5 ms·

I don't think this will happen. People are affected by Corona, yes, but that is because corona is a thing today. Once corona goes away, only the paranoid will

I don't think this will happen. People are affected by Corona, yes, but that is because corona is a thing today. Once corona goes away, only the paranoid will follow these guidelines. Pretty much majority of the population will go back to normal way of life unaffected. Climate crisis is irreversible and nobody gives a shit about it. How can we think that corona will change everything? That being said, if it does change people then it os a very good thing

downandout 6y ago
Climate is seen by most people as something that might kill future generations hundreds of years from now. Carona is seen as something that can kill us today. So there is a big difference in perceived urgency between the two. I think it would be naive to think that there won’t be some permanent changes to society as a result of this virus, the explosive rise in remote work being the biggest one. Companies have been forced into it, and now realize that it works very well and saves them a fortune. We will see far more remote-only teams, etc. We may also see a large reduction in live events going forward, or at least significant changes to them, which makes me sad. However, I believe you are correct that many of the precautions taken in this article will not stand the test of time and would be viewed as paranoid. I don’t think thermal cameras and masks will be a thing forever, and I doubt voice-activated elevators are going to be in widespread use anytime soon.
tempsolution 6y ago
> Once corona goes away, only the paranoid will follow these guidelines. The social distancing guidelines? Sure. A lot of people don't give a fuck already, if it wasn't for appearances. Working from home, skipping the 1-2 hour commute, sitting in a depressing office all day? Oh you bet you can kiss that one goodbye. I for one, will not return to the office and my employer (a large software company) seems to expect that as well. The day of people going to do office will be numbered. There still are reasons to go, socialize with your peers, etc. but that's pretty much it. And we have excellent offices and I had literally zero commute time before I moved one hour out of town in wise foresight of corona impacts. I never felt as good as living in the nature, working from home, getting away from it all. Now I hate cities (completely unimaginable before, I was always a city person, or so I thought. Corona changed that completely, and I bet I am not alone)
flexie 6y ago
I don't think fear of diseases will drive it. I will be driven by profits. Companies have realized that you can have 1,000 people in what used to be a 200 person office by having them work from home most days. The savings are substantial. Employees too will save. You can easily live 50-100 km away in a suburb if you only need to commute to work once a week or maybe less. Of course, when employees don't have to pay dearly to live downtown NYC or centrally in London, companies will soon realize that they can pay them less as well. You could argue that this could have happened without corona, but culture is hard to change. What many companies have seen now, is that virtually entire offices can work remotely, and that even sales people and mid level managers can do their jobs remotely. Also, technology has improved. Bandwidth is far better today than 10 years ago. Companies use cloud solutions to a larger extent where before employees were hooked up to a local server room. The work station is now a laptop connecting via WiFi. 10 years ago, most used desktops with cat cables. It has already started by companies continuing the lock-down by offering limitless or plentiful work from home days for employees. Then, they will fund proper chairs and desks at home, maybe part of the electricity bill. It's far cheaper than having to pay for your cubicle in NYC. Growing companies will delay the plans of leasing more office space. They will introduce work-from-home policies in stead. Companies in financial trouble will get rid of the office more quickly than otherwise. I thought that at least employees in their 20's would want to work in an office. After all, office life is a large part of your social life when you are a young professional. But in the companies I know of that did surveys in the last weeks of the lock-down on who wanted to return to the office first, even the young employees chose to continue to work from home. These were surveys involving hundreds or thousands of employees and more than 60 percent of the young employees wanted to work from home although the offices were in new class A buildings. Yes, you will miss out of the part of your social life that offices did provide. But that will free up time for social life elsewhere. On your own terms. Yes, there are certainly things that are more efficient face-to-face. But how many hours did employees waste commuting to the office, talking to colleagues at the water cooler, attending meetings, going for lunch breaks etc.? Office life was never super efficient either.
- thewhitetulip 6y ago
  Yes there are pros and cons for sure. It eventually depends on people I live 1hr away from office but I either read books or watch TV shows. 1yr ago i had red 54 books in one year Also in office i walk at least 5km inside office, going up & down 6 floors of stairs + tea break and what not At home, I'm sitting in front of PC too depressed to step out
pkphilip 6y ago
This is already happening. Commercial real estate is rapidly losing value in many countries around the world. Nearly half the retail rents were left unpaid in certain parts due to the Corona crisis: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/coronavirus-possible-permanent-effect-on-retail-real-estate.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/coronavirus-possible... Commercial real estate has to make big changes to accommodate the social distancing norms - including removing seats in cinemas, broadening corridors etc. https://www.livemint.com/news/india/opinion-commercial-real-estate-industry-post-corona-a-kind-of-vaccine-11587970371609.html https://www.livemint.com/news/india/opinion-commercial-real-... There are many indications that commercial real estate is heading towards a huge drop in value: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2020-06-20/coronavirus-fallout-is-commercial-real-estate-headed-for-a-crash https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2020-06-... Commercial real estate is getting emptied out: https://www.fastcompany.com/90528263/coronavirus-has-emptied-out-office-buildings-could-they-help-solve-americas-housing-crisis https://www.fastcompany.com/90528263/coronavirus-has-emptied... This crisis is worldwide - including in places like India: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/news/as-virus-threatens-to-empty-swanky-offices-indian-builders-take-a-knock/articleshow/75596696.cms?from=mdr https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/news/as-... And people are moving to the suburbs to escape the high rent in the cities. People leaving the Bay Area because they can and still keep their jobs: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/making-it-in-the-bay/new-study-shows-more-workers-considering-leaving-bay-area/2327506/ https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/making-it-in-the-bay/n...
- yen223 6y ago
  Our office closed in March, when the virus first hit Australia, and people went into full WFH for a couple of months. The office reopened in July, with people allowed to choose whether or not they wanted to work in the office, or work from home. Most people chose to continue working from home.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    Our whole company was told they could work from home or office as much as they want. Almost everybody was doing 4 days a week in the office, which is pretty much the way it was before. A very small amount have been choosing between 0-3. But I’m expecting most of them will give that up after they realize how much harder it is to got pay rises, promotions or interesting projects to work on when you’re the only one in the team who’s never at the office.
PostPlummer 6y ago
I HOPE this will happen, at least to me in my job. The current WFH has been an eye opener as far as quality of life goes. No more commuting, permanent access to great coffee, a fantastic computer screen, lovely chair and view (I actually see the Alps from my home desk), lunch with the family, get to sleep / do the dishes / walk in between meetings, no more dumb water cooler chat. Same goes for the improvements of my private life: less time spend in bars & restaurants, more cooking and board games, less contact with random people but more quality contact with family and friends. Less public transportation but more cycling, less shopping but more structured buying. The only thing that worries me with this new behaviour is the socialising of my kids (in their early 20's). Like, how do they meet new prospective partners? How will they gather experiences? How will they explore the / their world? But I guess that is a generation thing, my live developed in a different way than my parents', my children's will be theirs.
- thewhitetulip 6y ago
  WFH depends on your work culture If your company culture is like us (Indian) then managers expect you to sit 1hr extra before and after shift for useless KT sessions because "travel time is reduced so do KT" Almost everyone I know is overworked and depressed. There is no work life difference because "you are at home anyways where do you have to go" So meetings are set since morning till 9pm. 12+hrs daily takes a toll. I can't wait to go back to office. At least work time if fixed in office.
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 6y ago
    I'm confused. The entire reason why you are not paid for commute is because it's on your personal time. As such, how can people accept being forced to work the "commute hours", when it was your time in the first place?
    - thewhitetulip 6y ago
      Exactly Their mentality is that "since you are saving commute time why not we schedule 100 calls to utilize that time" Can't wait for office
ajmurmann 6y ago
I very much agree with you. I do think that WFH will remain more common after the current crisis. Most comments here seem to focus entirely on WFH though and ignore everything else in the article like touchless everything, dividers on offices that get deployed during outbreaks, heavily reduced elevator occupancy reductions, more distance even during physical meetings. Maybe anti-viral coating of surfaces will remain common. But I only see the vast majority of things described happen if COVID is here to stay.
- thewhitetulip 6y ago
  WFH might stay in countries except India. Here we have special SEZs and nobody is going to allow employees to work from home because of that.

downandout 6y ago

Climate is seen by most people as something that might kill future generations hundreds of years from now. Carona is seen as something that can kill us today. So there is a big difference in perceived urgency between the two. I think it would be naive to think that there won’t be some permanent changes to society as a result of this virus, the explosive rise in remote work being the biggest one. Companies have been forced into it, and now realize that it works very well and saves them a fortune. We will see far more remote-only teams, etc. We may also see a large reduction in live events going forward, or at least significant changes to them, which makes me sad. However, I believe you are correct that many of the precautions taken in this article will not stand the test of time and would be viewed as paranoid. I don’t think thermal cameras and masks will be a thing forever, and I doubt voice-activated elevators are going to be in widespread use anytime soon.

tempsolution 6y ago

> Once corona goes away, only the paranoid will follow these guidelines. The social distancing guidelines? Sure. A lot of people don't give a fuck already, if it wasn't for appearances. Working from home, skipping the 1-2 hour commute, sitting in a depressing office all day? Oh you bet you can kiss that one goodbye. I for one, will not return to the office and my employer (a large software company) seems to expect that as well. The day of people going to do office will be numbered. There still are reasons to go, socialize with your peers, etc. but that's pretty much it. And we have excellent offices and I had literally zero commute time before I moved one hour out of town in wise foresight of corona impacts. I never felt as good as living in the nature, working from home, getting away from it all. Now I hate cities (completely unimaginable before, I was always a city person, or so I thought. Corona changed that completely, and I bet I am not alone)

flexie 6y ago

I don't think fear of diseases will drive it. I will be driven by profits. Companies have realized that you can have 1,000 people in what used to be a 200 person office by having them work from home most days. The savings are substantial. Employees too will save. You can easily live 50-100 km away in a suburb if you only need to commute to work once a week or maybe less. Of course, when employees don't have to pay dearly to live downtown NYC or centrally in London, companies will soon realize that they can pay them less as well. You could argue that this could have happened without corona, but culture is hard to change. What many companies have seen now, is that virtually entire offices can work remotely, and that even sales people and mid level managers can do their jobs remotely. Also, technology has improved. Bandwidth is far better today than 10 years ago. Companies use cloud solutions to a larger extent where before employees were hooked up to a local server room. The work station is now a laptop connecting via WiFi. 10 years ago, most used desktops with cat cables. It has already started by companies continuing the lock-down by offering limitless or plentiful work from home days for employees. Then, they will fund proper chairs and desks at home, maybe part of the electricity bill. It's far cheaper than having to pay for your cubicle in NYC. Growing companies will delay the plans of leasing more office space. They will introduce work-from-home policies in stead. Companies in financial trouble will get rid of the office more quickly than otherwise. I thought that at least employees in their 20's would want to work in an office. After all, office life is a large part of your social life when you are a young professional. But in the companies I know of that did surveys in the last weeks of the lock-down on who wanted to return to the office first, even the young employees chose to continue to work from home. These were surveys involving hundreds or thousands of employees and more than 60 percent of the young employees wanted to work from home although the offices were in new class A buildings. Yes, you will miss out of the part of your social life that offices did provide. But that will free up time for social life elsewhere. On your own terms. Yes, there are certainly things that are more efficient face-to-face. But how many hours did employees waste commuting to the office, talking to colleagues at the water cooler, attending meetings, going for lunch breaks etc.? Office life was never super efficient either.

thewhitetulip 6y ago
Yes there are pros and cons for sure. It eventually depends on people I live 1hr away from office but I either read books or watch TV shows. 1yr ago i had red 54 books in one year Also in office i walk at least 5km inside office, going up & down 6 floors of stairs + tea break and what not At home, I'm sitting in front of PC too depressed to step out

pkphilip 6y ago

This is already happening. Commercial real estate is rapidly losing value in many countries around the world. Nearly half the retail rents were left unpaid in certain parts due to the Corona crisis: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/coronavirus-possible-permanent-effect-on-retail-real-estate.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/coronavirus-possible... Commercial real estate has to make big changes to accommodate the social distancing norms - including removing seats in cinemas, broadening corridors etc. https://www.livemint.com/news/india/opinion-commercial-real-estate-industry-post-corona-a-kind-of-vaccine-11587970371609.html https://www.livemint.com/news/india/opinion-commercial-real-... There are many indications that commercial real estate is heading towards a huge drop in value: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2020-06-20/coronavirus-fallout-is-commercial-real-estate-headed-for-a-crash https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2020-06-... Commercial real estate is getting emptied out: https://www.fastcompany.com/90528263/coronavirus-has-emptied-out-office-buildings-could-they-help-solve-americas-housing-crisis https://www.fastcompany.com/90528263/coronavirus-has-emptied... This crisis is worldwide - including in places like India: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/news/as-virus-threatens-to-empty-swanky-offices-indian-builders-take-a-knock/articleshow/75596696.cms?from=mdr https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/news/as-... And people are moving to the suburbs to escape the high rent in the cities. People leaving the Bay Area because they can and still keep their jobs: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/making-it-in-the-bay/new-study-shows-more-workers-considering-leaving-bay-area/2327506/ https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/making-it-in-the-bay/n...

yen223 6y ago
Our office closed in March, when the virus first hit Australia, and people went into full WFH for a couple of months. The office reopened in July, with people allowed to choose whether or not they wanted to work in the office, or work from home. Most people chose to continue working from home.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  Our whole company was told they could work from home or office as much as they want. Almost everybody was doing 4 days a week in the office, which is pretty much the way it was before. A very small amount have been choosing between 0-3. But I’m expecting most of them will give that up after they realize how much harder it is to got pay rises, promotions or interesting projects to work on when you’re the only one in the team who’s never at the office.

PostPlummer 6y ago

I HOPE this will happen, at least to me in my job. The current WFH has been an eye opener as far as quality of life goes. No more commuting, permanent access to great coffee, a fantastic computer screen, lovely chair and view (I actually see the Alps from my home desk), lunch with the family, get to sleep / do the dishes / walk in between meetings, no more dumb water cooler chat. Same goes for the improvements of my private life: less time spend in bars & restaurants, more cooking and board games, less contact with random people but more quality contact with family and friends. Less public transportation but more cycling, less shopping but more structured buying. The only thing that worries me with this new behaviour is the socialising of my kids (in their early 20's). Like, how do they meet new prospective partners? How will they gather experiences? How will they explore the / their world? But I guess that is a generation thing, my live developed in a different way than my parents', my children's will be theirs.

thewhitetulip 6y ago
WFH depends on your work culture If your company culture is like us (Indian) then managers expect you to sit 1hr extra before and after shift for useless KT sessions because "travel time is reduced so do KT" Almost everyone I know is overworked and depressed. There is no work life difference because "you are at home anyways where do you have to go" So meetings are set since morning till 9pm. 12+hrs daily takes a toll. I can't wait to go back to office. At least work time if fixed in office.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 6y ago
  I'm confused. The entire reason why you are not paid for commute is because it's on your personal time. As such, how can people accept being forced to work the "commute hours", when it was your time in the first place?
  - thewhitetulip 6y ago
    Exactly Their mentality is that "since you are saving commute time why not we schedule 100 calls to utilize that time" Can't wait for office

ajmurmann 6y ago

I very much agree with you. I do think that WFH will remain more common after the current crisis. Most comments here seem to focus entirely on WFH though and ignore everything else in the article like touchless everything, dividers on offices that get deployed during outbreaks, heavily reduced elevator occupancy reductions, more distance even during physical meetings. Maybe anti-viral coating of surfaces will remain common. But I only see the vast majority of things described happen if COVID is here to stay.

thewhitetulip 6y ago
WFH might stay in countries except India. Here we have special SEZs and nobody is going to allow employees to work from home because of that.