this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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Work Reform

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[–] [email protected] 184 points 1 year ago (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

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...

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

but the simple fact of the matter is that most office-based employers don’t own any commercial real estate

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

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."

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Your coworker is why "code red" was invented.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

What a bootlicking little bitch your coworker is.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why can't they be? I know management that's part of a trade Union.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I believe any position that can hire and/or especially fire employees is barred from union participation.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (7 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"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

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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).

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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'.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Excellent point, yes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

CEOs simply prefer working in an office with all their underlings around.

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.

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[–] [email protected] 89 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

I've had very good luck in the last few years of intentionally sandbagging my work output to make sure I don't get additional work hucked on me if I can avoid it. I still have decent output based on feedback from my peers and management, but I know for a fact that I'm only working like half as hard as I could at work.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If they don't pay you as much as they could you shouldn't work as hard as you could.

Also, if I worked as hard as I could every day I'll probably burn out pretty quickly.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah, obviously can't go 100% every day without burning out, but if 75% is the ideal sustainable rate, most of us should work at 50% if management won't reward us appropriately.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

I think we as workers lack imagination through negotiation.

It would be interesting to experiment. Next time unions discuss raises they should suggest ex. instead of a 5% raise, a 5% reduction in working hours for the same pay which is the same outcome productivity wise.

It would be very interesting to examine the initial reactions to the suggestion.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

any productivity gains benefit the business not the employee.

Yes, and that's a problem in the US. Other countries are much better about it, and we need to change to catch up to best practices for worker's rights!

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Liberals allergic to marxist terminology.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

I always thought our plutocrat elite were a higher order of bourgeoisie. Like bourbourbourbourgeosie. Super boogie bourgeosie.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Having effectively unlimited resources and the unbreakable power and control over the rest of us that comes with it sounds pretty elite to me.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (8 children)

The terminology still engrandises them instead of shaming them as the greedy pr*cks they are.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Yes, and yes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

They do think of themselves this way though. It's fact that many billionaires want to buy an island to make genetically "superior" children at. Even Jeffrey Epstein wanted to.

What's hilarious is the idea that somehow their genes are superior to everyone else's:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/business/jeffrey-epstein-eugenics.html

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think it's a combination of both.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I do see a lot of articles targeted at ceo's on LinkedIn by real estate/office. So there is definitely a degree to it.

Micromanagement is also a factor here however a company can also install monitoring software on your laptop by company policy like mine did.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They can't do that without unions allowing it in France, and unions are not ready to allow it yet. Articles are good evidences though for loans.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah France did great there, saldy no such luck in the UK and low union membership in tech

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They probably have some tax breaks specifically around buildings and people in them

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I didn't think about the "ambassador" angle. It probably is harder to get employees to drink the company koolaid when they're not physically in the office.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

cruelty and domination.. it really is fascism..

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

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

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