“But office building pipes aren’t set up for that!”
Okay so make communal housing/bathrooms for cheaper rent or invest in expanding the plumbing
“But that’s too expensive!”
More expensive than $800 billion??
they'd never do that. then they'd be killing the housing bubble as well. think of the investors!
Okay so make communal housing/bathrooms for cheaper rent or invest in expanding the plumbing
This is how you get dystopian highrise slums
I would have agreed up until about a week ago. There was a news story a few days ago about how there are people in LA renting various vehicles parked on public streets for people to live in. Then another story about how there are actually thousands of such "rentals" in LA. I think highrise slums might be a notch or two down from the current dystopia.
This is already what many college dorms are today.
A bigger problem is the location, office building are not located in residential areas and as such lack a lot of facilities, e.g. no supermarkets and other shops in walking/cycling distance, no MD/pharmacy and other healthcare facilities, no schools or playgrounds, etc. etc.
You could literally add those services inside many of these buildings.
It can be done, but it requires proper planing, fore thought, and research. I could easily see a rushed, budget conversion leading to a getto like environment.
Such changes will take time. Right now, no-one is sure if WFH will stick. The last thing they want is to initiate a change, only to find it's far less profitable than just waiting. Local government won't push it yet, for similar reasons.
The best thing right now would be to gather case studies and planning research into EXACTLY what is needed, both short term (1-10 years) and long (20-100 years). That can then both accelerate the process, once it gets going, as well as make it long term sustainable.
It'll stick if we let it stick. If you don't let your work bully you into going back to the Office and instead say "Kindly fuck off, if you want to retain me in your company, you'll let me work from my home. If not, I can easily find a job that pays 20% more, and let's me work from home."
Because let's face it. You almost certainly can find a 20% raise + WFH if you are good at your job and work in a field that has WFH as an option.
You want to open a entire supermarket for a single building ?
That would only work if you convert an entire commercial district, but then you still have all the other infrastructure problems. If you're going to do that why not level the entire lot and build proper housing?
It's very common to have grocery stores in the bottom floors of buildings that are open to everyone, not just the residents of that building. And in parts of Europe it is the norm for large commercial/residential buildings to reserve the bottom floor for small retail businesses. It would greatly improve cities to have this.
I’m in Europe and large office buildings that are empty are usually not the ones with stores on the bottom floors, those offices (and residential buildings) are older, smaller buildings in city centers and are very much in demand. The large empty office buildings are usually in commercial districts on the edge of cities with very little foot traffic. There is no market for convenience stores there if you just convert a single office building.
Say you get 100 apartments out of it, you can’t run a supermarket on 100 customers.
Say you get 100 apartments out of it, you can’t run a supermarket on 100 customers.
Why does it have to be a supermarket, though? From what I've heard, New York City has bodegas everywhere and those are small convenience stores that have similarly sized customer bases. If the bottom floor is a small market, they have a nearly guaranteed 100 customers. And in your hypothetical commercial district, there would be more than one unused office building so more opportunity for mixed-use space.
Why does it have to be a supermarket, though?
Because what use would a bodega be on it's own? They aren't large enough to have the inventory to replace a supermarket. so that still means you have no conveniently close place to get your daily groceries.
And in your hypothetical commercial district, there would be more than one unused office building so more opportunity for mixed-use space.
These kinds of commercial districts with nothing but office buildings are terrible sad places to be. I'm not sure why anyone would want to live in such a depressing place.
Because what use would a bodega be on it’s own? They aren’t large enough to have the inventory to replace a supermarket.
I didn't mean the store would have to be a bodega; that was just an example of a small store sustaining itself with that size customer base. I meant that it could be a small grocery store, one that doesn't qualify as a supermarket. And like I said, if we're talking about a whole district, there are multiple buildings available so you don't have to get everything from one store. You could have a butcher in one building, a produce shop across the street, the grocery store with just nonperishables beside that, etc.
These kinds of commercial districts with nothing but office buildings are terrible sad places to be. I’m not sure why anyone would want to live in such a depressing place.
Because they don't have many other options. We're talking about affordable housing, which is needed by people who are increasingly getting priced out of non-depressing areas. And areas like what I'm describing, with small, locally owned stores colocated with housing with shared ammenities can be incredibly vibrant communities. You could even close off the interior roads and make something like the superblock concept that's been growing (I've heard about it the most in relation to neighborhoods in Spain).
I don't see why it wouldn't be a market for all the buildings around it too?
The buildings around it would be office buildings.
I agree that it's not great but it's better than nothing. Plus some of those services could eventually appear or be setup even in the same building itself.
Yeah cause sitting at a desk all day in an overpriced office building is sooo much different than sitting at a desk all day at home
it’s funny because I was able to get a standup desk in my home office
I’m in better shape now than when I was sitting at the office (plus zero distractions from the cOlAbErAtIvE oPeN fLoOr pLaN)
LOL I'm sure the depiction of what someone could look like after years of working from home, created/paid for by a work furniture company, is totally accurate.
A whole lot of Americans who don't work from home look like that today :/
What a joke of an article. Claw hands? Wtf?
Some people have been working remotely for decades, they are fine.
Time to practice the rugged capitalism that corporations preach. You want good workers? Follow them.
Zoning makes that difficult. We need to lobby to even allow for that even though it seems so obvious
Not just zoning, the average office building needs thorough work for that to happen. Washrooms are centralized and one per floor in an average office building for example, for it to have a bathroom for every apartment, it needs extensive piping.
It can definitely be done though, I live in such a building myself.
The piping also needs to be oversized for apartment areas compared to offices.
Local company made this mistake, raised an apartment building on sewage piping designed for offices. At peak hours in the evening and morning the sewage ended up backflowing into the apartments at the lower levels.
So just like in an office, life is less shitty on the top.
I'm sure there are special cases where residents would need bathroom access directly from their apartment, but are there any good reasons for private bathrooms, other than convenience?
To me, one of the most interesting things about converting non-residential building to residential is the potential for different ways of living. A shared bathroom and kitchen with offices surrounding a communal area could lead to a more communal lifestyle for residents.
If you want to charge market rents you’d need to provide private bathrooms. Any apartment without a private bathroom is what we’d call a bedsit in the UK and it could be worth half the rent.
We're talking about converting unused office space into affordable housing, though. Charging half the rent would qualify it as affordable housing and is still better than no income from an unused building.
Would have to be cheap as hell rent to put up with that.
Maybe for college dorms, hostels or halfway houses.
Yea it could definitely work for those but I don't think it's limited to those.
Difficult as long as we don't want to do it, the second we do, it's a man made obstacle that can be fixed in a moment.
Noooo, we can't let companies lose on bad investments, it is a sin in the eyes of The Red Line! Quickly, let's whip up a bailout for those poor billionares!
I guess that explains why they're going to such great lengths to convince us that talking about Game of Thrones around a water cooler is such a tremendous benefit to humankind...
At our office they are really pushing the "socializing" aspect by having a "gaming lunch" once a month. And by gaming lunch I mean they put out a few board games in the kitchenette that no one touches because we get 30 minutes to eat before having to work at a soulless corporation. But hey at least middle management is happy now they can walk around making sure you are working instead of being at home.
All workers are required to enjoy 30 minutes of mandatory social engagement at a designated "Fun Area". Enjoyment activities can include: hearty laughter, corporate value appreciation, appropriate camaraderie. If the enjoyment you wish to experience is outside of these allowed forms, please speak to your department's Enjoyment Adjustment Officer.
In the first half I thought that sounds at least kind of cool to have a lan party, but its one of those gaming table in office that only for decorations and no one touch….
Strange way to frame it. It sounds to me like businesses are saving $800 billion in unnessicary expenses.
Someone is holding that bag, though. Unfortunately for us, the people holding that bag have the kind of money to make our lives hell just for a fraction of a percentage point of value for their bottom line.
We were always going to pay for their failures; this one, or the next.
The really bad news is the one left holding the bag is the commercial real estate market, which if it goes under due to remote work reducing demand for office space theb it's likely to heavily impact bank stability. So there is reason to be concerned as individuals low on the chain
I've been wondering why this isn't talked about more.
All those commercial mortgages are intertwined with banks, and retirement accounts, and all sorts of "stable" investments.
Plus it's not just the offices directly affected by pandemic remote work that aren't renewing their leases. New companies wont lease a building since it's not expected anymore, and big companies will be counting the beans to see how much they can save by reducing office space.
This is a phase shift in commercial real estate that I don't think banks have budgeted for.
I'm sure everyone on wall street knows it's coming, but if they can act surprised and get another bailout in a major crash, that's just going to cost you and me our futures, again.
To clarify (what I think you're talking about), CMBS ie commercial mortgage backed securities is eerily similar to the bullshit that kicked off the '80 'great recession', which was speculation / shorting on MBS. I remember reading an economist at the time of '08 saying this is very bad, but he predicts we'll just about scrape through it, followed by a long period of stagnating growth, zero lessons learned, then a crash which will make '08 look like a fender bender.
I always hoped he was wrong but day by day, month by month, I saw his prediction coming true.
This is also really bad news for all the small businesses that rely on the office workers who work from home now. I'm all for shoving it to the billionaires and mega corps but it seems like everyone's forgotten about all the small(er) businesses they deal with on a daily basis and all the people who work for them.
There's also the tax revenue streaming from the offices, small businesses, and the people who work there. Less people taking public transportation makes them less safe and slows progress on improvements. It's not difficult to imagine city coffers shrinking, leaving room for more abandoned store fronts and an increase in crime.
I mean, if there's enough people who are no longer going to work everyday, there's a potentially devastating outcome on the horizon. Let's not get distracted by our elation of the wealthy (possibly) suffering. This is bad news for everyone who lives in a city.
well my hope is it pushes investment back.into leisure and third space usage, to encourage people back into cities for fun reasons rather than just to operate a keyboard which I can do from anywhere
I agree and actually if the commercial areas of the cities become more residencial. In my experience they become safer because some massive commercial areas when the sun goes down they are not nice to walk.
The government.... The government will think of the landlord's and your tax money will be the salve for the wounds.
Meanwhile, as schools and hospitals are left chronically underfunded...
And there it is. This is the reason why so many companies are insisting on RTO. The C-level bosses are being pressured by their ultra rich friends who own the land to justify their high real estate valuations and rent so they can continue to make more money. They're happy to do it too... No compromise for them... Most of them are old conservative fucks that are probably angry at all the technology disconnecting them from their ability to interrupt their workers whenever they feel like it, so they can dump their stress, anger and frustration on their subordinates by reprimanding them without just cause.
It's the same old story, rich folks screwing over the common poors for their own selfish reasons to their own self-serving ends. Progress? No problem, as long as it makes them more money, costs them less in expenses, and gives them more power over the rest of us.
Communities / local governments are also pressuring people to return to office work so small businesses and their employees don't continue to struggle in a post-covid economy. Less people going to work means more vacant store fronts, less people on public transit, less tax revenue, and more crime. By all means, press your frustration with the old conservative fucks, just don't let the media and personal grievances distract us from what's happening on the ground in our communities.
Good. Developers can buy them on the cheap and renovate into living spaces
Most of the time it's more economical to tear them down than to convert them. The plumbing work needed is probably the most expensive part but then you only have windows along the outside walls. I suppose you could have large common areas in the center.
Economical perhaps, but this is the sort of stupid ass shit that epitomizes how fucked the growth based economy is in this climate changed era. Developer's think a few years down the road, but have no economic incentive to build it as a cradle-to-cradle build rather than a cradle-to-grave build.
Build the same damn curtain wall floor plans in a dozen cities, so they all look ugly and don't improve the quality of life, because it's cheap, makes short term money for people who already have more then they can spend, and leave it to the kids to deal with everything in the future... Grrrr
{rant off}
Sorry, bitter old fart chiming in.
No, you're alright, I think you're entirely justified to rant about that. We continue being a very short sighted species.
That's the story they're selling but I don't think it really holds water. Sure, they'll have to remove the fitout and upgrade the plumbing and that costs money but no more than anyone would expect when building apartments. Some office buildings won't be suitable for residential use due to their shape and they obviously won't be converted but most are suitable and they'll be fine.
The business lobby pointing at the ones which are unsuitable and saying "but this whole thing is going to be impossible!" looks disingenuous to me. There are plenty of good options and there's no reason to expect they won't be converted.
These kinds of topics always get the "if it doesn't work for every single use case, it's useless".
This is a case by case kind of thing, each building should be examined and choose the appropriate new use for it.
Right, like masks don't stop all germs 100% of the time, ergo masks don't do anything.
Corporations: get your booty back into the office so it’s not empty
Also corporations: we’ve laid off your team in favor of AI, it was a tough but necessary choice due to costs
The empty office building: ???
I mean to be fair even though corporations fucking suck. Most commercial leases are typically longer than what you would do for residential. So it can range from 3-10 ish years(3-5 seems to be a common number). There is always the option to exit them early but there are typically pretty costly negatives to doing that.
I think the guy who bought it is in for life though :-)
I guess my company has been lucky so far. Our management team saw the chance to save money by reducing how many buildings we need and they rolled that money into hiring more remote workers.
It's funny / sad how much good / bad management can affect a company. Anyone with half a brain can see the benefit of remote work. You just need to figure out how to keep your workers accountable in different ways now that you can't stand behind their chairs and look over their shoulders.
The smart companies are saving money and getting better workers. The rest can all go fuck themselves.
Come on you rich idiots, convert those offices into something useful and they'll be valuable again.
Like housing. So people can afford places to live again!
But that would bring down the value of all the residential property these same people own.
Converting offices to residential is expensive and can take longer than just building new residential. I'm not against converting offices to a better use, I saw an article yesterday about turning offices into vertical gardens for example, but office to housing isn't a financially viable option, especially if you're trying to make affordable housing.
That would require effort and work. People this rich don't do that. They may lift a finger to ring a bell to have a prole come and take instructions on how to deal with the situation.
They themselves have money to count and caviar to eat out of their mistresses anus.
Don't expect the rich idiots to spend a dime doing that.
You know what they're likely to do, tho? Convince the govt to PAY THEM for some bullshit reason. That's how a portion of them get rich.
And homelessness is on the rise. Whatever should we do?
I know! Ban homeless encampments! Yeah!
Edit: but first let's fire 15% of our workforce and then give ourselves a few million in bonuses.
Okay, but solving problems is only "feasible" or "sustainable" if it keeps lines going up.
I think I'm on the wrong line :/
when my shit gets wiped out its "a market correction". let's see if this is "a market correction" or a "crisis" that requires federal intervention (read: a bunch of your money stolen at gunpoint and given to the people who made bad investments)
It's insane that we as a society are even having the debate between pushing capital investment strategies to adapt and come into the 21st century or dragging globally-distributed workers back to the 20th century just to avoid short-term pain and costs associated with updating outdated laws, tax incentives, and capital business practices.
Boomers. My former boss was like this. Sit in a crowded, loud, hot, glare on every screen office BeCaUse it ProMotEs CollAborAtiOn. Yeah. No one “collaborated.”
When did we sign something that said I’ll work for you but also in some of the worst conditions because well just because.
The problem is that the idea of WFH being more productive is slowly being shown to be false.
It can be a viable business strategy of you design for it, but WFH being the best in all cases has shown itself to be false.
That is the source. Feel free to post your own sources.
What you're saying is absolute bullshit. But, even IF it was true, I'd still be for WFH.
Society should make things better for people. Less time spent in cars, more time spent with family is worth the 5% stock dip for the investor class.
The worker has been taking it up the ass since the 60s and getting more and more productive while wages have stagnated.
So yea what you say is nonsense, but even if it was true in the immortal words of Red: I don't give a shit.
It is fine to want to WFH, I get it. It is a great perk for some people.
I'm not saying that WFH is horrible for companies.
I'm just saying that there seems to be productivity reasons why employers want their employees to work in an office.
IMHO it's more of a management issue than productivity. Managers like seeing you work.
The good news is I don’t care if it’s more productive fuck offices :)
And I like that answer because you're being honest. You don't like working in an office, and that is fair.
The productivity metrics at my company were consistently up by around 150% month by month for the entire duration that we were all permanently working from home without the distraction of the office and the time sink of in person meetings where nothing is achieved.
The only reason we were forced back to a hybrid arrangement is that none of the middle managers had any work to do and it became painfully obvious how little they actually contribute. They don't actually generate any value.
Instead of restructuring, and distributing the heinous waste of money that they and our real estate holdings represent they made the decision to limit WFH arrangements to two days per week and our metrics went right back where they were previously.
If you design for work in office, WFH probably isn't going to be more productive and the other way around. A lot of companies made the mistake thinking that WFH is the same as regular office but with everyone being home. This is not the case.
I have experience with company without WFH employees, where any team that wasn't literary all in the same building had some serious communication and cooperation isuues. I have experience with company where there was no office whatsoever, people were across globe and time zones and we managed to cooperate effectively.
I'm not saying that WFH can be always more effective. But in many cases it's just terribly implemented change and companies are just moving back to investing into office space instead of investing into proper WFH culture.
Folks at Zapier wrote an excellent guide if anyone is interested. It's serious effort, sure. People often feel like this is extra work to keep WFH viable, but they tend to forget that keeping the office running is also a serious effort. Many companies probably have office manager, how many of these have some alternative of that for WFH?
I would agree that implementation of WFH could be better. I also appreciate the link you shared. WFH can also be a viable option provided you set up for it.
However, I tend to find that a lot of the people who work best in WFH situations are generally friendly and productive people who will reach out on issues and cultivate relationships.
In contrast, those who seem to advocate the most for WFH online seem to want their direct manager to plug them into a system that will turn them into a cog that doesn't need to be proactive in solving problems. That isn't everyone who wants WFH, but they seem to be a loud minority.
Yeah, you absolutely have to set up for WFH. Which is no different than working from office. We just take that effort for granted.
Another issue is, that lot of the office work cost is not paid by companies. (At least not directly) For example the commute to work can easily be 10% of overall time spent from leaving your house until returning back home from work. But both the commute cost and time spent is paid by employee. So obviously companies are reluctant invest into WFH, because that does generate some expenses.
Please provide sources with who funded the study and we can provide sources that show the opposite!
If you expect results in given time and you're not getting it, you're gonna have talk with employee, WFH or office, doesn't matter.
The "productivity" is an illusion and always has been.
source? even before WFH, even before the internet it's just common sense that if I need something from the Phillippines office or the London office or the California office while I'm in New York it's much more efficient to call them than it is for me to get on a plane and go there.
The article refers to several peer reviewed studies which you can look up.
Every efficiency study, environmental model, and psychological model disagrees with your sentiments that WFH productivity is less than in office productivity. I am a software engineer, so it might be anecdotal and industry specific, but my experience as well as the studies done by my employer show that they get more out of WFH employees or Hybrid (1-2 days a week in office) than the traditional route. Commutes, in office distractions, etc are massive drains on the employee.
The studies cited in the article say otherwise. Feel free to show your studies.
That article is pretty trash, a half finished doctoral study from 2020 and it draws some wild conclusions from this authors work who comes to the opposite conclusion than what was provided by the article. You can see more information mathematically here in this paper that seems to suggest that a lot of the WFH productivity might be eaten up by the lack of effective tools at the disposal of the worker provided by the company. You can also find more data driven, finished papers on WFH efficiency here:
Here is a study on jobs that could be done from home.
The above study allows you to see that the environmental impact from having those jobs actually be done from home could be massive. Especially since most of those jobs are located in urban centers and require commuting and/or massive carbon footprints.
The problem with the argument is that it is reductionist, it makes it seem like the ONLY thing that matters is how much more productive it is. It is more productive, and it can have a HUGE benefit to both the mental health of the individuals who are able to WFH as well as the environment.
So, like I said. The large company I work for is 80% WFH, with an optional hybrid approach and spent a bunch of money researching this and are looking to keep it up because their workers are happier, healthier, and more productive... That single economist piece that misrepresents data and uses kind of trash studies isn't really a great one to be leaning on.
Edit: There are absolutely jobs that cannot be done from home, and people who can't handle WFH because of their personality. However, WFH is primarily a good thing. All these hit pieces and garbo articles trying to justify people returning to these monolithic buildings without any value are trash and shouldn't be promoted as information. At their core they're opinion pieces.
The second study is about employee satisfaction, which I didn't argue as well. The third study may be a thing, but it doesn't outright compare those who work in an office to those who work full remote.
And as I've said earlier, it is fine if you want to make arguments for WFH outside of productivity. However, none of the studies you provided tries to directly measure the two. Thank you for providing some studies, though. You were the only one who tried to argue this via academic studies.
If you want to want to make the argument that productivity isn't the be all end all reason, that is fine. WFH is a great perk and I can see why people like it. I also agree that it can work, but there is a difference between being able to work and being the best option.
But the argument is always that WFH is the best and most productive option where that may not be the case.
Dumb opinion is dumb lol
What would you expect The Economist to say?
Their reporting has a financial bent to it, but they would write an article defending WFH productivity wise if the data was there.
The article also doesn't dismiss WFH either, noting other reasons to keep it.
Can you elaborate on this?
I can't WFH so I haven't really kept up with the trend
Don't listen to the bootlicker below. He's just spreading propaganda for his corporate overlords.
Basically there has been a mantra from people that WFH will always be productive and that, therefore, going into work is a waste. What is being found is that there seems to be a minor productivity hit, but it isn't the end of the world and there may be reasons to allow WFH even if workers are less productive.
Saying that WFH isn't anything but good gets a lot of people pissed off.
Source?
Anecdotally, I can't get shit done in the office. I like to talk to people, people interrupt me with questions, and towards the end of the day I'm watching the clock and dreading traffic.
When I need to get something done I work from home. My coworkers are the same way.
I took a remote job for 18 months before leaving and getting a new job back in an office. For me personally, I found it great for the first 12 months, however over time it became obvious that the company wasn't structured well for remote work and I couldn't get anything meaningful done. I loved all the extra time working from home gave me, but I finished every day feeling like I was wasting my life in a room at home and not achieving anything. This was largely due to the organisation itself, but I also found that working remote created an extra barrier to trying to fix that company's culture. So I quit and went back to working face to face with people. Since then I've found it easier to push for changes and influence people, process etc now that I'm back working face to face. I do miss the WFH lifestyle though and think I'd be happiest in a hybrid model.
Finally something my generation can contribute to
Oh no! Anyway...
Not enough!
Those poor commercial real estate investors
How do you have RDM flare?
Oh wait portrait lol
Hence why "they" are against wfh
All the companies Mckenzie consults with are mysteriously reversing wfh decisions
Awesome, some of my favourite clubs were sold off to be used as offices. Can we turn them back into clubs now?
I know you mean like drinking and dancing, but in my head I'm like "yeah my chess club DESERVES a nice building"
Well after I wrote it I thought, dancing-and-intoxicants clubs are meaningful to me and my friends, but I bet there's all sorts of other clubs that would benefit from a dedicated, affordable space to flourish. Your chess club DOES deserve a nice building.
YOU get a building! And YOU get a building... and YOU get a building!
You can call it The Queenside Castle.
For real, use all that land for something actually good for communities and cities say... affordable spaces for small businesses?
Small businesses on lower floors, apartments up top, I fail to see a problem.
I love when cities have the small business + apartment layout.
Especially when the ground level has something useful like a bodega, so people can just go downstairs for food and necessities instead of driving somewhere.
A lot of city centers in Europe are like that but there's definitely been an effect of suburbanization due to prices rising in the centers.
While completely different, the best place I know for what you describe is Hong Kong, you can go down to grab a bite within 50m, pretty much 24/7.
There are so many amazing things those buildings can be, instead of soulsucking pointless offices!
Let it burn!
Oh no!!!
Anyway.
Sounds more like an overvalued market that’s being corrected.
Maybe we could get them converted to residential units to get cheaper housing.
Only some office buildings can be converted into reasonably shaped apartments, particularly those built before WW2, when architects wanted more natural light. After WW2, office buildings became a lot deeper because of expanded use of electric lights.
But there are ways to make more useful shapes out of those open floor plans.
Make apartments on the sides and use the middle for cool stuff like cinema rooms and ball pits.
Per the article, it seems that the main barrier here is that it is currently not economically worthwhile to convert these buildings, as the conversions require massive changes to the buildings themselves. If the value of these properties fall enough, however, it could easily become an attractive proposition for these buildings. A continued push for work from home can hopefully damage these property values enough to make it feasible.
It’s really expensive to do it safely and really dangerous to do it cheaply. Avoid commercial to residential conversions.
Why? I don't know why to avoid it
Because you don’t want to die in a collapse.
The loads you’re designing for in a building intended for commercial use are lower and more uniform than the loads you’re looking at when you wanna slap together something for industrial or residential use.
Office and retail spaces are not designed to bear the heaver load of residential use or the combination of weird flexing, torsion and heavier loads involved in industrial applications.
Those warehouse spaces can be safely converted to lofts by just framing them in. Office buildings need structural changes to become safe living space in addition to all the utility stuff.
That totally makes sense, And that is horrifying
Isn't it really expensive converting officespace to residential though? Given the layout of plumbing, elevators etc. Would assume that alot of the time it would just be cheaper to tear it down ☹️
It's just like converting anything else into a multifamily building.
Where I live many offices have already been converted to apartments.
many offices have already been converted
The plural of anecdote isn't data.
If it was, we'd not have smoke detectors. After all, most people have gone through 12,000 days without a house fire, so there's no value.
We have all the old factories converted into apartments around here. It's pretty cool. Even old churches have been turned into apartment buildings.
Its what AB 1532 is trying to achieve in California. Given that the building is already there, there will be less vectors for nimbys to prevent the construction of said building (as its already up and approved)
Sounds like a bunch of Herman Miller chairs are gonna be available for cheap
Like a bird migration, the chairs will migrate from commercial offices to home offices.
Good
Yet they still want us in the office...
I work remote twice a week, which is nice, but I seriously wonder why I even have to go to the office the other three days.
Most of who I communicate with to do my job is not even in my location, so I'm regularly using Microsoft teams and WebEx. Also all the programs are accessible on my work laptop from home.
They are starting the force people back to work at my company. Apparently a location had a fight break out and police called because of an argument over a spot. There isn't enough room at these places so they were trying to make people go to an office an hour away instead.
If I were to go into the office I wouldn't have anyone else on my team with me. And if someone were to ask me to do work, I could have easily done it if they sent a message instead of walking by. I also don't eat lunch, so I would just work with headphones in. So I wouldn't contribute to the collaboration that is claimed to take place.
The only reason they want people back in the office is for that control. They don't want people having a good work/life balance. They want you to waste money on gas, time away from your family, and to eat out more often. It would be great if some states would prevent companies from forcing back to office.
There isn’t enough room at these places
I quit a job that was trying to force RTO to a new office that was half an hour away from the old one, had paid parking instead of free and then only had enough office space to house 2/3 of employees at any given moment. They literally told us that for all-hands meetings people were expected to come in and sit on the floor. Then I quit a different job that was trying to force RTO when they owned the nearest parking garage to the office. You might think "Well at least you won't have to pay to park" but nope, they expected to juice every employee for $12-$18/day in parking.
This right here!
My commute is rather long. I spend about 2 hrs total of my day commuting to and from work. I could save so much time and money on gas if I was full time remote.
work with headphones in. So I wouldn't contribute to the collaboration that is claimed to take place.
In the new cramped environment with low visual privacy and especially no audio privacy, we all just end up with earpods in. We need the noise isolation to f'n THINK!
So the boss oozes his way over and 'hums' and 'haws' trying to get our attention before waving and doing that "hey pull out your earbuds so I can talk" gesture that resembles yokels trying to pick up someone in an elevator or on the bus and not.getting.it .
Because he doesn't.
So that is the life of people I left at the old job, and it's repeated a thousand times over.
Learn to also say on the phone "this environment has no audio privacy. Can you book meeting and a conference room? Thanks", if you get too many desk calls.
Their wanting you in the office is about control - it's nothing to do with productivity or any of the other excuses.
A lot of the investments by big companies were made in 2018-2019 with low near 0% interest. now a lot of those loans are coming due which will impact their total assets. they want workers in the office to keep Corp real estate in demand so their investments don't tank. most likely will result in massive layoffs or bail outs as they will try to protect the shareholders for eternal growth.
I seriously wonder why I even have to go to the office the other three days.
You don't; and you know this already.
I quit my union job when the new hotshot manager started mandating RTO into a newly compressed, hot, bright, loud environment; being able to actually see asses in chairs was his jam, despite the work impact. What a tool.
Found a job with another unionized IT shop, paid for it with a 3% pay cut but got an extra week of vacation (net loss: 3 days pay/yr) and a really great crew and 100% remote written into the contract. Thanks, ya tool.
The estimated total dollar value of commercial real estate was $20.7 trillion as of 2021:Q2.
some Google search
The thing I don't like is that so much of the cost cutting goes to companies. It's not just the office space, it's also furniture, electricity, water and so on.
While the worker save time and costs for transportation they usually don't get any compensation for the wear and tear of their furniture or the need for extra space for work area.
The wear and tear on my furniture is negligible compared to car/bicycle maintenance and public transport costs.
Sure, but a good desk or chair can be quite expensive to buy. Sitting badly can really mess you up.
But the transportation of the employee isn't a problem that an employer care about usually. The costs for office space on the other hand is just a saving that companies pocket and pass over to the employers. That's why I feel that companies should give a stipend for the office space needed by the employee, including computers and screens of course.
My work gives me a $100 monthly stipend to cover internet and incidental costs for my home office. It's not a whole lot but it's a nice touch on top of my salary + cost savings of working from home.
The fuck? My work yelled at me when I went to the bathroom during WFH. You're over here getting stipends and shit.
Good for you man, that's awesome
I had a job that confronted me about why I went yellow (idle) mid-day as I was expected to be online and active during core hours.
I had gone downstairs to make some lunch.
I quit that job.
Yeah I hated WFH. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the thin client I have. It's gotta be useful for something right?
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !selfhosted@lemmy.world
Thanks!
That's great, that's how it should be done.
Finally some good news!
Aiming for a trillion.
Where I live many offices have already been converted to apartments.
Thats great but I don’t think my office building could ever be converted. It has a central core and 3 wings (shape like mercedes symbol) but most of the plumbing is either in the middle or at the end of each wing.
What I'm hearing is "off-campus college dorm with communal bathrooms".
Maybe, but the nearest college is on the other side of the city.
That would work great for some of these empty offices in downtown Denver... a couple schools are an easy bus ride away from downtown, and LoDo would be a pretty good college neighborhood (other than all the people on fentanyl etc). The only problem is I don't think they really need more college housing.
That's the problem with office highrises, too - it would take a huge amount of work to install the plumbing necessary for them to become housing.
... and HVAC and power with the internal wall change and sound-insulation.
This simply means it's a question of how far do the values of these buildings need to fall before it is economically viable to perform these massive conversions. Government could certainly incentivize these conversions. Too bad it seems most governments don't care about alleviating the various housing crises.
Good.
Aww. So sad /s
Good
Thoughts and prayers for the landlords.
Good?
If only Amazon wasn’t forcing me to go back into the office soon…
Even my manager hates the idea. Out team is split on different coasts, so we’re gonna have to be in class anyway, so why am I forced to go into the office? I went in before I was going to be forced because it was fun, but now I’m staying out until I’m forced. It’s bullshit.
Amazon and Bezos himself has pretty close ties to Wall Street. You being herded in is the returned backscratch for very favourable stock market "accidents" that led Amazon to an insane valuation and competitors on the short side of the investments.
Oh, no…
Anyway..
We need more housing not places to work. Sounds legit to me.
Yeah but a business park or industrial estate is no place you want to live, so it's not like thoss offices can be converted.
Turn them into vertical farms if its apparently too hard to turn them into housing ;p
I don't think we're in need of more food though. In developed countries, so much of it is just plain thrown out because it doesn't get eaten.
Yeah but it would add localised - and extremely high efficiency in terms of water, yield, etc. - food supply that's more resilient to climate shifts, needs no pesticodes, etc., and for those of us on islands like the UK where we import lots of food it would be good.
Might also help those countries we import from build up more food supply resiliency because thry have more excess. Or massively reduce land use for food ^.^. And a lot of the places food gets imported from or otherwise farmed are also at large risk for climate change, so perhaps using vertical farms or other climate controlled farming techniques would be a good idea for them too nya
Furthermore it makes the supply chain more auditable, so you can reduce the reliance on questionably or very unethically sourced stuff. A controlled environment might also allow for even more automation.
I'm a pretty big fan of vertical farming for lots of reasons though to the point of writing an article on it, so I'm a little biased ;p. The main obstacles are land/building price and energy (and also some techniques for growing staples, though I think that is not a fundamemtal limitation, and I think the other two are solvable)
Edit: also I think it's desirable to return agricultural land to less managed environments like forests. Moving more human infrastructure into cities would enable more of this sort of "rewilding" (though I think that's a bit of a misnomer as environments everywhere have all been fundamentally altered by people, and a lot of people's idea of "nature" is the very sanitised version that avoids the constant slaughter and death, like cityparks and stuff which are actually very human managed - good for mental health, but not really ""nature"" in the same way)
They can be converted, and lots of cities are in the process.
They can be, but do you want them to be. Most are not in convenient places.
They absolutely can. If Canadian cities can do it with less people and money then certainly some of these massive multi-billion dollar real estate companies can do it too.
Cities, you just said keyword there cities, you can do it in cities because people want to live in cities. They don't want to live on the outskirts. Most of these offices are not in the city centre because the city centre is a really expensive place to have an office, only massive corporations are based there.
The vast majority of office space is in low rent districts on the periphery of cities. Because no one lives there there's no shops, no leisure centres, no schools, no parks or other green spaces. You can't just convert every building into a housing unit without considering the surrounding environment.
It would be infinitely cheaper to just build homes where you actually want them, than to try and convert a building that was never designed for the task.
I know it's not trendy or hip or exciting to say that, but when you look at the economics it just doesn't make sense outside of some very limited circumstances.
Ou no...anyway
I saw a puff piece about a billionaire banker complaining that remote work wasn't working to defend his decision to force people back into the office. Lying piece of shit was probably seeing the value of his portfolio dropping
While working from home...
Oh no , anyway
Ok maybe but mckinsey is full of shit 99% of the time
That's awesome.
COVIDs silver lining.
Ehhh I think everything bad about Covid is permanent and any silver lining is being wiped out gradually …It’s just more bad on top of bad. They’ll make up that profit in some sinister way …
times are changing, so should work.
its 2023 not 1993, WFH for the folks that do mostly desk job stuff should be encouraged
An enviromentalist/urbanist is all for this because less cars on the road means less pollution, less accidents and most of all, less stress of HAVING to drive outside of getting groceries and such.
the only disadvantage of WFH is simply the lack of unity in the populace, mostly due to how suburban developments keep us all shut off from one another, but thats another 50 gallon drum of worms in of itself.
There is a real chance of:
recession related to commercial office space contagion or
pension funds crisis
That's only like a 2.5% drop. I think McKinsey is soft-pedaling those numbers a bit.
Good
Our interdependence as workers could redistribute capital, if we speak in unison with our wallets. It could be possible with the equipment you're holding in your hand. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Given what the French government got for their money's worth in counselling from McKinsey, I'd take what they say with a pinch of salt.
Boo hoo
Well, as usual, fuck McKinsey and the broken people moving through its turnstiles each day.
You love to see it.
it does create value in other places though.
I've always found doom and gloom reports like this amusing for this very reason. Yes the traditional approaches and value generating strategies may go away, but smart businesses and individuals will have brand new opportunities to fill the gap and innovate. It's only those who reduse to or are not capable of adapting that stand to gain from the status quo.
{crying-top-hats-iasip.gif}
Good, when it can be done from home, there’s no reason to be in office
I like what this McKinsey guy is sayin.
Good.
Keep it up everyone!
Which is perfectly fine
Oh noooooo
sickos_yes.jpg
🤷♂️
Yeah and Iron made Bronze workers redundant.
I think it’s important to note here that it’s not necessarily great for everyone if the companies everybody works for lose a bunch of money. Companies will try as hard as possible not to realize that loss, and after that happens, lots of office buildings aren’t really built in a way where they can be converted to do anything useful, so they’re just gonna sit there. Normal people are probably going to end up paying for this - personnel are some of the easiest things to let go of for a balance sheet.
Here's the sneaky part:
A company that isn't utterly brain dead can save money with WFH. My startup doesn't even have an office to go into, we're all WFH. Know what we're not spending money on? A commercial lease. There's opportunity here for companies to go and save a grip of cash by going WFH and either relocating to a smaller campus or dropping it altogether. In this situation, the only party who loses is the asset holder, and I have no problems with that. You win some, you lose some, that's the free market.
that’s the thing - who’s gonna buy a big campus in this market… kinda reminds me of homberguy/aquaman meme
They could just rent it out. Or convert it and sell. But nooo that's too much hassle
to who? this video has a pretty good explanation of why so many buildings can’t be converted or just won’t make sense to convert. https://youtu.be/imyPVFFACTk
That's a very interesting video. But I still have to ask WHY is it ok for an office to lack the lighting and escape routes when the same is not ok for residential areas (which was the main reason given)? It makes no sense to me. Water and sewage poses no problem because large office buildings have to account for mutiple toilets on each floor. Electricity is also a non issue (I'd argue electricity usage would vastly decrease when coverted). That just leaves shared air circulation and conditioning which also shouldn't be an issue since it would just be maintained through the landlord (and could even be cheaper for the individual since they don't have to pay for their own systems but just a flat fee on the rent).
I honestly don’t know, but I probably wouldn’t want to live in an place with no access to the outside at all, not even a window.
With rent prices in this kind of fantasy land in bigger metroploes like San Fran or NYC , I'd doubt you'd find tenants. Maybe in rural laboratories it might be an issue but not the cities. That's just my thoughts. Might be wrong.
I'm fine with that.
Turn them all into housing we desperately need
“But office building pipes aren’t set up for that!”
Okay so make communal housing/bathrooms for cheaper rent or invest in expanding the plumbing
“But that’s too expensive!”
More expensive than $800 billion??
they'd never do that. then they'd be killing the housing bubble as well. think of the investors!
This is how you get dystopian highrise slums
I would have agreed up until about a week ago. There was a news story a few days ago about how there are people in LA renting various vehicles parked on public streets for people to live in. Then another story about how there are actually thousands of such "rentals" in LA. I think highrise slums might be a notch or two down from the current dystopia.
This is already what many college dorms are today.
A bigger problem is the location, office building are not located in residential areas and as such lack a lot of facilities, e.g. no supermarkets and other shops in walking/cycling distance, no MD/pharmacy and other healthcare facilities, no schools or playgrounds, etc. etc.
You could literally add those services inside many of these buildings.
It can be done, but it requires proper planing, fore thought, and research. I could easily see a rushed, budget conversion leading to a getto like environment.
Such changes will take time. Right now, no-one is sure if WFH will stick. The last thing they want is to initiate a change, only to find it's far less profitable than just waiting. Local government won't push it yet, for similar reasons.
The best thing right now would be to gather case studies and planning research into EXACTLY what is needed, both short term (1-10 years) and long (20-100 years). That can then both accelerate the process, once it gets going, as well as make it long term sustainable.
It'll stick if we let it stick. If you don't let your work bully you into going back to the Office and instead say "Kindly fuck off, if you want to retain me in your company, you'll let me work from my home. If not, I can easily find a job that pays 20% more, and let's me work from home."
Because let's face it. You almost certainly can find a 20% raise + WFH if you are good at your job and work in a field that has WFH as an option.
You want to open a entire supermarket for a single building ?
That would only work if you convert an entire commercial district, but then you still have all the other infrastructure problems. If you're going to do that why not level the entire lot and build proper housing?
It's very common to have grocery stores in the bottom floors of buildings that are open to everyone, not just the residents of that building. And in parts of Europe it is the norm for large commercial/residential buildings to reserve the bottom floor for small retail businesses. It would greatly improve cities to have this.
I’m in Europe and large office buildings that are empty are usually not the ones with stores on the bottom floors, those offices (and residential buildings) are older, smaller buildings in city centers and are very much in demand. The large empty office buildings are usually in commercial districts on the edge of cities with very little foot traffic. There is no market for convenience stores there if you just convert a single office building.
Say you get 100 apartments out of it, you can’t run a supermarket on 100 customers.
Why does it have to be a supermarket, though? From what I've heard, New York City has bodegas everywhere and those are small convenience stores that have similarly sized customer bases. If the bottom floor is a small market, they have a nearly guaranteed 100 customers. And in your hypothetical commercial district, there would be more than one unused office building so more opportunity for mixed-use space.
Because what use would a bodega be on it's own? They aren't large enough to have the inventory to replace a supermarket. so that still means you have no conveniently close place to get your daily groceries.
These kinds of commercial districts with nothing but office buildings are terrible sad places to be. I'm not sure why anyone would want to live in such a depressing place.
I didn't mean the store would have to be a bodega; that was just an example of a small store sustaining itself with that size customer base. I meant that it could be a small grocery store, one that doesn't qualify as a supermarket. And like I said, if we're talking about a whole district, there are multiple buildings available so you don't have to get everything from one store. You could have a butcher in one building, a produce shop across the street, the grocery store with just nonperishables beside that, etc.
Because they don't have many other options. We're talking about affordable housing, which is needed by people who are increasingly getting priced out of non-depressing areas. And areas like what I'm describing, with small, locally owned stores colocated with housing with shared ammenities can be incredibly vibrant communities. You could even close off the interior roads and make something like the superblock concept that's been growing (I've heard about it the most in relation to neighborhoods in Spain).
I don't see why it wouldn't be a market for all the buildings around it too?
The buildings around it would be office buildings.
I agree that it's not great but it's better than nothing. Plus some of those services could eventually appear or be setup even in the same building itself.
Yeah, great, build housing. Minimize commuting, minimize pollution, maximize autonomy, maximize bathrobe sales.
I haven't worn a belt in months. 🥳
Sounds generally positive to me.
Why not. Cheaper rent for ailing urban areas, and more incentives for residential construction.
Plus people commuting less = less pollution and less congestion.
Good for people, good for the planet, bad for profit for some.
Yeah but less pollution in the sky means people can see the clouds, and that’s where my data is stored. 😡 I don’t want people seeing my data.
Hopefully you mean more residential areas in mixed use. Zoning is cancer that destroys the climate
Alternative headline: remote work adds billions into workers' pockets and an immeasurable amount of happiness
One person downvoted that, what a clown haha
Convert it to affordable housing. You made a bad investment corporate America, kindly eat shit. If you need us, will be working, from home.
Nah let's just pump out more propaganda articles on why WFH is bad. /s
Like this?
https://nypost.com/2023/06/16/3d-model-reveals-what-remote-work-could-do-to-our-bodies/
Yeah cause sitting at a desk all day in an overpriced office building is sooo much different than sitting at a desk all day at home
it’s funny because I was able to get a standup desk in my home office
I’m in better shape now than when I was sitting at the office (plus zero distractions from the cOlAbErAtIvE oPeN fLoOr pLaN)
LOL I'm sure the depiction of what someone could look like after years of working from home, created/paid for by a work furniture company, is totally accurate.
A whole lot of Americans who don't work from home look like that today :/
What a joke of an article. Claw hands? Wtf?
Some people have been working remotely for decades, they are fine.
Time to practice the rugged capitalism that corporations preach. You want good workers? Follow them.
Boston is doing this.
Zoning makes that difficult. We need to lobby to even allow for that even though it seems so obvious
Not just zoning, the average office building needs thorough work for that to happen. Washrooms are centralized and one per floor in an average office building for example, for it to have a bathroom for every apartment, it needs extensive piping.
It can definitely be done though, I live in such a building myself.
The piping also needs to be oversized for apartment areas compared to offices.
Local company made this mistake, raised an apartment building on sewage piping designed for offices. At peak hours in the evening and morning the sewage ended up backflowing into the apartments at the lower levels.
So just like in an office, life is less shitty on the top.
I'm sure there are special cases where residents would need bathroom access directly from their apartment, but are there any good reasons for private bathrooms, other than convenience?
To me, one of the most interesting things about converting non-residential building to residential is the potential for different ways of living. A shared bathroom and kitchen with offices surrounding a communal area could lead to a more communal lifestyle for residents.
If you want to charge market rents you’d need to provide private bathrooms. Any apartment without a private bathroom is what we’d call a bedsit in the UK and it could be worth half the rent.
We're talking about converting unused office space into affordable housing, though. Charging half the rent would qualify it as affordable housing and is still better than no income from an unused building.
Would have to be cheap as hell rent to put up with that.
Maybe for college dorms, hostels or halfway houses.
Yea it could definitely work for those but I don't think it's limited to those.
Difficult as long as we don't want to do it, the second we do, it's a man made obstacle that can be fixed in a moment.
Noooo, we can't let companies lose on bad investments, it is a sin in the eyes of The Red Line! Quickly, let's whip up a bailout for those poor billionares!
I guess that explains why they're going to such great lengths to convince us that talking about Game of Thrones around a water cooler is such a tremendous benefit to humankind...
At our office they are really pushing the "socializing" aspect by having a "gaming lunch" once a month. And by gaming lunch I mean they put out a few board games in the kitchenette that no one touches because we get 30 minutes to eat before having to work at a soulless corporation. But hey at least middle management is happy now they can walk around making sure you are working instead of being at home.
All workers are required to enjoy 30 minutes of mandatory social engagement at a designated "Fun Area". Enjoyment activities can include: hearty laughter, corporate value appreciation, appropriate camaraderie. If the enjoyment you wish to experience is outside of these allowed forms, please speak to your department's Enjoyment Adjustment Officer.
In the first half I thought that sounds at least kind of cool to have a lan party, but its one of those gaming table in office that only for decorations and no one touch….
Strange way to frame it. It sounds to me like businesses are saving $800 billion in unnessicary expenses.
Someone is holding that bag, though. Unfortunately for us, the people holding that bag have the kind of money to make our lives hell just for a fraction of a percentage point of value for their bottom line.
We were always going to pay for their failures; this one, or the next.
The really bad news is the one left holding the bag is the commercial real estate market, which if it goes under due to remote work reducing demand for office space theb it's likely to heavily impact bank stability. So there is reason to be concerned as individuals low on the chain
I've been wondering why this isn't talked about more.
All those commercial mortgages are intertwined with banks, and retirement accounts, and all sorts of "stable" investments.
Plus it's not just the offices directly affected by pandemic remote work that aren't renewing their leases. New companies wont lease a building since it's not expected anymore, and big companies will be counting the beans to see how much they can save by reducing office space.
This is a phase shift in commercial real estate that I don't think banks have budgeted for.
I'm sure everyone on wall street knows it's coming, but if they can act surprised and get another bailout in a major crash, that's just going to cost you and me our futures, again.
To clarify (what I think you're talking about), CMBS ie commercial mortgage backed securities is eerily similar to the bullshit that kicked off the '80 'great recession', which was speculation / shorting on MBS. I remember reading an economist at the time of '08 saying this is very bad, but he predicts we'll just about scrape through it, followed by a long period of stagnating growth, zero lessons learned, then a crash which will make '08 look like a fender bender.
I always hoped he was wrong but day by day, month by month, I saw his prediction coming true.
This is also really bad news for all the small businesses that rely on the office workers who work from home now. I'm all for shoving it to the billionaires and mega corps but it seems like everyone's forgotten about all the small(er) businesses they deal with on a daily basis and all the people who work for them.
There's also the tax revenue streaming from the offices, small businesses, and the people who work there. Less people taking public transportation makes them less safe and slows progress on improvements. It's not difficult to imagine city coffers shrinking, leaving room for more abandoned store fronts and an increase in crime.
I mean, if there's enough people who are no longer going to work everyday, there's a potentially devastating outcome on the horizon. Let's not get distracted by our elation of the wealthy (possibly) suffering. This is bad news for everyone who lives in a city.
well my hope is it pushes investment back.into leisure and third space usage, to encourage people back into cities for fun reasons rather than just to operate a keyboard which I can do from anywhere
I agree and actually if the commercial areas of the cities become more residencial. In my experience they become safer because some massive commercial areas when the sun goes down they are not nice to walk.
Who will think of the landlords?
The government.... The government will think of the landlord's and your tax money will be the salve for the wounds.
Meanwhile, as schools and hospitals are left chronically underfunded...
And there it is. This is the reason why so many companies are insisting on RTO. The C-level bosses are being pressured by their ultra rich friends who own the land to justify their high real estate valuations and rent so they can continue to make more money. They're happy to do it too... No compromise for them... Most of them are old conservative fucks that are probably angry at all the technology disconnecting them from their ability to interrupt their workers whenever they feel like it, so they can dump their stress, anger and frustration on their subordinates by reprimanding them without just cause.
It's the same old story, rich folks screwing over the common poors for their own selfish reasons to their own self-serving ends. Progress? No problem, as long as it makes them more money, costs them less in expenses, and gives them more power over the rest of us.
Communities / local governments are also pressuring people to return to office work so small businesses and their employees don't continue to struggle in a post-covid economy. Less people going to work means more vacant store fronts, less people on public transit, less tax revenue, and more crime. By all means, press your frustration with the old conservative fucks, just don't let the media and personal grievances distract us from what's happening on the ground in our communities.
Good. Developers can buy them on the cheap and renovate into living spaces
Most of the time it's more economical to tear them down than to convert them. The plumbing work needed is probably the most expensive part but then you only have windows along the outside walls. I suppose you could have large common areas in the center.
Economical perhaps, but this is the sort of stupid ass shit that epitomizes how fucked the growth based economy is in this climate changed era. Developer's think a few years down the road, but have no economic incentive to build it as a cradle-to-cradle build rather than a cradle-to-grave build.
Build the same damn curtain wall floor plans in a dozen cities, so they all look ugly and don't improve the quality of life, because it's cheap, makes short term money for people who already have more then they can spend, and leave it to the kids to deal with everything in the future... Grrrr {rant off}
Sorry, bitter old fart chiming in.
No, you're alright, I think you're entirely justified to rant about that. We continue being a very short sighted species.
That's the story they're selling but I don't think it really holds water. Sure, they'll have to remove the fitout and upgrade the plumbing and that costs money but no more than anyone would expect when building apartments. Some office buildings won't be suitable for residential use due to their shape and they obviously won't be converted but most are suitable and they'll be fine.
The business lobby pointing at the ones which are unsuitable and saying "but this whole thing is going to be impossible!" looks disingenuous to me. There are plenty of good options and there's no reason to expect they won't be converted.
These kinds of topics always get the "if it doesn't work for every single use case, it's useless".
This is a case by case kind of thing, each building should be examined and choose the appropriate new use for it.
Right, like masks don't stop all germs 100% of the time, ergo masks don't do anything.
They will turn into new jack city
Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!
Corporations: get your booty back into the office so it’s not empty
Also corporations: we’ve laid off your team in favor of AI, it was a tough but necessary choice due to costs
The empty office building: ???
I mean to be fair even though corporations fucking suck. Most commercial leases are typically longer than what you would do for residential. So it can range from 3-10 ish years(3-5 seems to be a common number). There is always the option to exit them early but there are typically pretty costly negatives to doing that.
I think the guy who bought it is in for life though :-)
I guess my company has been lucky so far. Our management team saw the chance to save money by reducing how many buildings we need and they rolled that money into hiring more remote workers.
It's funny / sad how much good / bad management can affect a company. Anyone with half a brain can see the benefit of remote work. You just need to figure out how to keep your workers accountable in different ways now that you can't stand behind their chairs and look over their shoulders.
The smart companies are saving money and getting better workers. The rest can all go fuck themselves.
Come on you rich idiots, convert those offices into something useful and they'll be valuable again.
Like housing. So people can afford places to live again!
But that would bring down the value of all the residential property these same people own.
Converting offices to residential is expensive and can take longer than just building new residential. I'm not against converting offices to a better use, I saw an article yesterday about turning offices into vertical gardens for example, but office to housing isn't a financially viable option, especially if you're trying to make affordable housing.
That would require effort and work. People this rich don't do that. They may lift a finger to ring a bell to have a prole come and take instructions on how to deal with the situation.
They themselves have money to count and caviar to eat out of their mistresses anus.
Don't expect the rich idiots to spend a dime doing that.
You know what they're likely to do, tho? Convince the govt to PAY THEM for some bullshit reason. That's how a portion of them get rich.
And homelessness is on the rise. Whatever should we do?
I know! Ban homeless encampments! Yeah!
Edit: but first let's fire 15% of our workforce and then give ourselves a few million in bonuses.
Okay, but solving problems is only "feasible" or "sustainable" if it keeps lines going up.
I think I'm on the wrong line :/
when my shit gets wiped out its "a market correction". let's see if this is "a market correction" or a "crisis" that requires federal intervention (read: a bunch of your money stolen at gunpoint and given to the people who made bad investments)
It's insane that we as a society are even having the debate between pushing capital investment strategies to adapt and come into the 21st century or dragging globally-distributed workers back to the 20th century just to avoid short-term pain and costs associated with updating outdated laws, tax incentives, and capital business practices.
Boomers. My former boss was like this. Sit in a crowded, loud, hot, glare on every screen office BeCaUse it ProMotEs CollAborAtiOn. Yeah. No one “collaborated.”
When did we sign something that said I’ll work for you but also in some of the worst conditions because well just because.
The problem is that the idea of WFH being more productive is slowly being shown to be false.
It can be a viable business strategy of you design for it, but WFH being the best in all cases has shown itself to be false.
Edit: The working-from-home illusion fades from TheEconomist
That is the source. Feel free to post your own sources.
What you're saying is absolute bullshit. But, even IF it was true, I'd still be for WFH.
Society should make things better for people. Less time spent in cars, more time spent with family is worth the 5% stock dip for the investor class.
The worker has been taking it up the ass since the 60s and getting more and more productive while wages have stagnated.
So yea what you say is nonsense, but even if it was true in the immortal words of Red: I don't give a shit.
It is fine to want to WFH, I get it. It is a great perk for some people.
I'm not saying that WFH is horrible for companies.
I'm just saying that there seems to be productivity reasons why employers want their employees to work in an office.
IMHO it's more of a management issue than productivity. Managers like seeing you work.
The good news is I don’t care if it’s more productive fuck offices :)
And I like that answer because you're being honest. You don't like working in an office, and that is fair.
The productivity metrics at my company were consistently up by around 150% month by month for the entire duration that we were all permanently working from home without the distraction of the office and the time sink of in person meetings where nothing is achieved.
The only reason we were forced back to a hybrid arrangement is that none of the middle managers had any work to do and it became painfully obvious how little they actually contribute. They don't actually generate any value.
Instead of restructuring, and distributing the heinous waste of money that they and our real estate holdings represent they made the decision to limit WFH arrangements to two days per week and our metrics went right back where they were previously.
If you design for work in office, WFH probably isn't going to be more productive and the other way around. A lot of companies made the mistake thinking that WFH is the same as regular office but with everyone being home. This is not the case.
I have experience with company without WFH employees, where any team that wasn't literary all in the same building had some serious communication and cooperation isuues. I have experience with company where there was no office whatsoever, people were across globe and time zones and we managed to cooperate effectively.
I'm not saying that WFH can be always more effective. But in many cases it's just terribly implemented change and companies are just moving back to investing into office space instead of investing into proper WFH culture.
Folks at Zapier wrote an excellent guide if anyone is interested. It's serious effort, sure. People often feel like this is extra work to keep WFH viable, but they tend to forget that keeping the office running is also a serious effort. Many companies probably have office manager, how many of these have some alternative of that for WFH?
I would agree that implementation of WFH could be better. I also appreciate the link you shared. WFH can also be a viable option provided you set up for it.
However, I tend to find that a lot of the people who work best in WFH situations are generally friendly and productive people who will reach out on issues and cultivate relationships.
In contrast, those who seem to advocate the most for WFH online seem to want their direct manager to plug them into a system that will turn them into a cog that doesn't need to be proactive in solving problems. That isn't everyone who wants WFH, but they seem to be a loud minority.
Yeah, you absolutely have to set up for WFH. Which is no different than working from office. We just take that effort for granted.
Another issue is, that lot of the office work cost is not paid by companies. (At least not directly) For example the commute to work can easily be 10% of overall time spent from leaving your house until returning back home from work. But both the commute cost and time spent is paid by employee. So obviously companies are reluctant invest into WFH, because that does generate some expenses.
Please provide sources with who funded the study and we can provide sources that show the opposite!
If you expect results in given time and you're not getting it, you're gonna have talk with employee, WFH or office, doesn't matter.
The "productivity" is an illusion and always has been.
source? even before WFH, even before the internet it's just common sense that if I need something from the Phillippines office or the London office or the California office while I'm in New York it's much more efficient to call them than it is for me to get on a plane and go there.
The working-from-home illusion fades from TheEconomist
The article refers to several peer reviewed studies which you can look up.
Every efficiency study, environmental model, and psychological model disagrees with your sentiments that WFH productivity is less than in office productivity. I am a software engineer, so it might be anecdotal and industry specific, but my experience as well as the studies done by my employer show that they get more out of WFH employees or Hybrid (1-2 days a week in office) than the traditional route. Commutes, in office distractions, etc are massive drains on the employee.
The working-from-home illusion fades from TheEconomist
The studies cited in the article say otherwise. Feel free to show your studies.
That article is pretty trash, a half finished doctoral study from 2020 and it draws some wild conclusions from this authors work who comes to the opposite conclusion than what was provided by the article. You can see more information mathematically here in this paper that seems to suggest that a lot of the WFH productivity might be eaten up by the lack of effective tools at the disposal of the worker provided by the company. You can also find more data driven, finished papers on WFH efficiency here:
This is a chinese study from 2013 for a call center, similar to the unfinished 2020 paper mentioned in the beginning of the terrible Economist Paper. This was done without the current tools and innovation, so I imagine if it were to be run again the numbers would probably be higher: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/working-papers/does-working-home-work-evidence-chinese-experiment
Here is a study on jobs that could be done from home. The above study allows you to see that the environmental impact from having those jobs actually be done from home could be massive. Especially since most of those jobs are located in urban centers and require commuting and/or massive carbon footprints.
This is a small (n = 519) study showing that peoples general mental health and happiness are higher when they are WFH. Also, a study showing that people who are happy are more productive.
The problem with the argument is that it is reductionist, it makes it seem like the ONLY thing that matters is how much more productive it is. It is more productive, and it can have a HUGE benefit to both the mental health of the individuals who are able to WFH as well as the environment.
So, like I said. The large company I work for is 80% WFH, with an optional hybrid approach and spent a bunch of money researching this and are looking to keep it up because their workers are happier, healthier, and more productive... That single economist piece that misrepresents data and uses kind of trash studies isn't really a great one to be leaning on.
Edit: There are absolutely jobs that cannot be done from home, and people who can't handle WFH because of their personality. However, WFH is primarily a good thing. All these hit pieces and garbo articles trying to justify people returning to these monolithic buildings without any value are trash and shouldn't be promoted as information. At their core they're opinion pieces.
Since I've had more time to read your sources.
The first study you cite only discusses the ability to work from home. Nothing in the study talks about productivity. I agree that a lot of jobs can be full remote.
The second study is about employee satisfaction, which I didn't argue as well. The third study may be a thing, but it doesn't outright compare those who work in an office to those who work full remote.
And as I've said earlier, it is fine if you want to make arguments for WFH outside of productivity. However, none of the studies you provided tries to directly measure the two. Thank you for providing some studies, though. You were the only one who tried to argue this via academic studies.
If you want to want to make the argument that productivity isn't the be all end all reason, that is fine. WFH is a great perk and I can see why people like it. I also agree that it can work, but there is a difference between being able to work and being the best option.
But the argument is always that WFH is the best and most productive option where that may not be the case.
Dumb opinion is dumb lol
What would you expect The Economist to say?
Their reporting has a financial bent to it, but they would write an article defending WFH productivity wise if the data was there.
The article also doesn't dismiss WFH either, noting other reasons to keep it.
Can you elaborate on this?
I can't WFH so I haven't really kept up with the trend
Don't listen to the bootlicker below. He's just spreading propaganda for his corporate overlords.
Basically there has been a mantra from people that WFH will always be productive and that, therefore, going into work is a waste. What is being found is that there seems to be a minor productivity hit, but it isn't the end of the world and there may be reasons to allow WFH even if workers are less productive.
Saying that WFH isn't anything but good gets a lot of people pissed off.
Source?
Anecdotally, I can't get shit done in the office. I like to talk to people, people interrupt me with questions, and towards the end of the day I'm watching the clock and dreading traffic.
When I need to get something done I work from home. My coworkers are the same way.
I took a remote job for 18 months before leaving and getting a new job back in an office. For me personally, I found it great for the first 12 months, however over time it became obvious that the company wasn't structured well for remote work and I couldn't get anything meaningful done. I loved all the extra time working from home gave me, but I finished every day feeling like I was wasting my life in a room at home and not achieving anything. This was largely due to the organisation itself, but I also found that working remote created an extra barrier to trying to fix that company's culture. So I quit and went back to working face to face with people. Since then I've found it easier to push for changes and influence people, process etc now that I'm back working face to face. I do miss the WFH lifestyle though and think I'd be happiest in a hybrid model.
Finally something my generation can contribute to
Oh no! Anyway...
Not enough!
Those poor commercial real estate investors
How do you have RDM flare?
Oh wait portrait lol
Hence why "they" are against wfh
All the companies Mckenzie consults with are mysteriously reversing wfh decisions
Awesome, some of my favourite clubs were sold off to be used as offices. Can we turn them back into clubs now?
I know you mean like drinking and dancing, but in my head I'm like "yeah my chess club DESERVES a nice building"
Well after I wrote it I thought, dancing-and-intoxicants clubs are meaningful to me and my friends, but I bet there's all sorts of other clubs that would benefit from a dedicated, affordable space to flourish. Your chess club DOES deserve a nice building.
YOU get a building! And YOU get a building... and YOU get a building!
You can call it The Queenside Castle.
For real, use all that land for something actually good for communities and cities say... affordable spaces for small businesses?
Small businesses on lower floors, apartments up top, I fail to see a problem.
I love when cities have the small business + apartment layout.
Especially when the ground level has something useful like a bodega, so people can just go downstairs for food and necessities instead of driving somewhere.
A lot of city centers in Europe are like that but there's definitely been an effect of suburbanization due to prices rising in the centers.
While completely different, the best place I know for what you describe is Hong Kong, you can go down to grab a bite within 50m, pretty much 24/7.
There are so many amazing things those buildings can be, instead of soulsucking pointless offices!
Let it burn!
Oh no!!!
Anyway.
Sounds more like an overvalued market that’s being corrected.
Maybe we could get them converted to residential units to get cheaper housing.
Only some office buildings can be converted into reasonably shaped apartments, particularly those built before WW2, when architects wanted more natural light. After WW2, office buildings became a lot deeper because of expanded use of electric lights.
But there are ways to make more useful shapes out of those open floor plans.
Free NYT article link
Make apartments on the sides and use the middle for cool stuff like cinema rooms and ball pits.
Per the article, it seems that the main barrier here is that it is currently not economically worthwhile to convert these buildings, as the conversions require massive changes to the buildings themselves. If the value of these properties fall enough, however, it could easily become an attractive proposition for these buildings. A continued push for work from home can hopefully damage these property values enough to make it feasible.
It’s really expensive to do it safely and really dangerous to do it cheaply. Avoid commercial to residential conversions.
Why? I don't know why to avoid it
Because you don’t want to die in a collapse.
The loads you’re designing for in a building intended for commercial use are lower and more uniform than the loads you’re looking at when you wanna slap together something for industrial or residential use.
Office and retail spaces are not designed to bear the heaver load of residential use or the combination of weird flexing, torsion and heavier loads involved in industrial applications.
Those warehouse spaces can be safely converted to lofts by just framing them in. Office buildings need structural changes to become safe living space in addition to all the utility stuff.
That totally makes sense, And that is horrifying
Isn't it really expensive converting officespace to residential though? Given the layout of plumbing, elevators etc. Would assume that alot of the time it would just be cheaper to tear it down ☹️
It's just like converting anything else into a multifamily building.
Where I live many offices have already been converted to apartments.
The plural of anecdote isn't data.
If it was, we'd not have smoke detectors. After all, most people have gone through 12,000 days without a house fire, so there's no value.
We have all the old factories converted into apartments around here. It's pretty cool. Even old churches have been turned into apartment buildings.
Its what AB 1532 is trying to achieve in California. Given that the building is already there, there will be less vectors for nimbys to prevent the construction of said building (as its already up and approved)
Sounds like a bunch of Herman Miller chairs are gonna be available for cheap
Like a bird migration, the chairs will migrate from commercial offices to home offices.
Good
Yet they still want us in the office...
I work remote twice a week, which is nice, but I seriously wonder why I even have to go to the office the other three days.
Most of who I communicate with to do my job is not even in my location, so I'm regularly using Microsoft teams and WebEx. Also all the programs are accessible on my work laptop from home.
They are starting the force people back to work at my company. Apparently a location had a fight break out and police called because of an argument over a spot. There isn't enough room at these places so they were trying to make people go to an office an hour away instead.
If I were to go into the office I wouldn't have anyone else on my team with me. And if someone were to ask me to do work, I could have easily done it if they sent a message instead of walking by. I also don't eat lunch, so I would just work with headphones in. So I wouldn't contribute to the collaboration that is claimed to take place.
The only reason they want people back in the office is for that control. They don't want people having a good work/life balance. They want you to waste money on gas, time away from your family, and to eat out more often. It would be great if some states would prevent companies from forcing back to office.
I quit a job that was trying to force RTO to a new office that was half an hour away from the old one, had paid parking instead of free and then only had enough office space to house 2/3 of employees at any given moment. They literally told us that for all-hands meetings people were expected to come in and sit on the floor. Then I quit a different job that was trying to force RTO when they owned the nearest parking garage to the office. You might think "Well at least you won't have to pay to park" but nope, they expected to juice every employee for $12-$18/day in parking.
This right here! My commute is rather long. I spend about 2 hrs total of my day commuting to and from work. I could save so much time and money on gas if I was full time remote.
In the new cramped environment with low visual privacy and especially no audio privacy, we all just end up with earpods in. We need the noise isolation to f'n THINK!
So the boss oozes his way over and 'hums' and 'haws' trying to get our attention before waving and doing that "hey pull out your earbuds so I can talk" gesture that resembles yokels trying to pick up someone in an elevator or on the bus and not.getting.it .
Because he doesn't.
So that is the life of people I left at the old job, and it's repeated a thousand times over.
Learn to also say on the phone "this environment has no audio privacy. Can you book meeting and a conference room? Thanks", if you get too many desk calls.
Their wanting you in the office is about control - it's nothing to do with productivity or any of the other excuses.
A lot of the investments by big companies were made in 2018-2019 with low near 0% interest. now a lot of those loans are coming due which will impact their total assets. they want workers in the office to keep Corp real estate in demand so their investments don't tank. most likely will result in massive layoffs or bail outs as they will try to protect the shareholders for eternal growth.
You don't; and you know this already.
I quit my union job when the new hotshot manager started mandating RTO into a newly compressed, hot, bright, loud environment; being able to actually see asses in chairs was his jam, despite the work impact. What a tool.
Found a job with another unionized IT shop, paid for it with a 3% pay cut but got an extra week of vacation (net loss: 3 days pay/yr) and a really great crew and 100% remote written into the contract. Thanks, ya tool.
Wonderful
That's all? Let's pump those numbers up...
The thing I don't like is that so much of the cost cutting goes to companies. It's not just the office space, it's also furniture, electricity, water and so on.
While the worker save time and costs for transportation they usually don't get any compensation for the wear and tear of their furniture or the need for extra space for work area.
The wear and tear on my furniture is negligible compared to car/bicycle maintenance and public transport costs.
Sure, but a good desk or chair can be quite expensive to buy. Sitting badly can really mess you up.
But the transportation of the employee isn't a problem that an employer care about usually. The costs for office space on the other hand is just a saving that companies pocket and pass over to the employers. That's why I feel that companies should give a stipend for the office space needed by the employee, including computers and screens of course.
My work gives me a $100 monthly stipend to cover internet and incidental costs for my home office. It's not a whole lot but it's a nice touch on top of my salary + cost savings of working from home.
The fuck? My work yelled at me when I went to the bathroom during WFH. You're over here getting stipends and shit.
Good for you man, that's awesome
I had a job that confronted me about why I went yellow (idle) mid-day as I was expected to be online and active during core hours.
I had gone downstairs to make some lunch.
I quit that job.
Yeah I hated WFH. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the thin client I have. It's gotta be useful for something right?
https://lemmy.world/c/selfhosted
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !selfhosted@lemmy.world
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That's great, that's how it should be done.
Finally some good news!
Aiming for a trillion.
Where I live many offices have already been converted to apartments.
Thats great but I don’t think my office building could ever be converted. It has a central core and 3 wings (shape like mercedes symbol) but most of the plumbing is either in the middle or at the end of each wing.
What I'm hearing is "off-campus college dorm with communal bathrooms".
Maybe, but the nearest college is on the other side of the city.
That would work great for some of these empty offices in downtown Denver... a couple schools are an easy bus ride away from downtown, and LoDo would be a pretty good college neighborhood (other than all the people on fentanyl etc). The only problem is I don't think they really need more college housing.
That's the problem with office highrises, too - it would take a huge amount of work to install the plumbing necessary for them to become housing.
... and HVAC and power with the internal wall change and sound-insulation.
This simply means it's a question of how far do the values of these buildings need to fall before it is economically viable to perform these massive conversions. Government could certainly incentivize these conversions. Too bad it seems most governments don't care about alleviating the various housing crises.
Good.
Aww. So sad /s
Good
Thoughts and prayers for the landlords.
Good?
If only Amazon wasn’t forcing me to go back into the office soon…
Even my manager hates the idea. Out team is split on different coasts, so we’re gonna have to be in class anyway, so why am I forced to go into the office? I went in before I was going to be forced because it was fun, but now I’m staying out until I’m forced. It’s bullshit.
Amazon and Bezos himself has pretty close ties to Wall Street. You being herded in is the returned backscratch for very favourable stock market "accidents" that led Amazon to an insane valuation and competitors on the short side of the investments.
Oh, no…
Anyway..
We need more housing not places to work. Sounds legit to me.
Yeah but a business park or industrial estate is no place you want to live, so it's not like thoss offices can be converted.
Turn them into vertical farms if its apparently too hard to turn them into housing ;p
I don't think we're in need of more food though. In developed countries, so much of it is just plain thrown out because it doesn't get eaten.
Yeah but it would add localised - and extremely high efficiency in terms of water, yield, etc. - food supply that's more resilient to climate shifts, needs no pesticodes, etc., and for those of us on islands like the UK where we import lots of food it would be good.
Might also help those countries we import from build up more food supply resiliency because thry have more excess. Or massively reduce land use for food ^.^. And a lot of the places food gets imported from or otherwise farmed are also at large risk for climate change, so perhaps using vertical farms or other climate controlled farming techniques would be a good idea for them too nya
Furthermore it makes the supply chain more auditable, so you can reduce the reliance on questionably or very unethically sourced stuff. A controlled environment might also allow for even more automation.
I'm a pretty big fan of vertical farming for lots of reasons though to the point of writing an article on it, so I'm a little biased ;p. The main obstacles are land/building price and energy (and also some techniques for growing staples, though I think that is not a fundamemtal limitation, and I think the other two are solvable)
Edit: also I think it's desirable to return agricultural land to less managed environments like forests. Moving more human infrastructure into cities would enable more of this sort of "rewilding" (though I think that's a bit of a misnomer as environments everywhere have all been fundamentally altered by people, and a lot of people's idea of "nature" is the very sanitised version that avoids the constant slaughter and death, like cityparks and stuff which are actually very human managed - good for mental health, but not really ""nature"" in the same way)
They can be converted, and lots of cities are in the process.
They can be, but do you want them to be. Most are not in convenient places.
They absolutely can. If Canadian cities can do it with less people and money then certainly some of these massive multi-billion dollar real estate companies can do it too.
Cities, you just said keyword there cities, you can do it in cities because people want to live in cities. They don't want to live on the outskirts. Most of these offices are not in the city centre because the city centre is a really expensive place to have an office, only massive corporations are based there.
The vast majority of office space is in low rent districts on the periphery of cities. Because no one lives there there's no shops, no leisure centres, no schools, no parks or other green spaces. You can't just convert every building into a housing unit without considering the surrounding environment.
It would be infinitely cheaper to just build homes where you actually want them, than to try and convert a building that was never designed for the task.
I know it's not trendy or hip or exciting to say that, but when you look at the economics it just doesn't make sense outside of some very limited circumstances.
Ou no...anyway
I saw a puff piece about a billionaire banker complaining that remote work wasn't working to defend his decision to force people back into the office. Lying piece of shit was probably seeing the value of his portfolio dropping
While working from home...
Oh no , anyway
Ok maybe but mckinsey is full of shit 99% of the time
That's awesome.
COVIDs silver lining.
Ehhh I think everything bad about Covid is permanent and any silver lining is being wiped out gradually …It’s just more bad on top of bad. They’ll make up that profit in some sinister way …
times are changing, so should work. its 2023 not 1993, WFH for the folks that do mostly desk job stuff should be encouraged An enviromentalist/urbanist is all for this because less cars on the road means less pollution, less accidents and most of all, less stress of HAVING to drive outside of getting groceries and such. the only disadvantage of WFH is simply the lack of unity in the populace, mostly due to how suburban developments keep us all shut off from one another, but thats another 50 gallon drum of worms in of itself.
There is a real chance of:
That's only like a 2.5% drop. I think McKinsey is soft-pedaling those numbers a bit.
Good
Our interdependence as workers could redistribute capital, if we speak in unison with our wallets. It could be possible with the equipment you're holding in your hand. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Given what the French government got for their money's worth in counselling from McKinsey, I'd take what they say with a pinch of salt.
Boo hoo
Well, as usual, fuck McKinsey and the broken people moving through its turnstiles each day.
You love to see it.
it does create value in other places though.
I've always found doom and gloom reports like this amusing for this very reason. Yes the traditional approaches and value generating strategies may go away, but smart businesses and individuals will have brand new opportunities to fill the gap and innovate. It's only those who reduse to or are not capable of adapting that stand to gain from the status quo.
{crying-top-hats-iasip.gif}
Good, when it can be done from home, there’s no reason to be in office
I like what this McKinsey guy is sayin.
Good.
Keep it up everyone!
Which is perfectly fine
Oh noooooo
sickos_yes.jpg
🤷♂️
Yeah and Iron made Bronze workers redundant.
I think it’s important to note here that it’s not necessarily great for everyone if the companies everybody works for lose a bunch of money. Companies will try as hard as possible not to realize that loss, and after that happens, lots of office buildings aren’t really built in a way where they can be converted to do anything useful, so they’re just gonna sit there. Normal people are probably going to end up paying for this - personnel are some of the easiest things to let go of for a balance sheet.
Here's the sneaky part: A company that isn't utterly brain dead can save money with WFH. My startup doesn't even have an office to go into, we're all WFH. Know what we're not spending money on? A commercial lease. There's opportunity here for companies to go and save a grip of cash by going WFH and either relocating to a smaller campus or dropping it altogether. In this situation, the only party who loses is the asset holder, and I have no problems with that. You win some, you lose some, that's the free market.
that’s the thing - who’s gonna buy a big campus in this market… kinda reminds me of homberguy/aquaman meme
They could just rent it out. Or convert it and sell. But nooo that's too much hassle
to who? this video has a pretty good explanation of why so many buildings can’t be converted or just won’t make sense to convert. https://youtu.be/imyPVFFACTk
That's a very interesting video. But I still have to ask WHY is it ok for an office to lack the lighting and escape routes when the same is not ok for residential areas (which was the main reason given)? It makes no sense to me. Water and sewage poses no problem because large office buildings have to account for mutiple toilets on each floor. Electricity is also a non issue (I'd argue electricity usage would vastly decrease when coverted). That just leaves shared air circulation and conditioning which also shouldn't be an issue since it would just be maintained through the landlord (and could even be cheaper for the individual since they don't have to pay for their own systems but just a flat fee on the rent).
I honestly don’t know, but I probably wouldn’t want to live in an place with no access to the outside at all, not even a window.
With rent prices in this kind of fantasy land in bigger metroploes like San Fran or NYC , I'd doubt you'd find tenants. Maybe in rural laboratories it might be an issue but not the cities. That's just my thoughts. Might be wrong.