Forcing workers back to the office could be terrible for the environment

return2ozma@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 370 points –
Forcing workers back to the office could be terrible for the environment
motherjones.com
58

You are viewing a single comment

Who cares about the environment when we could be hoarding more money. Can anybody please think about those poor CEOs? :(

CEOs can make more money by offloading office costs to the employee - if your work force is remote, you don't need to pay for an office space.

This increases your profit, because your expenses are lower.

But you can't invest all that stolen money in inflated office building real estate prices either.

This exactly. My boss said the quiet part out loud the other day.

The CEO owns the building. He pays for the electrical, water, etc. All of that is wasted when only a handful of people come into the office.

So...he required all of us to be in the office so that his investment works out.

Or he could sell the asset, recoup what value he can from it, and save the utility/service/material expense associated with running a physical office.

It will eventually even out. It takes time for new business to displace old models, but it will eventually work itself out. In business, ‘no cost’ vs ‘some cost’ will always move toward ‘no cost’. In the short term, businesses that hold physical property (at least the ones that don’t need physical office space) are trying to do what they can to minimize the loss of value from falling commercial real estate values. Inflate the value, sell the asset, then let someone else take the loss.

Yeah, but the CEO personally profits from RTO, while the company profits from reducing their office footprint. Easy choice. He's not loyal to the company and neither should @CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com be.

If the company is publically traded, shareholders could sue over that conflict of interest.

And it also helps the employees cause they can claim part of their living expenses for business use

Not in the US. They took that away, I think with one of Trump's "tax cuts". Now you can only claim it if you are a business (like a contractor or an independent lawyer).

Our CEO is making more money by getting rid of our large, empty office space, giving us yet another advantage over our competitors.