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How many buildings are empty right now? Selling your large corporate building isn't going to go well. Nobody wants it because their workers dont want to be in t

How many buildings are empty right now? Selling your large corporate building isn't going to go well. Nobody wants it because their workers dont want to be in the office anymore. But then again maintenance, utilities, toilet paper, sickness, taxes, etc are all burning a hole in their pocket. So better to force people back to the office? Worse yet, any big corp that announces back to work has an army of recruiters cold calling all their employees offering them exactly what they want. More money and work from home. It's an impossible situation for businesses. Flipside, what's more important to look at is only what you can control. You wont change your employer's mind on whatever bad decision they make.There are only bad decisions to make. You can control yourself. Do you even want to go in for 2 days a week? Personally I'm not interested in paying for parking, 1 ply toilet paper and pointless chitchat about moon knight or some other tv show i havent had the chance to watch. You can instead make the decision for what you can control. There's an awful lot of employers who will accept completely remote workers.

gernb 5y ago
The building argument doesn't seem to make business sense so I doubt that's the reason. An empty building is not consuming as much power as a full building so even if the business is wasting money on a building and has to because of a lease they'd still save money for employees to be remote. In other words. From most expensive to least * all employees at office * empty office, employees remote * no office, employees remote Business would do whatever is cheapest unless they believe they won't hit their targets. So it's got nothing to do with the buildings existing. Must be some other reason.
- incomingpain 5y ago
  It doesnt make business sense for the normal case, but the unexpected covid lockdowns and inaction on immediately selling the buildings expecting to go back. Later to find out you aren't going back? Like in OP's pov, the intention is 2 days a week but as he expects, it's just to slowly ease back into 5 days a week. No doubt seeing that the lower cost being to take some HR losses is less than the huge discount in selling the building.
  - gernb 5y ago
    I'm still not following your argument. No matter what it's cheaper for the employer to allow employees to work remote. It doesn't matter if they already signed up to pay for the building for another 5 years or whatever. Rent + Monthly Expenses > Rent So an company who only cared about money wouldn't pull employees back into the office as that's more expensive for them than letting them say at home, even if they company is still paying rent. They'd need some other reason, like they believe employees are more productive at work. Short of that, they'd just let them stay home, even if they have to keep paying rent on an empty office it's still less money than rent + office expenses.
nicoburns 5y ago
> But then again maintenance, utilities, toilet paper, sickness, taxes, etc are all burning a hole in their pocket. So better to force people back to the office? That only makes sense if they derive value from people being in the office. Otherwise there is nothing lost by simply leaving the office empty.
- incomingpain 5y ago
  >That only makes sense if they derive value from people being in the office. Otherwise there is nothing lost by simply leaving the office empty. Having the building is a cost. The better thing that OP or OPlikes is that they should be considering unusual options to discover a not-bad decision. What if instead of forcing people back to the office that they instead buy a ton of hydroponic systems. Start growing food with their unused office space. If enough businesss do this, we might not have a food shortage. We might avoid a disaster that seems inevitable.
mejutoco 5y ago
Now it would be a good time to zone some of those office buildings as flats and offer them for people to rent. Not everywhere, but there are a lot of office areas that are perfectly inhabitable. That would solve the weaker demand for office space and help keeping the price of rent under control at a time when inflation is high (and probably will get higher). edit:conjunctions
- erik_seaberg 5y ago
  It might be hard to persuade a city to change the zoning and building and fire codes. Especially in California, a lot of big cities prefer more business space and less housing because of tax revenue vs. costs to provide services, and current homeowners (reliable voters) are enjoying equity appreciation from the shortage.

gernb 5y ago

The building argument doesn't seem to make business sense so I doubt that's the reason. An empty building is not consuming as much power as a full building so even if the business is wasting money on a building and has to because of a lease they'd still save money for employees to be remote. In other words. From most expensive to least * all employees at office * empty office, employees remote * no office, employees remote Business would do whatever is cheapest unless they believe they won't hit their targets. So it's got nothing to do with the buildings existing. Must be some other reason.

incomingpain 5y ago
It doesnt make business sense for the normal case, but the unexpected covid lockdowns and inaction on immediately selling the buildings expecting to go back. Later to find out you aren't going back? Like in OP's pov, the intention is 2 days a week but as he expects, it's just to slowly ease back into 5 days a week. No doubt seeing that the lower cost being to take some HR losses is less than the huge discount in selling the building.
- gernb 5y ago
  I'm still not following your argument. No matter what it's cheaper for the employer to allow employees to work remote. It doesn't matter if they already signed up to pay for the building for another 5 years or whatever. Rent + Monthly Expenses > Rent So an company who only cared about money wouldn't pull employees back into the office as that's more expensive for them than letting them say at home, even if they company is still paying rent. They'd need some other reason, like they believe employees are more productive at work. Short of that, they'd just let them stay home, even if they have to keep paying rent on an empty office it's still less money than rent + office expenses.

nicoburns 5y ago

> But then again maintenance, utilities, toilet paper, sickness, taxes, etc are all burning a hole in their pocket. So better to force people back to the office? That only makes sense if they derive value from people being in the office. Otherwise there is nothing lost by simply leaving the office empty.

incomingpain 5y ago
>That only makes sense if they derive value from people being in the office. Otherwise there is nothing lost by simply leaving the office empty. Having the building is a cost. The better thing that OP or OPlikes is that they should be considering unusual options to discover a not-bad decision. What if instead of forcing people back to the office that they instead buy a ton of hydroponic systems. Start growing food with their unused office space. If enough businesss do this, we might not have a food shortage. We might avoid a disaster that seems inevitable.

mejutoco 5y ago

Now it would be a good time to zone some of those office buildings as flats and offer them for people to rent. Not everywhere, but there are a lot of office areas that are perfectly inhabitable. That would solve the weaker demand for office space and help keeping the price of rent under control at a time when inflation is high (and probably will get higher). edit:conjunctions

erik_seaberg 5y ago
It might be hard to persuade a city to change the zoning and building and fire codes. Especially in California, a lot of big cities prefer more business space and less housing because of tax revenue vs. costs to provide services, and current homeowners (reliable voters) are enjoying equity appreciation from the shortage.