...No?

That shows, if I'm reading it right, that commercial real estate is having trouble. We know that; it's not in doubt.

What's in doubt is whether that is the primary motivator behind the RTO efforts.

The incentives don't pencil out. They don't make an entire separate corporate structure and several extra layers of taxation result in more money for investors instead of just... giving it to investors.

Why the push for RTO? The most simple and boring answer. Most people work and especially learn from each other better in-person than over Zoom and Slack. Practically zero people will try to pretend that remote school was great for the average student during covid, even at the university level. But for some reason everything inverts when it comes to work. I get that there are superperformers that work better in a closed room with zero interruptions ever and require little collaboration to do their jobs, and some students were 3 grade levels ahead during covid. But in a company of 200,000 people you have more average people than lone wolf superperformers, and so going in person is better than 200,000 slack pfps. Simplest yet most hated answer.

You /s, but that's actually a fair point

- Some people work better at home, away from the office

- Some people work better in the office, with their co-workers around them

Those two facts are at direct odds with each other. It's unfortunate, but you can't give both groups what they want.

The owners of the companies we work for are making more money than us, off the value we create through our work, simply by through ownership itself. How’s that for compensation vs difficulty?

Only if you're talking about US market.

And it’s still not enough to buy houses close to the offices. So something is wrong

That’s a fair statement, we should start giving blowjobs and dance like strippers to justify our salary.

Did women have to wear ties too?

Were garish father's day ties acceptable?

Was wearing a tie as a rambo style headband a firable offense at office parties?

I have many questions.

If only it was possible to dress up at home…

What I wear has an influence. Ties cut off blood supply to the brain, so in fancy attire, I'm less useful.

>and I get better responses from others than when I’m wearing shorts and a tee shirt.

Did you not read the last part of the sentence?

> music

> window

> fancier attire

one of these things is not like the other

There's just one solution: unionize.

As you can see, your bosses already did.

Because they know they are creating unfulfilling low paying jobs with shitty objectives, who wouldn't fuck off in that scenario?

    > Those lazy employees need that strict supervision!

> > will do the minimum work that is required of them

> So... doing their job?

Can also mean working 5 h instead of 8, but not so little so you'd get fired.

That's not doing one's job completely (if paid for working 8 h), just that no one notices.

> People do their chores at random times in the middle of day...

When I was in-office, people I needed to speak to would be away from their desk (god only knows where) several times a day. Perhaps they were off taking a shit, or getting food, or having a long think in a quiet corner, or crying in the nap closet, or who knows what, but they weren't at their desk and I had no idea how to contact them.

If your coworkers are regularly inaccessible for extended periods, then you're gonna have to do what has been done since way before widespread WFH: talk to your manager to establish core working hours during which everyone is expected to be easily accessible to other folks in the company.

If your manager doesn't see the need to establish and enforce core working hours and neither does their manager, then either stop thinking of it as a problem, or go work for a place that is a better fit for your theory of work.

If you've already established core working hours and these remote employees are ignoring them, then complain to your manager. If their behavior is seriously getting in the way of you getting your work done, it's your manager's job to fix that.

Also given many orgs are distributed across buildings, cities, and countries.. a manager admitting they need to physically see butts in seats is telling on themselves re: ability to do their job.

So bring all the constant interruptions and inability to focus that is in the office at home as well?

The fact that you think is good tells me you're probably some kind of middle manager with too little actual work to do.

Wow I’m surprised at the heavy downvoted here.

I don’t think mandating cameras on and insisting on 100% is the right move, but I definitely think you want to aim for a team culture where camera-on is a default and most people have them on 80-90% of the time.

Otherwise, yea participation and engagement seems to take a major hit.

> cameras on 100%

i hate the idea of camera on 100% of the time.

I am not presentable when WFH. That's the point.

I might also be on the toilet - which otherwise is dead time!

Hahahaha, my sides. Jesus. That’s the funniest I’ve heard in this thread.

I have found the same with remote. Cameras ON is a huge improvement in how much people are in on the game. Constant communication, frequent ad hoc meetings, screen sharing. Its totally doable, but most people don't do it. There is no feeling worse than presenting an idea to a meeting room of 10 people with all cameras off, and when you ask a question you get crickets. Too many people are phoning it in.

No way, they're going to charge for the gym in the office? That's like something out of the onion.

I saw a few clickbait articles highlighting that JPMorgan's new world headquarters in Manhattan (270 Park Ave) has a gym but will charge employees to use it. Why is this so interesting? I have worked in many different tall office buildings in my career. I saw a variety of setups: (1) company gym, (2) third party gym, (3) no gym. You always had to pay a fee to use the gym. Why does requiring employees to pay trigger such a hostile reaction from people? Also, the people working in this specific building are very well paid. They can easily afford the fees. Some other points that people don't mention: If it was free, it might be overloaded. That building is expected to have 14,000 employees! Also, no gym can possibly provide everything that everyone wants. In Manhattan, you are spoiled for choice with gyms.

I am sure that a few people will reply to say: If the gym were free, then more people would use it, and the company would benefit from lower healthcare costs. (Specific to the US: Most large corporations are self-insured for healthcare, but use third party providers to administer the programme.) Maybe so, but difficult to prove. If that is true, the company should also provide healthy lunches, etc. The list goes on and on. And Internet randos will have a never ending list of things that a "good company" must do for their employees.

> if employees like it, it must be a perk/benefit.

Or, for those who have bought into the utterly toxic mindset that employees are always trying to get as much out of the company as possible for as little work as possible, "if employees like it, it must be a scam on us."

Do you live in Socal, like the person is implying? You make >500k a year and still live in a pretty small house then? And if so, like basically no one in the united states?

Ah, you live on a park bench?

It’s extremely pretty, there’s great food, lots of tech jobs, you meet diverse and interesting people, great public transit (for the US). There are many reasons for living in the Bay Area.

For highly-specialized engineers and researchers, there’s often only a tiny handful of companies they could work for that offer jobs in their specialties. For example, if you’re a compilers expert, there are only so many companies that hire compiler developers, whether it’s working on a commercial compiler like Microsoft Visual Studio or contributing to an open-source project such as LLVM (Apple is a major contributor). These jobs tend to be concentrated in a few global metro areas.

Additionally, Silicon Valley in particular benefits from having multiple companies in overlapping specialties. Suppose I’m a GPU expert working for NVIDIA, and suddenly I hit a setback and it’s time for a new job. Well, Apple is just a few miles away, and Apple makes GPUs and NPUs, and so I’d have a shot at working for Apple.

Contrast that with people living in areas with little diversity among tech companies. For example, Intel recently laid off a ton of engineers working near Portland, Oregon. There are few alternative technical employers in the region, especially in the specialties Intel focused on in Portland. Those laid-off engineers are facing the prospects of pivoting to a different tech specialty with more employment opportunities, competing for remote jobs at a time when so many companies are requiring their employees to return to the office, or relocating from Portland, which is massively disruptive and can potentially be very expensive. Some may be forced to retire early.

Silicon Valley may be insanely expensive and ultra-competitive, but it also has critical mass, which is vital for highly-specialized engineers and researchers.