go back five days a week.

But even if 20% work from home most days, that's a massive shift and it will be interesting to see what the fallout it. I suspect we will see more WeWork type spaces in the burbs where people who don't want to commute but miss the interaction of an office can congregate.

Working from home is not for everyone. I've been doing it for 10 years now, in online marketing, but it's incredibly stressful when you're managing monthly spends of $1MM-`$5MM and your "team " is all in different time zones. There have been times where my boss worked from the west coast, and I live on the east coast. The 4 hour time difference between us was a pain in the ass, and it wasn't uncommon for him to call or email me at 9pm my time.

OH HELL NO R129.

I'm in a similar boat. I have east coast people scheduling meetings at 6-7 A.M. and west cost people asking, "where are you?" 3 P.M. their time (5 mine). I schedule fake meetings on Outlook so that shit doesn't happen (sometimes).

The same thing would happen if I were in the office though, so if I had to show up in person, in an office (for a conference call), I'd be doubly pissed, so I bitch and moan but deal with it, since I can just roll out of bed.

[quote]I can’t imagine companies allowing people to relocate to low COL areas and wfh full time while still paying them the same salary. I could be wrong but why wouldn’t companies try to lower their salaries and save even more that way?

A good point, R117. A lot of companies do make cost-of-living adjustments to salary based on the employee's location (sometimes after the fact of an employee moving) though this policy will be due for re-examination. Aside from tax obligations of the employer, it will become an important point is salary negotiations and employers that don't penalize employees for their location and facilitate flexibility will be more attractive to a sizeable segment of candidates.

There are some things I miss about working in an office. Getting dressed to impress. All the lunch places. The possibility that something sexy would happen with a random stranger. Some of the socializing (and I’m an introvert). Coming home.

the bitch fests at the water cooler were a highpoint of the week

I wonder what effect the redistribution of wages will have. Does New Jersey suddenly start getting a lot more wage tax that commuters used to pay to New York?

My partner's company has been mandating the pay adjustment by location for a few years now, he's been work from home for 10+ years. Same worker would make 20% less by living in say Tucson or Albuquerque vs living in the Boston area. You can accept that or leave.

It's not at the forefront yet, but once we get past vaccinations, just wait, it's coming. Work from Home folks that are moving to cheaper locales will be penalized that way.

you can shove it

135: I think employers will grift while they can, when it's to their advantage, but that ultimately the decision will be decided by some combination of market forces and legislation (compare Federal Internet Tax Freedom Tax Act which sought to address the confusion of taxing the internet at local and state levels.)

If, however, an employee working from home for a Cincinnati, Ohio firm decided to live not in Ohio or Kentucky but move to NYC and conduct his work from there, I doubt the firm would be so keen on enforcing a cost-of-living pay adjustment.

[quote] I have east coast people scheduling meetings at 6-7 A.M. and west cost people asking, "where are you?"

Outlook should be using your local time zone setting from your computer.

[quote]I have east coast people scheduling meetings at 6-7 A.M. and west cost people asking, "where are you?"

They can call and email all they like, I'm 6 or 9 hours earlier than colleagues on the East Coast/West Coast in the U.S. and answer messages in a 10- sometimes 12-hour window, if I'm working. The message late in the day is "I'll send that back to your tomorrow, it will be waiting for you when you start work."

And meetings, if you want everyone there you have to pick a time that isn't obscene for the attendees. I don't know what you do, but the fate of lives and nations doesn't hang on my work.

Don't forget that companies are facing an uphill battle for talent — They will gladly continue paying "normal" salaries to those working remote, just like Spotify is doing

It doesn't seem as if many DLers work in fields where that is an issue R140.

It's a slippy slope for companies paying salaries based on where employees live. San Francisco companies don't pay people less who choose to commute 2 hours every day from Fairfield or Morgan Hill rather than live in SF. If they start basing salaries on location, they could.

Not rocket science homosexuals.

In a field where any warm body can do the job, companies will pay people less depending on location.

In a field where talent matters, they will not care where you live so long as you work for them.

rats on the west side

bedbugs uptown

R141 That is true.

I could imagine offices breaking up into small, local branches; with each office specialised in a discipline.

Finance in X, Development In province/state Y, etc.

The air becomes cleaner.

[quote] with each office specialised in a discipline.

You’ve got my attention.

viciously face-slapping on the third floor

r135, why the fuck should those of us who choose to live in low COL areas effectively subsidize people who choose to live in big cities like NYC?

TL:DR. Well in free market Capitalism, property owners would need to LOWER COMMERCIAL space prices! Hopefully then, we might see small biz and Mom&Pop store revivals - and wouldn't that be a pleasure.

R139. I would add that working remotely would open up a global workforce so a company can have 24/7 360 days of working people from anywhere around the world. That might result in a two-edged sword considering this could drive down all minimum wages as Chinese can work from home for 3 cents per hour.

It’s going to be interesting, R152 — I think the entire job market will place the “buying power” in the hands of employees.

You can work for any company in the world. And you can jump ship just as easily, for any other company across the globe.

R150 Because the big money made in big cities on which those who earn it pay big taxes subsidizes many of those low COL places. There's a net transfer of wealth, both within and between states, that allows some places to be cheaper while the more productive areas pay their own costs and those of others.

i think some companies will relocated out of NY and sf because it was too expensive for their employees to live there. That was already the trend and now covid.