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As someone who has been working from home since the pandemic and preferring it these articles still bug me: the new normal for who? Not for retail workers, agri

As someone who has been working from home since the pandemic and preferring it these articles still bug me: the new normal for who? Not for retail workers, agricultural workers, manufacturing, first responders, those who work in trades etc etc etc. It’s a very notable shift for office workers. It just so happens that every newspaper opinion writer is in the exact socio-economic group most affected and way too often it’s talked about as if it’s universal. It also leads to under coverage of important side effects: for example, here in NYC the economics of the subway system have been messed up since the start of the pandemic. If every office worker works from home the system suddenly loses a ton of revenue. But if they cut back on service it’ll disproportionately affect the (typically lower income) workers that still depend on it. Not unsolvable but rarely talked about.

xwdv 4y ago
More people work in offices than all those industries put together.
- acc_297 4y ago
  Canada actually has a larger resource extraction industry as percent of gdp than any other oecd country and I would be surprised if office workers outnumber primary industries +retail+food service+trades+manufacturing
- fknorangesite 4y ago
  I'm genuinely curious if that's the case; can you provide some actual numbers?
  - manuelmoreale 4y ago
    Since Canada is the subject of the article maybe this can be helpful? https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1410020201&pickMembers%5B0%5D=1.1&pickMembers%5B1%5D=2.1&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2022&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2022&referencePeriods=20220101%2C20220101 https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=141002...
jt2190 4y ago
This opinion-piece is about how working remotely is now a normal, permanent option for employees, as opposed to a temporary one that was necessary during the pandemic. The author argues that Canadian policymakers and business-leaders should accept remote work as permanent.
- bigbillheck 4y ago
  > option for employees Option for SOME employees.
marcosdumay 4y ago
The most interesting second order effect is that when a large share the high-income people work from home, the spending gets distributed away from commercial centers, pushing more working positions away from it. I'd say that nobody can reliably predict even short term problems. WFH is just too different. We can only react to them, and not know if the reaction solved them or if it just got fixed by another change.
- ghaff 4y ago
  It's hard to say what the long-term effects look like. It looks to me that when I (rarely) go into Boston, commuting traffic is at pre-pandemic levels although broader stats suggest commuting is still down somewhat (and local transit still seems reduced). But, especially as leases expire, for both major employers and various support businesses like restaurants and bars we'll start to have a better idea of what the new normal looks like. (There's of course also no reason to think that the same preferences for work and living will automatically be picked up by new generations.)
ghiculescu 4y ago
Yeah, it might be the new normal for a small rich subset of society. To say it’s the new normal full stop, is to ignore most of the working class. Ironically the group that’s usually wagging its finger at everyone else about privilege, does not realize its own privilege.
- tempaccount420 4y ago
  Rich? No one who works a 9-5 is rich. It's also definitely not a small subset.
  - afavour 4y ago
    A reasonably levelled FAANG engineer working a 9-5 is absolutely rich by any objective standard. Applies to plenty of other industries as well.
    - Clubber 4y ago
      That's a pretty small subset of the 9-5 working pool.
      - afavour 4y ago
        Perhaps but the OP asserted that no one working a 9-5 is rich. I don’t think absolute terms like “rich” really help much in these discussions anyway. What is “rich”? I’d argue that people working 9-5 in an office are on average richer than the average retail employee by a fair margin even if they’re poorer than a CEO. It certainly feels a lot more relevant to the discussion at hand.
        Clubber 4y ago
        Generalizations are a hard habit to get out of (no one working 9-5...) etc. Whenever I read that, I read "most." For what it's worth, my definition of rich has always been somebody who doesn't have to work. Having you and your family's livelihood dependent on the whims of an organization you don't have any control over is pretty daunting if you stop to think about it.
version_five 4y ago
Re side effects, I can easily see it worsening inequality. Anecdotally I feel like we're moving towards the well-off staying close to home, while a growing servant class brings us our stuff.
__MatrixMan__ 4y ago
I'm not in Canada, but in my social circles, the answer to "for who" is: "for men". For whatever reason, most of my male friends now work from home. The women I know work in labs, classrooms, and other places that you have to go to for a reason. It has caused this weird flip where it's now the guys making all of the plans because we're starved for social interaction, meanwhile our wives are more likely to opt for introvert-time.
- ghiculescu 4y ago
  You’re so right. And this is not a great trend; extrapolate it forward and birth rates go down down down. Men are supposed to be social.
  - __MatrixMan__ 4y ago
    My point was than men are being more authentically social now that they're not forced to be artificially social in an office. So it's kind of the opposite of what you said. Also, I'd argue that down down down is the right direction.
- chollida1 4y ago
  Hmm, that's interesting. it's the exact opposite for me and my social circle. It's predominantly the women who are working form home far more. My guy friends do maybe one day a week at home while the women do 3-4. Though I guess i have alot more white collar friends so this might explain why we're seeing different things? We've assumed it was because women are more likely to do white collar work that you can do anywhere and men are more likely to do blue collar work that requires you to be on site. Also could be that I'd imagine women still do more of the child care than men do and that is far easier done at home:)
  - __MatrixMan__ 4y ago
    I'm not going to argue for this position, but I've heard it said that men tend to work with things and women tend to work with people. So rather than white/blue collar I'm thinking that a distinguishing feature might be whether you need another human in the room to do the job. Of course it's absurd that there would be gendered jobs, but then we live in an absurd world.
ipaddr 4y ago
The subway angle is an interesting one. The fees to get to work go back into the employees pocket. Many of those workers live outside of the city so the city can't tax this group directly to make up the shortfall so they tax employees who's businesses are in city an extra %. With employees working from home the need for a downtown office changes. Everyone who uses the service will need to pay more. The benefit is same service levels with less people so everyone gets a seat. If people cannot afford it wages go up or jobs go vacant
randomdata 4y ago
> agricultural workers As a Canadian farmer, I would think working from home is the most common arrangement for farmers.
- re-thc 4y ago
  Good point. Lots of anti-WFH only know about "the office". Like you can't work without an office when a lot of the population don't.
  - LoganDark 4y ago
    I think "working from home" is usually used to mean "working remotely" here, not literally "working from a residential house that you own". Though some offices are still used for remote work (i.e. software development), it's not exactly "working remotely" since you have to be present in the office. Farms wouldn't count as working remotely, since you're on the farm performing physical labor, even if it's at home. Software development in an office (or customer support in a call center) wouldn't count as working remotely, since you have to be in the office to perform that work (even if you use internet-connected devices to do so). But using your computer at home to do software development for a company, or having a phone at home to do customer service, etc. would be working remotely. IMHO it gets even more subjective around "software development from home wouldn't actually be remote if it's a startup that is based in your home, but it would still be working from home technically". But you get the idea.
- luckylion 4y ago
  Don't you still need to sit on the tractor even if can do most of the steering via GPS?
  - simlevesque 4y ago
    I think that the parent was implying that the farm is their home in most cases. WFH does not only mean sitting at a desk inside your house.
    - 4y ago

xwdv 4y ago

More people work in offices than all those industries put together.

acc_297 4y ago
Canada actually has a larger resource extraction industry as percent of gdp than any other oecd country and I would be surprised if office workers outnumber primary industries +retail+food service+trades+manufacturing
fknorangesite 4y ago
I'm genuinely curious if that's the case; can you provide some actual numbers?
- manuelmoreale 4y ago
  Since Canada is the subject of the article maybe this can be helpful? https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1410020201&pickMembers%5B0%5D=1.1&pickMembers%5B1%5D=2.1&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2022&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2022&referencePeriods=20220101%2C20220101 https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=141002...

jt2190 4y ago

This opinion-piece is about how working remotely is now a normal, permanent option for employees, as opposed to a temporary one that was necessary during the pandemic. The author argues that Canadian policymakers and business-leaders should accept remote work as permanent.

bigbillheck 4y ago
> option for employees Option for SOME employees.

marcosdumay 4y ago

The most interesting second order effect is that when a large share the high-income people work from home, the spending gets distributed away from commercial centers, pushing more working positions away from it. I'd say that nobody can reliably predict even short term problems. WFH is just too different. We can only react to them, and not know if the reaction solved them or if it just got fixed by another change.

ghaff 4y ago
It's hard to say what the long-term effects look like. It looks to me that when I (rarely) go into Boston, commuting traffic is at pre-pandemic levels although broader stats suggest commuting is still down somewhat (and local transit still seems reduced). But, especially as leases expire, for both major employers and various support businesses like restaurants and bars we'll start to have a better idea of what the new normal looks like. (There's of course also no reason to think that the same preferences for work and living will automatically be picked up by new generations.)

ghiculescu 4y ago

Yeah, it might be the new normal for a small rich subset of society. To say it’s the new normal full stop, is to ignore most of the working class. Ironically the group that’s usually wagging its finger at everyone else about privilege, does not realize its own privilege.

tempaccount420 4y ago
Rich? No one who works a 9-5 is rich. It's also definitely not a small subset.
- afavour 4y ago
  A reasonably levelled FAANG engineer working a 9-5 is absolutely rich by any objective standard. Applies to plenty of other industries as well.
  - Clubber 4y ago
    That's a pretty small subset of the 9-5 working pool.
    - afavour 4y ago
      Perhaps but the OP asserted that no one working a 9-5 is rich. I don’t think absolute terms like “rich” really help much in these discussions anyway. What is “rich”? I’d argue that people working 9-5 in an office are on average richer than the average retail employee by a fair margin even if they’re poorer than a CEO. It certainly feels a lot more relevant to the discussion at hand.
      - Clubber 4y ago
        Generalizations are a hard habit to get out of (no one working 9-5...) etc. Whenever I read that, I read "most." For what it's worth, my definition of rich has always been somebody who doesn't have to work. Having you and your family's livelihood dependent on the whims of an organization you don't have any control over is pretty daunting if you stop to think about it.

version_five 4y ago

Re side effects, I can easily see it worsening inequality. Anecdotally I feel like we're moving towards the well-off staying close to home, while a growing servant class brings us our stuff.

__MatrixMan__ 4y ago

I'm not in Canada, but in my social circles, the answer to "for who" is: "for men". For whatever reason, most of my male friends now work from home. The women I know work in labs, classrooms, and other places that you have to go to for a reason. It has caused this weird flip where it's now the guys making all of the plans because we're starved for social interaction, meanwhile our wives are more likely to opt for introvert-time.

ghiculescu 4y ago
You’re so right. And this is not a great trend; extrapolate it forward and birth rates go down down down. Men are supposed to be social.
- __MatrixMan__ 4y ago
  My point was than men are being more authentically social now that they're not forced to be artificially social in an office. So it's kind of the opposite of what you said. Also, I'd argue that down down down is the right direction.
chollida1 4y ago
Hmm, that's interesting. it's the exact opposite for me and my social circle. It's predominantly the women who are working form home far more. My guy friends do maybe one day a week at home while the women do 3-4. Though I guess i have alot more white collar friends so this might explain why we're seeing different things? We've assumed it was because women are more likely to do white collar work that you can do anywhere and men are more likely to do blue collar work that requires you to be on site. Also could be that I'd imagine women still do more of the child care than men do and that is far easier done at home:)
- __MatrixMan__ 4y ago
  I'm not going to argue for this position, but I've heard it said that men tend to work with things and women tend to work with people. So rather than white/blue collar I'm thinking that a distinguishing feature might be whether you need another human in the room to do the job. Of course it's absurd that there would be gendered jobs, but then we live in an absurd world.

ipaddr 4y ago

The subway angle is an interesting one. The fees to get to work go back into the employees pocket. Many of those workers live outside of the city so the city can't tax this group directly to make up the shortfall so they tax employees who's businesses are in city an extra %. With employees working from home the need for a downtown office changes. Everyone who uses the service will need to pay more. The benefit is same service levels with less people so everyone gets a seat. If people cannot afford it wages go up or jobs go vacant

randomdata 4y ago

> agricultural workers As a Canadian farmer, I would think working from home is the most common arrangement for farmers.

re-thc 4y ago
Good point. Lots of anti-WFH only know about "the office". Like you can't work without an office when a lot of the population don't.
- LoganDark 4y ago
  I think "working from home" is usually used to mean "working remotely" here, not literally "working from a residential house that you own". Though some offices are still used for remote work (i.e. software development), it's not exactly "working remotely" since you have to be present in the office. Farms wouldn't count as working remotely, since you're on the farm performing physical labor, even if it's at home. Software development in an office (or customer support in a call center) wouldn't count as working remotely, since you have to be in the office to perform that work (even if you use internet-connected devices to do so). But using your computer at home to do software development for a company, or having a phone at home to do customer service, etc. would be working remotely. IMHO it gets even more subjective around "software development from home wouldn't actually be remote if it's a startup that is based in your home, but it would still be working from home technically". But you get the idea.
luckylion 4y ago
Don't you still need to sit on the tractor even if can do most of the steering via GPS?
- simlevesque 4y ago
  I think that the parent was implying that the farm is their home in most cases. WFH does not only mean sitting at a desk inside your house.
  - 4y ago