6 ms·

Not just SF I see For Lease signs on commercial real estate at all price points everywhere I go. WFH has been a paradigm shift and commercial real estate hasn'

by newaccount2021 4y ago

Not just SF I see For Lease signs on commercial real estate at all price points everywhere I go. WFH has been a paradigm shift and commercial real estate hasn't caught up to the reality yet. Companies that embrace WFH will have access to an entire nations' worth of talent and will end up with a competitive advantage. Requiring RTO means employees must be within thirty miles or so of campus, and lots of talent won't go for that anymore. I don't recommend anyone relocate for a job unless they are very young and its just a matter of renting. I'm not selling my house for any employer at this point. Many tech companies also overbuilt. I predict Google will pull the plug (or massively downscale) on their San Jose "transit" campus...there's no way that Google needs another 25k desks in addition to their existing real estate building/buying binge, particularly with recent talk over headcount. Fortunately for Google, simply by virtue of announcing the San Jose campus, they've raised the value for the undeveloped real estate and will be able to sell it at a profit. WFH is going to be a defining trend...I predict it will be a survive/die issue for companies.

jdhn 4y ago
To piggyback off of this, for those companies where WFH doesn't work (lab equipment, etc), now is a fantastic time to negotiate a deal.
hollywood_court 4y ago
I’m not near a big tech center, but I know of exactly 3 businesses in my town that no longer exist because they would not allow their employees to work remotely. Two of them were owned by former clients of mine. They allowed themselves to fail because they wanted to make their employees’ lives more difficult. It was that simple. There was no need for either business to have a brick and mortar location at all. No need for all the overhead. But as the saying goes: “the cruelty is the point.”
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  We as an industry are still sailing through the air thinking things are fine with WFH, but in reality the engines have stalled and we're gliding. What I mean by that is that the industry has all the benefits of in-person work, having social connections, having gotten jobs through networking, and of knowing the ins and outs of a domain from pre-covid standards. As time goes on, I think the working population will have more trouble networking for jobs, have less enjoyment from their work, less interaction with other human beings, and fewer people will be able to "break in" from college or from non-IT roles into technology. We are insulating ourselves from spontaneous interactions, and that's a bad thing for evolution. TLDR - Not all RTO is about cruelty.
  - aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
    Hi manager! :-) No, we don’t go back to the office.
    - fundad 4y ago
      I would expect managers to be pleased that it's more difficult to network and leave them for a better manager.
      - Apocryphon 4y ago
        It might be harder to find a better manager, but it's far easier to leave.
    - unethical_ban 4y ago
      I'm "just" a worker who has also benefited from remote work. It's annoying to see people attack anyone who thinks there is a chance of a negative side effect of WFH.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    Then the pendulum will swing back towards hybrid, people will drift towards in-person-first companies such as Apple, and trends will shift again. Perhaps owners and management will get smart and try to woo workers with personal offices instead of the open office default. What you're describing won't last forever, either.
  - citizenkeen 4y ago
    I also think there are a lot of people in California who don't want to RTO who aren't thinking about competing with jobs with people in a state with COL like Arkansas or Idaho. WFH is really going to depress wages for most tech workers.
    - Apocryphon 4y ago
      Californians and the like are moving to Idaho, so the COL there will gradually increase towards parity. And perhaps Arkansas eventually? https://www.camdenarknews.com/news/2022/aug/31/will-climate-change-make-arkansas-a-destination/ https://www.camdenarknews.com/news/2022/aug/31/will-climate-...
- mstipetic 4y ago
  The businesses literally shut down because of that? They were that stubborn? Or they noticed it too late?
  - hollywood_court 4y ago
    The one I was most familiar with was a business that edited wedding photos and videos. The owner insisted that each employee be on site each day. There were other factors too such as the fact that he forced them to work on Windows machines when each employee had M1 Macs at home. He made the fatal mistake of saying “if you don’t like it, go start your own business.” Well, two of them did. My wife and I gave them the money they needed to do a bit of marketing and hooked them up with our attorneys. Now they work wherever they wish. The owner made a lot of entertaining social media posts afterwards about how lazy workers are ruining this country. The guy was a walking stereotype
    - postalrat 4y ago
      How can you be sure that the business itself didn't fail?
      - hollywood_court 4y ago
        It did fail. He had no employees and he didn't know how to perform the work himself. In our local FB and Nextdoor groups, there were many brides complaining about not receiving their photos/videos for months after their weddings. He wasn't bright enough to outsource. He ended just returning all the original photos/videos and refunding deposits. The building he leased is still vacant today. Whenever my wife saw someone complain, she would refer them to the former employees who went and started their own LLC.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  Because many methods of making money are cruel, a lot of stupid people develop an intuition that the best business decision no matter what is the one the people beneath you least want you to do. They see a world where they're trying to get all they can out of lazy employees that are constantly trying to get one over on them. Those employees' tricks are what is standing between them and retiring on passive income. This is like 85% of small business owners. If you like working from home, working from home is bad for the business. It's a bit protestant. Like the idea that food is unhealthy exactly to the degree of how good it tastes.
  - hollywood_court 4y ago
    What you described is seen all over small towns here in the South. So many of my peers think that their employees owe them something. As a tradesman, I hear the same thing from so many of my peers in the real estate repair/building industry. What most of them don't realize is that they are actually successful exploiters of labor rather than successful business people. I judge a company by how well they treat the lowest man on the totem pole. All around me you'll find small business owners who send their kids to private school, their wives drive fully loaded Yukons/Tahoes, they have lake homes and boats, they have healthcare, they take multiple vacations per year, etc. Yet not a single one of their employees can enjoy a single one of those amenities. So you effectively have 15-20 skilled tradesmen working full time to support the lifestyle of one family. When you have all of that, but your employees have none of it, you're exploiting their labor.
    - nebula8804 4y ago
      Times like this I am reminded of all those Swiss CNC shops that offer to train people out of high school sometimes for 4+ years fully paid and then offer them a full time job often a lifetime position. These businesses have operated for generation some for 100+ years now. We are starting to see bits of this come back but I wonder if this country still has the culture to make it stick. [1]:https://youtu.be/kWBQHicfyfQ?t=254 https://youtu.be/kWBQHicfyfQ?t=254
      - 4y ago
nebula8804 4y ago
This sounds great right now but scary long term for employees. As talent develops across the country and pushes wages down, I guess the gravy train had to end for tech workers. I don't think there is any other growth industry left to achieve the American dream.

jdhn 4y ago

To piggyback off of this, for those companies where WFH doesn't work (lab equipment, etc), now is a fantastic time to negotiate a deal.

hollywood_court 4y ago

I’m not near a big tech center, but I know of exactly 3 businesses in my town that no longer exist because they would not allow their employees to work remotely. Two of them were owned by former clients of mine. They allowed themselves to fail because they wanted to make their employees’ lives more difficult. It was that simple. There was no need for either business to have a brick and mortar location at all. No need for all the overhead. But as the saying goes: “the cruelty is the point.”

unethical_ban 4y ago
We as an industry are still sailing through the air thinking things are fine with WFH, but in reality the engines have stalled and we're gliding. What I mean by that is that the industry has all the benefits of in-person work, having social connections, having gotten jobs through networking, and of knowing the ins and outs of a domain from pre-covid standards. As time goes on, I think the working population will have more trouble networking for jobs, have less enjoyment from their work, less interaction with other human beings, and fewer people will be able to "break in" from college or from non-IT roles into technology. We are insulating ourselves from spontaneous interactions, and that's a bad thing for evolution. TLDR - Not all RTO is about cruelty.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
  Hi manager! :-) No, we don’t go back to the office.
  - fundad 4y ago
    I would expect managers to be pleased that it's more difficult to network and leave them for a better manager.
    - Apocryphon 4y ago
      It might be harder to find a better manager, but it's far easier to leave.
  - unethical_ban 4y ago
    I'm "just" a worker who has also benefited from remote work. It's annoying to see people attack anyone who thinks there is a chance of a negative side effect of WFH.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  Then the pendulum will swing back towards hybrid, people will drift towards in-person-first companies such as Apple, and trends will shift again. Perhaps owners and management will get smart and try to woo workers with personal offices instead of the open office default. What you're describing won't last forever, either.
- citizenkeen 4y ago
  I also think there are a lot of people in California who don't want to RTO who aren't thinking about competing with jobs with people in a state with COL like Arkansas or Idaho. WFH is really going to depress wages for most tech workers.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    Californians and the like are moving to Idaho, so the COL there will gradually increase towards parity. And perhaps Arkansas eventually? https://www.camdenarknews.com/news/2022/aug/31/will-climate-change-make-arkansas-a-destination/ https://www.camdenarknews.com/news/2022/aug/31/will-climate-...
mstipetic 4y ago
The businesses literally shut down because of that? They were that stubborn? Or they noticed it too late?
- hollywood_court 4y ago
  The one I was most familiar with was a business that edited wedding photos and videos. The owner insisted that each employee be on site each day. There were other factors too such as the fact that he forced them to work on Windows machines when each employee had M1 Macs at home. He made the fatal mistake of saying “if you don’t like it, go start your own business.” Well, two of them did. My wife and I gave them the money they needed to do a bit of marketing and hooked them up with our attorneys. Now they work wherever they wish. The owner made a lot of entertaining social media posts afterwards about how lazy workers are ruining this country. The guy was a walking stereotype
  - postalrat 4y ago
    How can you be sure that the business itself didn't fail?
    - hollywood_court 4y ago
      It did fail. He had no employees and he didn't know how to perform the work himself. In our local FB and Nextdoor groups, there were many brides complaining about not receiving their photos/videos for months after their weddings. He wasn't bright enough to outsource. He ended just returning all the original photos/videos and refunding deposits. The building he leased is still vacant today. Whenever my wife saw someone complain, she would refer them to the former employees who went and started their own LLC.
pessimizer 4y ago
Because many methods of making money are cruel, a lot of stupid people develop an intuition that the best business decision no matter what is the one the people beneath you least want you to do. They see a world where they're trying to get all they can out of lazy employees that are constantly trying to get one over on them. Those employees' tricks are what is standing between them and retiring on passive income. This is like 85% of small business owners. If you like working from home, working from home is bad for the business. It's a bit protestant. Like the idea that food is unhealthy exactly to the degree of how good it tastes.
- hollywood_court 4y ago
  What you described is seen all over small towns here in the South. So many of my peers think that their employees owe them something. As a tradesman, I hear the same thing from so many of my peers in the real estate repair/building industry. What most of them don't realize is that they are actually successful exploiters of labor rather than successful business people. I judge a company by how well they treat the lowest man on the totem pole. All around me you'll find small business owners who send their kids to private school, their wives drive fully loaded Yukons/Tahoes, they have lake homes and boats, they have healthcare, they take multiple vacations per year, etc. Yet not a single one of their employees can enjoy a single one of those amenities. So you effectively have 15-20 skilled tradesmen working full time to support the lifestyle of one family. When you have all of that, but your employees have none of it, you're exploiting their labor.
  - nebula8804 4y ago
    Times like this I am reminded of all those Swiss CNC shops that offer to train people out of high school sometimes for 4+ years fully paid and then offer them a full time job often a lifetime position. These businesses have operated for generation some for 100+ years now. We are starting to see bits of this come back but I wonder if this country still has the culture to make it stick. [1]:https://youtu.be/kWBQHicfyfQ?t=254 https://youtu.be/kWBQHicfyfQ?t=254
    - 4y ago

nebula8804 4y ago

This sounds great right now but scary long term for employees. As talent develops across the country and pushes wages down, I guess the gravy train had to end for tech workers. I don't think there is any other growth industry left to achieve the American dream.