this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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I agree with the article that real estate is at the core of the issue. Always follow the money.
However, I also think some mid-level supervisor types get off on the power trip of making subordinates do things they don't want to do, such as wasting several hours a week commuting and polluting between home and office.
And of course you'll always have the suckups who want to score points by acting so eager to show up in person. They are the reason it's so hard to unify and fight these measures in many shops.
I'm not talking about people who have a genuine preference for working in the office. There are many legitimate reasons to have such a preference. I'm talking about psychos who want to force everyone to do it when it's not necessary, and don't support telecommuting as a legitimate way to work.
From what I've seen, every push to have everyone return to the office has either been that they just want control over employees or they want butts in seats because the seats aren't free. It's never been about productivity as folks that work from home normally are always happy to drive in to the office if they have to. What's the different if they drive in during morning rush hour traffic vs at lunch time when they only have to physically be in the office for a few hours.
I think a large part of the push for return to work is definitely the control of employees when management actively selects for people who are sociopaths.
Yes, exactly.
Everyone keeps pointing to the real estate issue, but the simple fact of the matter is that most office-based employers don't own any commercial real estate. It's a great theory as to why the media has been promoting back-to-office stories, but it doesn't explain why employers are actually doing it.
Raw, unmitigated distrust of and disrespect for employees, though...
That's not a fact. The reality is that all these rich assholes are friends with each other. The owner of the business is friends with the owner of the building and friends with the owner of the vendors and friends with the owner of the retailers. They all go on camping trips and to each other's kids weddings.
The owner of the business renting the office space might not literally own the building, but they're all friends.
Most of them are not. The reality is, workers in the US are more or less equally split between big businesses and small-to-medium businesses, and outside of the States it skews much more toward small-to-medium. These are companies that often have less than amicable relationships with their landlords, because landlords have this nasty tendency of acting like landlords.
On top of that, much commercial real estate is owned by REITs, which are managed from the biggest cities, and aren't really entities small and medium businesses get to have real relationships with, any more than an apartment renter gets to have a relationship with their residential REIT.
They're not buddies. They don't even have a direct line of contact.
I guess I believe you that it's like that in much of the world, but in the US small to medium businesses are very "family oriented." The richest people in a small city/area are very interconnected with personal relationships.
Also it looks good for client-facing businesses. Clients like it better when they can see the peons that will be working for them - a lot of them don't like to accept "well our employees have lives and it's better and easier for us to simply have them WFH rather than maintaining a huge office space for the sole reason of having an office."
Exactly.
We had a slow day at work we knew was going to be slow. I wfh most mornings and then commute in. Decided to just take my time got to the office an hour later than usual. My goddman coworker called our supervisor and let him know I wasn't in. For what? There was nothing for me to do all day, except a half hour of work later in thr afternoon I easily could have done at home.
But my coworker didn't like that. So he had to call my boss who was on PTO and let him know. (He left at 2PM because there was nothing to do though.) He's not even my supervisor but he still had to throw his weight around for no reason.
Your coworker is why "code red" was invented.
What a bootlicking little bitch your coworker is.
Don't forget the industrial revolution attitude that you have to watch your employees like hawks so they don't "steal" from the company by slacking off. Even if they have to schedule constant pointless meetings that accomplish zero work while looking like work, just so they can keep an eye on their wage-slaves while making themselves appear productive. Control freaks, social bums, ladder climbers, and tin pot tyrants aren't the only middle manager subspecies.
So I'm gonna add something here... It annoys me that managers can't form or be part of a union. Far too often low and mid level managers and supervisors get shit on just as much and have to parrot the company line coming from the higher ups that are trying to push it. I wish they could be better empowered too.
Why can't they be? I know management that's part of a trade Union.
I believe any position that can hire and/or especially fire employees is barred from union participation.
I disagree. It has nothing to do with real estate. CEOs simply prefer working in an office with all their underlings around.
It's cheaper to run a company if you need less office space. Even if you already have a ton of office space and it's going unused, it's cheaper to have an empty office than a full one.
Following the money leads to embracing a WFH-first mentality. So if it was just money, then these companies wouldn't be forcing people back.
But besides money, people also enjoy power and they feel more powerful in a full office than working from home. So that's what they pursue even if it costs more.
Just like how rich people will spend money on big houses and nice cars, not everything they do is to save more. They send money on things they like.
"It's cheaper to run a company if you need less office space" unless you are the company that rents out office space. That is who is creating all this anti-WFH propaganda, people with property real estate investments. Business offices are wildly valuable assets and WFH becoming the default operations method for most businesses would see the value of those assets depreciate
They have no power to make companies tell their employees to go back to the office though.
That's true for small to medium-sized companies. For large and very large companies, you should consider than many OWN A LOT OF THEIR OFFICE REAL ESTATE, internationally, often in the billions of dollars worth. A large chunk of their assets are in the office buildings they own, and if they become worthless the company stands to lose a lot. Not to mention that they will often borrow against the value of the buildings, and as a collateral if the value drops significantly the banks might decide that they have to pay back the excess portion of their loan immediately or put up more collateral (margin call).
I still think WFH is more profitable in that sense. You could try to lease out the space, for example. Or just sit on the space while it's empty. Less electricity, water, coffee, toilet paper, etc etc.
Forcing your employees back to an office doesn't get you any more money unless it's some very strange situation.
I think it's a tragedy of the commons type scenario. If they all act together and force everyone back to the office, then the real estate will be used and have value. If they all don't then all the real estate becomes worthless.
You're right though, each of them individually could sell the property, or lease it and come out ahead. As soon as that starts though, it becomes a game of hot potato, who holds the buildings when they lose their value?
Very true. I also believe though that CEOs essentially never do anything for the common good of other companies or even the entire planet. If they can earn 0.00001% more revenue by firing a bunch of people, or polluting, they won't think twice about it.
So if they could earn more by leasing their office space to another company, they would do the same thing (if they were acting equally logically/pragmatically) but I believe it's different in this case because of my personal opinion that it's simply the preference of the upper management types for various reasons.
But not every CEO has forced people back. Many have embraced how it's the future of office work.
Yeh the real estate argument only accounts for part of the issue I think. The majority is, as you say, the psychological gratification of management and executives. They feel more power when they can see their 'kingdom'.
Agree, minor upper position tend to feel like "commanding" their below with a reason 'they have position on that' when working on office. WFH is the best alternative here for 'many' people to enjoy life and work with their own pace in peace without dictated by emotional impact from upper position that they will carry it wherever they are in certain circumstances and times, why we need to argue about this again? Covid time already proof this argument that productivitive has increased as people work in WFH environment. But this is just my opinion, of course everybody has their own view related this issue.
There's also a non zero amount of people that don't like being home. Whether it's the spouse or the kids they're avoiding, WFH makes it harder to avoid whatever is going on at home.
Just my gut feeling, but I'm gonna guess lots of c suite rich dudes would rather have a reason to be away from their wives and kids than being at home working. And there's no cute coworkers to creep on either if everyone is home!
I've had regular co-workers not leave the office early when everyone else was because they didn't want to "have to watch the kid(s) alone".
Excellent point, yes.
If CEOs want people to work at the office, they'd be working at the office. Articles trying to polarize people by categorizing us into "elites want x, everyone else wants y" just make people angry for no reason.
Lots and lots of CEOs are really happy to have people working from home. That's why working from home is still a popular thing. There are also CEOs who think working from home hurts productivity or culture. They can order everyone back to the office whenever they want and short of wide-scale quitting, which rarely happens, they'll get what they want.
Sure. I should've added that nuance to my argument that it only applies to the companies that are forcing people back.
Many CEOs out there have embraced WFH regardless of their personal preference.
I disagree in parts. Yes, I agree this "back to office" movement has something to do with CEOs power rush, but what about the investors? They don't care about power hierarchies, only about profits and dividends. If they have enough shares and decide to make people work from home, company's costs with office rent could be turned into investments (like better equipment or help develop new products), or turned into dividends to the investors (more likely IMO). Either way, the investors will make more money from it.
Honestly, I think office renting is a real problem, and could get catastrophic if not handled appropriately. This massive propaganda we see about "get back to office" is more likely to be a landlord's move than anything else IMO, and CEOs decisions are just "aftershocks"
Investors don't care one way or the other about where employees work and I imagine most are content to leave that as a decision made by the CEO.