Work Reform

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.

One thing about productivity- businesses will do things for productivity’s sake- but not to shorten working hours, rather to eliminate staff or have existing staff do more work. I probably do the work of 10 people 30 years ago- more is expected of people because tools let you do more.

This isnt a pro work speech- im just saying that any productivity gains benefit the business not the employee.

Who call them elites ?

I wish people would stop calling them elite. WTF are they so elite at? Born into a corporate family? Being a psychopath?

I don't buy this narrative. While it may very well be true that real estate is going down and ruining some companies and people, which makes me very happy, I doubt this is the reason why companies are pushing people to office.

IMO they're simply dumb controle freaks. When people are at the office, they can push their propaganda of corporate culture in the hope that some workers will buy it a become some kind of ambassador for their twisted model.

There probably is also the same stupid generalisation that made open space a generality: some idiot with way too much power prefered to work this way, and thus he assumed everyone would. It was turned into company policy, and because this company earned some money this year it turned into a fashion for all companies.

The cruelty is the point

The real estate thing is definitely one of the major reasons. But there's more to it than that. Managers become managers because they're good at power games, not because they're competent. Those games become much harder or even impossible when people aren't physically present. Many of them also enjoy bullying people. That's also harder to do on a video call.

As others in the thread are pointing out; follow the money — that’s always a good starting point.

So yes real estate

Also the old management ideas of if I can’t see you I can’t track what you are doing… I know how damn lucky I am that my boss mostly trusts that those 40 emails are indicating that stuff is happening even if he can’t see me

And just as importantly the stock price. If employee pay rose to match productivity we’d be golden. Alas your pay doesn’t, most likely, as so company’s profits rise making the stock market happy. Boosting the stock prices

The remote working issue isn’t one thing alone, but yes real estate is a good starting point

The elite are trying to whip everyone back to the office to avoid a commercial real estate crash.

Yes, but I'm surprised the author doesn't even mention CMBSs.

There are bored with profit. Now it is about abusing people to prove they have power

Companies that embrace remote working will thrive in the next decade by taking all the talent.