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The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

275 points by kruuuder 2y ago

silexia 2y ago
The problem with remote work is lack of accountability. Every worker bee buzzes that "just let me finish my work and be on my way", but that's just not how business works. Employers require either bossware to watch employees at home or they will watch them physically in the workplace. Take your pick.
fire_lake 2y ago
Ok, so which “elites” are holding real estate portfolios and creating these stories in the media bashing remote work? Who are they? I don’t think the world is so coordinated. Some people made a bad bet on real estate. Some other people want to write click bait pieces about lazy workers. Some other corporate leaders are scared that employees are goofing off outside the office (because productivity can’t be measured for most work).
- dools 2y ago
  "You don't need formal conspiracies when interest converge" - George Carlin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAFd4FdbJxs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAFd4FdbJxs
  - winternewt 2y ago
    But also, there's Blackrock and Vanguard
  - rdtsc 2y ago
    Right, they don’t all have to fly to a secret island. They can just read each other’s blog posts. They understand the hierarchy, too. The smaller companies usually parrot whatever the “prestigious” companies do. “Google is doing it, so should we”. It’s like the saying “Nobody got fired for picking IBM”. Same for these trends: nobody gets fired for mimicking Google or Amazon, even though it doesn’t make sense or is downright harmful to the company.
- okamiueru 2y ago
  I don't think it is far fetched tho. If you have a couple of millions to spare, you can easily set up a little think tank on how to effect certain changes. If you're willing to throw money at something, it requires minimal effort to coordinate. Your question as to who these people are, is still valid. So my objection is only to the extent that it being unknown doesn't mean it isn't likely.
  - fire_lake 2y ago
    It would be a fantastic piece of investigative journalism if someone could link these stories to real estate investors somehow.
    - ustad 2y ago
      That would be neat but its very difficult to get someone to reveal who is paying for it behind the scenes. For example, this is the “survey” referenced in the article : https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/surveymonkey-research-workplace-culture-and-trends/ https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/surveymonkey-research... Now, who is “Sam Gutierrez” and how is he benefitting? Did he get compensated for it? Is he doing a public service? Is he licking ass? Do we care?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- DSingularity 2y ago
  Or if maybe big landlord pay millions to consultants to fix this problem dollars get involved and you start seeings these PR pieces and these CEO edicts and so on.
- lrem 2y ago
  > I don’t think the world is so coordinated. I suggest you read or watch something about McKinsey.
  - hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
    Oh please. The fact that McKinsey exists and has done plenty of shady shit doesn't mean they coordinate stuff like this. "People who believe in conspiracy theories have never been project managers."
    - drw85 2y ago
      It's a known fact that in many situations they already have both sides as customers and play them against each other. They absolutely have the power to move the chess pieces on both sides to guarantee an outcome.
    - computerthings 2y ago
      Calling stuff a "conspiracy theory" is just a thought-terminating cliché, and measuring the ability of humans to conspire [0] by equating that ability with stuff like Elvis still being alive isn't the attempt of an argument, it's just a slogan. [0] for which there is no communication between them required, or even conscious desire to "conspire" of single one of them. Consider how mobbing can go. People don't go "so, we're all racist, and this new guy is X, so I propose you are kinda sarcastic to him, and I forget to remind him of the thing tomorrow". It doesn't even happen that way in bad fiction, much less so in real life. Or put more positively, consider how teamwork and healthy group behavior can go, too. Most of it is simply done, gets fine-tuned by doing, and only some of it is thought, spoken or written about, usually in hindsight, often as a rationalization.
      - hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
        What is "cliché" is to offer up "McKinsey is this shady organization we all hate!" as some sort of evidence that they could conspire to organize this sort of thing. Getting back to the original thesis of the article, the author is stating that people making the decision on RTO (the "elites", another nebulous scary term...) are doing so because commercial real estate is so critical to their decision making process. If anyone can provide any evidence that McKinsey could orchestrate such a thing (with actual details), I'm all ears.
- Log_out_ 2y ago
  Sum of all people receiving pensions? aka Boom(AndBust)ers. Welcome to the Gerontonecropolis, where we work hard to be burried in similar luxury .
- coffeefirst 2y ago
  I would agree, but... Didn't we just see a giant string of mass layoffs in spite of excellent company performance for no apparent reason besides investors wanted them? I rarely believe in conspiracies, but mindless group-think is very real.
  - klodolph 2y ago
    > no apparent reason besides investors wanted them? If investors want it, I don’t see why any other reason would be necessary, ever, to explain a company’s behavior.
    - hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
      Yeah, that's why the comment you are responding to makes no sense. "Investors believe they can get the same amount of revenue with fewer expenses" - is that supposed to be some sort of "group think"??? Not to mention that the proposition of "for no apparent reason" is total BS to begin with. There was a ton of over-hiring during the pandemic for an expected long-term change in consumer demand that never materialized. Plus, lots of people just fundamentally don't understand how rising interest rates make many projects uneconomic. If your company is chugging along making, say, 4% return on capital, that may be fine in the ZIRP era, but when treasuries are paying north of 5% it means it makes more economic sense to close down the company and put your cash into government bonds. That's a bit of an oversimplification but not by much. Rising interest rates fundamentally mean there is a higher bar for getting ROI.
- jaggederest 2y ago
  It's all the people you'd expect, some purpose-built REITs, big investment firms and private equity, Blackrock, Blackstone and other wealth management, the larger investment banks and the commercial mortgage paper owners are also directly invested (double dipping just like we saw in 2008, where banks would buy mortgages and also leverage those mortgages with derivatives) Many of them are some of the companies that wax lyrical about remote work being bad and are often featured in articles. Submarine PR is absolutely rampant alongside "native advertising".
  - dvt 2y ago
    It's so crazy to me how 2008 was barely a decade-and-a-half ago, and people already forgot how much of a coordinated, organized, and pseudo-fraudulent shitshow the CDO merry-go-round was. Loans were given out, rating agencies were being bought, and everyone was skimming off the top until the music stopped. Are we really pretending it can't happen again?
  - erwald 2y ago
    Do you have any evidence to back these claims up? (genuinely curious)
    - jaggederest 2y ago
      You can look at who owns what in their portfolios, none of this is especially private information. They publish it all online. I literally just googled "who owns the most commercial real estate" and "commercial real estate bond ownership amounts" and things like that. It's not subtle, companies tout their ownership percentages and REITs list their investors.
      - erwald 2y ago
        I meant evidence of them campaigning, or financing/instigating campaigns, against remote work, thereby influencing decisions of companies to implement "back to work" policies. ETA: I agree that you did not say this was happening in your original comment, but it seems to me your comment implied that these companies were actually influencing major decisions (since that's the topic of the OP).
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- JimDabell 2y ago
  > Ok, so which “elites” are holding real estate portfolios and creating these stories in the media bashing remote work? Who are they? It’s not just that. The article talks about “landlords who buy up trophy office buildings”, but fails to draw the connecting line to the managers who demand RTO. The managers aren’t the landlords but the article seems to treat them as one single “elites” entity. How can the landlords demand RTO? Where is the financial incentive for the managers to RTO? There’s a story here when Amazon gets tax breaks, for instance. But that doesn’t generalise to RTO mandates everywhere; it’s the exception rather than the rule.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  Exactly, these articles always just make me face palm because the authors never manage a cogent argument about who is making the actual RTO decisions and who cares about commercial real estate values. It's much easier just to chalk it up to the nebulous and scary "elites" and then the authors don't have to do any actual research. For one, look at the expenses of some of the large tech companies that often make the front page here on HN due to their RTO plans. Real estate is a relatively teeny portion (salaries are obviously the biggest). Point being, no sane CEO would demand RTO to "prop up commercial real estate" if they thought it would be a net negative for their actual business long term, precisely because their concerns about real estate values are so far down on their list of priorities.
  - jaggederest 2y ago
    If you're a C-level at a Fortune 50 company, some massive percentage of your personal assets, if they're invested in the stock market or private equity, are in commercial real estate. There's no mystery here. People with assets want those assets to remain valuable, and act directly to reinforce it. This is why we don't let athletes bet on their own games. > Point being, no sane CEO would demand RTO to "prop up commercial real estate" if they thought it would be a net negative for their actual business long term, precisely because their concerns about real estate values are so far down on their list of priorities. What if they thought it didn't make any difference, or was mildly net positive to the short term value of their shares? Like, say, 2% increased value through voluntary attrition over the next 2 years, followed by 10% reduced value? And it propped up their portfolios? Is that really so far fetched? We see companies making a lot more questionable decisions in pursuit of quarterly numbers.
    - chii 2y ago
      > act directly to reinforce it. any real evidence of this will be easily evidence for a breach in fiduciary duty of the ceo towards the shareholders. RTO can be seen as costing more money, and likely reduce productivity, force attrition (of the best employees), etc.
      - 2y ago
- defrost 2y ago
  > I don’t think the world is so coordinated. The "think tanks" that are pre staffed and fully capable of churning out and placing 3x major long form articles per week that are pro or con {Subject X} (and an additional few that fence sit and are "just asking questions") already exist and have been about since at least Nine out of Ten Doctors Recommend Smoking. You know, 5+ decades ago. The "elites" that are losing money in {Domain X} simply have to question their circle, get a line on a half decent agency or three and hire them to pitch for the thought changes that will move money back towards {X}. Job done.
  - erwald 2y ago
    Can you link some think tank pieces arguing against remote work? I tried looking but couldn't find any. I found a few things but clearly none of these are part of an anti remote work effort: an AEI interview https://www.aei.org/workforce-development/the-future-of-remote-work-highlights-from-my-conversation-with-nicholas-bloom/ https://www.aei.org/workforce-development/the-future-of-remo... which seems pretty balanced overall (and doesn't take a prescriptive position) an AEI piece https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/the-trade-offs-of-remote-work-building-a-more-resilient-workplace-for-the-post-covid-19-world/ https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/the-trade-offs-... which seems pretty balanced too a Heritage piece (from early in Covid) https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/labor-policy-covid-19-and-beyond-recommendations-get-americans-back-work https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/labor-policy-... that seems mostly bullish on remote work (but mostly focuses on other issues, like labor rights) a McKinsey report (also from fairly early in Covid) https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/whats-next-for-remote-work-an-analysis-of-2000-tasks-800-jobs-and-nine-countries https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/wh... which is mostly descriptive and also seems pretty balanced a Cato piece https://www.cato.org/commentary/remote-work-here-stay-mostly-better https://www.cato.org/commentary/remote-work-here-stay-mostly... which argues in favor of remote work
    - defrost 2y ago
      > Can you link some think tank pieces arguing against remote work? That's not the argument I made in my comment. I simply noted that if anyone wanted to hire a group to argue for (or against) remote work then such groups already exist and have done for decades. If there's a coordinated press placing of "back to work" articles then the starting point would be all the articles that make that case (or talk about that subject) and look for authors, their bio's, whether these are staff writer pieces (and if so whether they heavily quote "research shows" vague sources), opinion pieces, etc. The hardest to spot and most common is staff writers who cover all manner of things (no obvious bias) who are 90% copy pasta'ing unacknowledged "press releases" "media statements" handed to them on a plate by the Institute for Lazy Reporting. US work from home isn't an area of any interest to me and I have no particular awareness of any of the US writing on the subject. I'm an Australian that's largely worked remote (but not always from home) since the mid 1980s, largely for transnational resource companies. Part of my professional career did involve tracing and sourcing released information intended to sway opinion, but that was all related to mineral and energy resources.
- XorNot 2y ago
  The world doesn't have to be coordinated. People mistake the fact that it's easier to selfishly gain from chaos for conspiracy: what you see is a result of every man for himself thinking, combined with their being little downside to seeding a narrative and seeing if it sticks.
- endgame 2y ago
  Lobby groups like the Property Council of Australia were extremely supportive when the public service in New South Wales (a state of Australia) started forcing RTO: https://www.realestatebusiness.com.au/commercial/28416-nsw-s-return-to-office-directive-set-to-impact-property-and-people https://www.realestatebusiness.com.au/commercial/28416-nsw-s... ; https://www.governmentnews.com.au/nsw-public-servants-ordered-back-to-the-office/ https://www.governmentnews.com.au/nsw-public-servants-ordere...
- esolyt 2y ago
  Wealthy people are in the same social circles, of course they keep hearing these concerns about commercial real estate. They don't have to formally coordinate because they share the same class interests. You could even argue part of this coordination happens subconsciously. Of course, not all wealthy people invested in commercial real estate. But they still have an interest in preserving the existing economic system. They certainly don't want a domino effect.
- hshshshsvsv 2y ago
  If you have billions of dollars in real estate losses and think can offset the losses by driving some anti remote work stories in media, I don't see why rich people would not do this. Also you think planting stories needs coordinated work across media. It doesn't. Read more about it.
- mitthrowaway2 2y ago
  I can't answer this definitively; I doubt anyone can, but I can suggest at least two possible mechanisms that don't require a shadowy cabal of elite conspirators. These don't require anything other than people acting in accordance with incentives that they already have. I'm sure it's not hard to find more. Mechanism 1: Those S&P 500 shares that you own through Vanguard and BlackRock index funds, you don't actually control the voting rights to them. Vanguard and BlackRock do. They have coordinated voting power and a big voice in the C-suite of many large corporations. I do think that execs will listen when they make a suggestion, and it's in their interests that the value of assets under management stays high, because that's what determines their pay. Mechanism 2: C-suite comp is tied to stock price, often through options. Well, as it happens, asset markets are tightly interrelated, and high valuations are a result of leverage. Strangely enough, a dollar invested in real estate can also be a dollar invested in Amazon (even if it's not Amazon's real estate). When asset valuations are high, their owners can borrow against those assets and use that money to bid for other assets, raising the price of everything together. In this process new money is essentially created ex nihilo and increases the price of assets. Conversely, when asset prices start deflating, that can trigger a sell-off of other assets, and this money doesn't simply change hands, it disappears along with the leverage that created it. A pop in commercial real estate valuations can mean that many investment funds which own Amazon will have to sell them off at fire-sale prices to cover a margin call. If you're an exec, this wouldn't be a good thing to happen before your equity compensation package vests.
- Lio 2y ago
  Well here in the UK Lord Sugar has vocally complained about people working from home (whilst doing so himself). He's well know to have made most of his money in commercial property and has said he wants to protect that. If a billionaire, lord of the realm, TV celebrity doesn't count as "elite" I don't know who does. I can't really think of a bigger hypocrite that that. https://fortune.com/europe/2024/02/05/british-billionaire-lord-sugar-remote-work-morale-learning-the-apprentice/ https://fortune.com/europe/2024/02/05/british-billionaire-lo...
- cess11 2y ago
  It's not exactly coordinated. Powerful businesspeople usually own real estate, it's great for financing new ventures and so on, and they have habits. They go to clubs, golf courses, rather exclusive hunting trips and so on, where they meet other people with power in business. And they talk, speculate on the future and develop a community. A community where they go looking for contacts when they need something, like a public affairs firm for pushing political buttons, or a real estate investment to put a big payout into, or whatever. If you are in this environment and fuck around you'll make enemies. People won't recommend you as a public affairs customer, won't tip you off on good investment opportunities, might start to talk shit about you behind your back. Undermining the value of real estate can make these networks and communities a serious hazard to your business. And undermining the value of office estate means you undermine the really tasty cash cow in real estate, residential properties within commuting distance. Enforcing commutes to offices means that people will pay a premium to shorten the commute.
- JeremyNT 2y ago
  > I don’t think the world is so coordinated. Some people made a bad bet on real estate. Some other people want to write click bait pieces about lazy workers. Some other corporate leaders are scared that employees are goofing off outside the office (because productivity can’t be measured for most work). Right, I think there's pretty clearly a combination of factors at play and it's difficult to untangle them (adding one factor you didn't mention, soft layoffs). I'm incredibly skeptical of any attempt to quantify "productivity" with this granularity, and this is especially true as technological advances over the last couple of years like LLMs are providing some substantial time savings for many tasks people do.
- oooyay 2y ago
  There's two curious things happening at once that are not often talked about together: there are RTO mandates and tech companies are also dropping stock compensation without a replacement. Whether that lends credence to the authors theory or not is an open question, but it's another financial motivator.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bpm140 2y ago
The author keeps mentioning capital-E “Elites” and never names one or even defines what that means. My Spidey senses go off whenever someone uses an undefined label to describe a sweeping societal change. And, yes, it is all about real estate.
benjaminwootton 2y ago
I run my own business. I have zero motivation or incentive to help out people who own office blocks.
- sulandor 2y ago
  granted thou, most businesses need some sort of real estate and getting it from someone you already know is often preferred
- bravetraveler 2y ago
  Did you also dangle your next headquarter location in front of them? No? Might be a connection. Or rather, no connection. You don't have the same economic development incentives. That much is obvious. I could be more rude and press the 'so you think you're part of the elite?' angle, but I don't want to belittle your success.
klodolph 2y ago
I’ve heard this argument before and I don’t buy it. By that, I mean it may be true (that people want to prop up real estate prices), but I don’t think that this is enough of an explanation. If it were just about real estate, then Amazon would not be calling for 5 days a week return-to-office. I don’t think real estate interests are powerful enough to push Amazon around and I don’t think they’re entrenched enough in Amazon leadership to make it happen. As an alternative contributing factor, I suggest that Amazon wants employee attrition, and five day return-to-office is a convenient tool for that. One of the things that makes return-to-office such a convenient tool for employee attrition is that it’s a deniable tool. In cities like New York, it’s pretty clear that commercial real estate interests are in bed with the city government. I just don’t think that real estate has enough power to push through a return-to-office agenda at the scale that we’re seeing. Don’t get me wrong, I think commercial real estate interests have a ton of influence. I just don’t think it’s enough influence to explain RTO at this scale (but it can explain RTO policies in some specific cases).
- Log_out_ 2y ago
  Its about socio pathic no life loners with power wanting company,the company be damned.
- ronjakoi 2y ago
  Can you please explain what you mean by employee attrition to a non-native English speaker?
  - vertalexgraph 2y ago
    They're hoping a bunch of people quit (instead of complying with the mandate) to reduce headcount/the negative PR of layoffs.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - shwouchk 2y ago
    I think he means that some companies would like employees to voluntarily quit
ipv6ipv4 2y ago
[flagged]
- dvt 2y ago
  At least don't be lazy with your research. Divisive or not, she's[1] been writing for years. The idea that her writing is Russian disinformation is ridiculous. [1] https://x.com/JessicaLexicus https://x.com/JessicaLexicus
- zmgsabst 2y ago
  > It’s garbage meant to sow divisiveness. You mean like random unfounded fear-mongering about Russians?
- starspangled 2y ago
  Maybe they are traitorous Putin assets, if that would help lower standards of proof and be more palatable bogeyman for you.
- rob74 2y ago
  Right, counter a conspiracy theory with another conspiracy theory...
- Lewton 2y ago
  It's a substack blog, there's no trickery going on. It just means she used https://jessicawildfire.substack.com/ https://jessicawildfire.substack.com/ until now
- ttctciyf 2y ago
  > It’s some kind of influence effort. Maybe even Russian. Russians are amateurs compared to proper "influence efforts" like, for example https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/r/rk-ro/ross-clark/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/r/rk-ro/ross-clark/ : > Why are the BBC weather maps on fire? Is it none too subtle climate propaganda? > Electric cars are a Trojan horse for the destruction of driving > Net zero now threatens our national security > The heat pump fantasy is dead – only our blinkered elites haven’t noticed > The Brexit revolt is spreading across Europe – and the Brussels elites are terrified Oh, yes, and: > Lazy Britain now needs to be paid to get back to the office - Slashing Friday travel fares is the wrong way to fix our entitled, WFH, unproductive workforce All these are real "thought pieces" in a real British broadsheet, if you can believe it...
noobermin 2y ago
I understand how one can talk about the "elite" or capitalist class as a single entity, but employers pay corporate leases and landlords are two different entities (although not always, of course), thus the motivation for employers to issue RTO is not as clear. I can imagine other scenarios though (like sunk-cost for the employer in the middle of a lease, or not being able to break a lease without huge expense), but barring that, the "control" explanation makes more sense here for these employers. Sure, city governments and landlords want the employees to return, but occupying corporate offices downtown doesn't make as much sense as a reason for employers beyond them wanting to control their workers more closely.
- Melchizedek 2y ago
  Blackrock is on the board of both these entities.
senko 2y ago
How does leased buildings being empty or full in any way affect the financial burden on the lessees (companies mandating RTO)? If anything, those companies could sublet and/or negotiate the cost, lowering the downside, instead of doing something they know (according to the article) won't move the needle. The math doesn't add up.
hello_computer 2y ago
It really isn't that complicated. "Elites" pay their house slaves house slave wages because they want them in the house, not out in the field, shucking and jiving with the field slaves. If the house slaves manage to preserve their incomes under "field" costs of living, it won't be long before they have enough savings to buy their freedom. That simply won't do.
jimjimjim 2y ago
I tend to dismiss automatically anything said by someone when the include the word 'elites' in a sentence.
justsomehnguy 2y ago
> It's about debt on zombie office towers. No. It's about total loss of the control of the one of the most effective productivity measurements those 'elites' ever had: BiC/h. Zombie towers too, but the middle management don't (and won't ever) get any profit from the sqaure meters, so they eagerly support their top-level executives specifically because they no longer can imitate the vigorous activity of managing people and projects and with WFH it's became way too obvious. They literally don't know what they subordinates do. PS: Butt-in-Chair, of course.
- gleenn 2y ago
  What's the "/h"?
  - dtdynasty 2y ago
    Per Hour
nisarg2 2y ago
This is backwards. When covid started, the executives were saying that working from home will not affect productivity. They said zoom and slack are the new way to work. Some even said that productivity increased when people didn't have to commute. Some said people were working longer hours than earlier. Now, all of a sudden, they realize their blunder. While the workers are happy, they are not. So now they will try to convince us that we are not productive enough, or that some of us are slacking, or that we have stopped innovating, or another 50 reasons for which going to the office will help us. More recently, they have realized that they are not fooling anyone. So now they are threatening lower pay or layoffs for those who refuse to come back.
raister 2y ago
TL;DR: "It’s about real estate." Real.
- erie 2y ago
  I think it is about the idiotic old mentality of control, sense of 'ownership' and distrust.
mjbale116 2y ago
Here's the thing: The reasoning behind the work from office mandate does not concern me; nor I will attempt to rationalize it. I will not return to office, and I will organize with colleagues to make sure our interests are protected. See you in the strike.
- otabdeveloper4 2y ago
  Won't work, because those who work remotely are already striking every day, by slacking off. From management's perspective your strike changes nothing. (Yes, yes, I know you personally are a conscientious worker with a stellar work ethic and would never slack off on the company's dime, but let's be real here and recognize the population averages.)
  - meiraleal 2y ago
    These slackers you mention will slack in the office too while the productive remote workers (that would be the productive ones at the office) will leave for the competition.
- RestlessMind 2y ago
  Out of curiosity, which country do you live in where software engineers can strike.
cyclonereef 2y ago
The idea that there's a global cabal of ultra-wealthy real-estate owners who have globally conspired to control people to go back to the office holds about as much weight in my mind as the idea that there's a global cabal of ultra-wealthy who have globally conspired to create a virus to control the population. Covid was an outlier event, and the outcomes that occurred as a result of it will revert to the mean over time.
- zmgsabst 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias What you’re describing is a cognitive bias. https://centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/tabletop-exercises/event-201-pandemic-tabletop-exercise https://centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/tabletop-exerci... You can believe COVID happened however you want — but it’s documented reality that the elites practiced exactly the authoritarian response they used mere months before the virus outbreak. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Reset https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Reset Similarly, those same elites wrote a book about how they want to use the authoritarian measures they implemented during COVID as a gateway to imposing their vision on society. Again, documented reality.
  - ElFitz 2y ago
    > it’s documented reality that the elites practiced exactly the authoritarian response they used mere months before the virus outbreak. Isn’t that point of training and exercises? To be ready and have a plan when the situation you trained for actually occurs? If you read the John Hopkins’ Center for Health Security link you provided, they did similar exercises in 2018 ("Clade X"), 2005 ("Atlantic Storm"), and 2001 ("Dark Winter"). To me this doesn’t prove that there is a conspiracy of any kind. It simply and reassuringly shows that some of those who’s responsibility it is to be prepared for and help us collectively get through these kind of situations are actually taking their jobs somewhat seriously. I guess you could call that a conspiracy. A conspiracy to do their jobs well.
- rob74 2y ago
  Aside from conspiracy theories, remote working was already a thing before Covid, Covid just accelerated the process and showed to everyone that it worked. IMHO what we are now seeing is a "counter-revolution", an attempt to get the genie back into the bottle, and those are mostly doomed to fail...
Saline9515 2y ago
I didn't think of Jeff Bezos as a benevolent community member of "the elites", doing everything he can, for free, to save the real estate portfolio of his unlucky landlord friends. The truth is that after the initial movement toward remote work, we are starting to see the secondary effects. For instance, starting as a junior in a remote job can be really daunting, and you're sure to never make any personal connection with anyone. Being stonewalled by a non-cooperative senior coworker in a slack chat while you start your job is a very stressful experience, I can tell you. Remote also allows some slack if you don't enforce a very tight and intrusive management. See the countless stories about people holding two jobs at the same time.
- n_ary 2y ago
  I do not think that you need to be around to make connections. I have had colleagues who were at office once every blue moon but everyone in the office knew them and invited them everywhere. And I also know of people who sit on opposite desks for years and only have greetings and coffee chit-chats when forced to. Anyone with good people skills will break any barriers to connect and build a network of influence regardless of their expertise level. Anyone with communication issues or extremely introverted will have more difficulties to connect however, not that they would be doing great in person. If non-cooperative senior coworkers are stonewalling, then it is a cultural or personal issues that needs to be managed, not the mode of work. Starting a new job is always stressful, as any major change is difficult for human to adapt and needs time. > See the countless stories about people holding two jobs at the same time. This needs to stop, there were few reports, not countless. A few bad apples does not generalize the orchard. Also, if the pay is decent and living costs are affordable, no one needs to hold two jobs. If someone is holding two jobs remotely, it mostly means they are in "bulls!!t" job where they are not utilized to adequate levels and the symptoms of low output is not correctly noticed.
  - Saline9515 2y ago
    All of your posts supposes that companies are managed and composed of perfectly balanced and reasonable people. The truth is that other employees may have personal issues, too much work, lack of will to let go some moat, and so on. Management usually doesn't care, especially if a junior is complaining. Especially in IT where workers aren't selected for their social skills. Remote lacks the casual interactions, at lunch or at the coffee machine. We are social animals and the lack of face-to-face contact reduces a lot the bonding, especially if you know that everything personal you write is recorded and can be read by the HR department. Will you tell about your divorce on a company Slack? I work remotely, I enjoy it most of the time, but I have seen the difficulties that emerge from it. And yes, people holding multiple jobs at the same time is common, I know several persons who do, or have done, this.
dmazzoni 2y ago
I don't understand the logic behind this argument. Yes, some people made a bet on office real estate, and they're in a bad position right now. But those aren't the same people who are running businesses that use those offices. Why would most businesses care if real estate is propped up or not? How would increasing utilization of their buildings actually help them?
- ed_mercer 2y ago
  I guess the argument is that business leaders feel that their unused office space is a waste and/or they want to exercise more control as mentioned in other comments.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  Also wouldn't the most sensible strategy for these ruthless capitalist to let in entirely crash and then scoop it up at the bottom and then mandate RTO...
lovich 2y ago
There are a lot of arguments in this post about what does or does not constitute an “elite”. I don’t have an answer to that question but I am curious as to why my company and multiple companies my friends work at, are having events where they direct us to command our entire team to come into the office and then tell us the next day that there aren’t enough seats and some people should be told to stay home. It seems like a lot of companies want to eat their cake and have it too. I mean that in the sense that they want all their employees in the office but don’t want to pay for enough office space to make that possible. Hell, even the “golden path” schedule for my team or any other in the company doesn’t have set desks. Where we sit in office changes depending on the day because we have the seating capacity for 75% of the employees mandated to be in office, and hr is doing their best at accommodating this. I don’t think as many real estate firms would be looking at their offices sitting unused if corporations actually put their money where their mouth is when it comes to the return to office push
Kon5ole 2y ago
Real estate is just a small piece of the puzzle. The larger issue is that millions of people commuting daily is big business. It drives a large piece of demand for the auto industry and causes literally and figuratively tons of fuel to be consumed, just to take some obvious examples, but there are many many many more when you consider the chain reactions. Fuel is heavily taxed in most countries as well, so reducing the demand is a major hit to the core economy of many nations. This is a problem for everyone, not just the 1%. It might actually be a smaller problem for them than for most. This is not a conspiracy so much as it is a real problem that might cause problems for all of society unless its handled well. I think we need to elevate the discussion from the tiresome "It's all $category's fault because they're evil" to stand any chance. In this case as in so many others.
rob74 2y ago
> It especially benefits those of us on the spectrum, who need a quiet place where we can focus. I'm not on the spectrum (at least I've never been diagnosed, but many software developers have autistic tendencies, so who knows), but I also need a quiet place where I can focus. Funnily enough, many people who prefer working from the office also want all others to see how hard they are working, so they sit in the biggest open plan office and do calls all day long. Which is kind of at odds with other people's need to focus...
VirusNewbie 2y ago
This is maybe the stupidest article I've yet to see discussed on HN. This person thinks that multibillion dollar companies would be willing to sacrifice productivity to prop up the minor real estate assets they hold at the expense of their revenue and market cap?
- throwaway984393 2y ago
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- surgical_fire 2y ago
  I've seen multibilion dollar companies sacrifice productivity for even more retarded reasons.
DiscourseFan 2y ago
I prefer...both? I like having regular interactions with colleagues, I also like being able to have the time to be by myself at home and think. Perhaps there might be a 9 months on, 3 months off rotation, similarly to when you're in school. Spend the summer at home, working, thinking, reporting, maybe not as intensely as during the rest of the year, and then the colder months at the office collaborating, socializing. It would offer a nice break and a different kind of rhythm to life. Just a thought.
n_ary 2y ago
It kind of makes sense, if you consider real-estate. When remote is possible, people will no longer flock to expensive city centers or highly populated areas(except rich young singles with big pay grades seeking entertainment), which means less rent revenue for expensive commercial residential properties in such areas. Additionally, it also means less human traffic causing a ripple effect on the nearby businesses(less people at coffee shops, restaurants, bars, grocers etc). Also, as a self-preferred hybrid, I often go to office 3-4 days weekly and I see more goofing off and also get pulled into goofing off by peer pressure(c'mon, lets have a cup of coffee, you such work-a-holic, there is tomorrow blah blah), because people will definitely take a 30-60mt coffee break after each meeting, compounding to around ~1.5-2h (if we do not consider meetings as work) effective productivity. Lets take lunch break at office, first grouping with peers starts 15-20mt before everyone is ready and heading out to canteen or restaurant depending on the mood and then taking a long walk afterwards because everyone is sleepy after meal. Coming back, some will still feel sleepy and spend another 30mt on coffee sipping and gossips and then walk to a meeting. Compared to my work at home, I get decent min. 4h concentrated work. Additionally, I can focus on other stuff(debugging, reviews, experiments) in background without coming off as rude, while a meeting takes place that does not directly need my input immediately. Same meeting at office means I am either super bored and sleepy and others are mostly scrolling their FB/TikTok under the table while some random people get into nerdy arguments with another someone who suggested a bad design or a manager gets at the neck of another team's manager because they can't align on the coordination or responsibility distribution correctly. One benefit of in-person office days is, when I have a problem, I can walk up to my peer and get a clarification immeidately, while at home, they might set their status to do-not-disturb or would cite some other meetings where they are just sitting around listening to blah blah and tell me to come back later. Other than that, I do not see any immense benefits. The bonding/cultural stuff are anyways enforced by corporate team events and parties and what not and in EU, people do not often socialize personally with colleages outside work unless they were childhood friends or live in same house.
Kiro 2y ago
I think it's about productivity. Maybe not for you or me but if you're on TikTok you've probably seen the 'quiet vacations' trend, where kids learn how to fake working in their remote jobs. This is why we can't have nice things.
- EasyMark 2y ago
  Then their jobs didn’t mean anything to start then? What well run business doesn’t have metrics for their employees to meet ? If they are able to “vacation” and get their jobs done, what is the harm in that?
  - Kiro 2y ago
    I haven't worked in a single company where it wasn't easy to game any metrics. The only effective countermeasure to people slacking is having eyes watching them.
planb 2y ago
I just don't see a compelling argument here. So either a) The company that is ordering workers back to office owns the property - then they get absolutely no financial gains from it, because they need to pay for the office space in any case. or b) They rent the office. In this case, they get financial gains from renting less space and keeping workers at home.
- al_borland 2y ago
  I’m not sure how the accounting works, but I witness the head of facilities get short with a guy who was coming to the office, but was listed as a remote worker. She said he was costing them a desk in the office, while also the expense of being remote. This all sounded like nonsense to me. The office had dozens, if not hundreds of empty desks. He wasn’t taking anyone’s spot, the desk would otherwise sit empty. When someone first goes remote they are sent a bunch of stuff they don’t really need, but it’s a one time cost, not recurring. The laptop, the VPN, these are all things the employee has regardless of their remote status. I don’t know if she was making stuff up just to cause trouble, or if companies like to count per-seat expense in the office and at home.
anshulbhide 2y ago
Conspiracy theory - The reason why All In hosts and David Sacks is so negative on remote work is because he owns a ton of commercial real estate in SF :)
svara 2y ago
The borderline conspiracy theories on this are odd. If you're a manager, having a remote team is just harder. It can still work well with a certain type of people, people who are self directed and take pride in their work, but let's not fool ourselves into believing that's the only kind.
- vishalontheline 2y ago
  During quarantine, companies universally congratulated themselves and their staff on the boost in productivity that WFH enabled. The non self-directed types were still employed, and their productivity wasn't much better or worse, but I suspect that the self-directed team members were able to deliver even more than before.
  - MaxHoppersGhost 2y ago
    WFH productivity was probably high at first but then people realized they could move to Tahoe and hike/ski during the workday.
- al_borland 2y ago
  What I typically saw were people in the office doing a lot of nothing, because if they were in the office it was “working” just being there. Those working from home worked extra hard to try and prove they were actually working and making sure they were getting noticed.
deleted 2y ago
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throwaway984393 2y ago
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Animats 2y ago
Is a split appearing between companies which are saving money as their office leases expire and those who own property?
mzimbres 2y ago
Here is a low hanging fruit for governments around the world fighting low birth rates. Allow your people to work from home and they will start having more babies, simplle as that. I am my wife had to switch jobs just so we could work more from home, an unnecessary annoyance.
librasteve 2y ago
this is purely and simply about boss power
appendix-rock 2y ago
It’s kinda…interesting…to see the sort of people that think that this topic, and point of view, haven’t both been talked about to death. As with all things like this, the closer we get to the end of the line with this WFH discussion, the more utterly delusional (as to the originality of one’s POV) one has to be to choose to write yet another ‘think piece’ about it. As an effect of that, the more utterly braindead the opinions become. It also says a lot about modern online society. Instead of just being grumpy that something didn’t go your way, you need to form a worldview that makes The Other Guys out to be a cartoonishly villainous cabal, set to attack everything you hold dear. I’m a manager that prefers an in-person team. My reasons are related to productivity. Any commercial real estate that happens to be in my portfolio is separated from me by enough intermediate aggregators that I don’t spend an iota thinking about it. I actually work for an organisation whose senior leadership prefer remote work, so I’m not just a kiss-ass or anything. What does OP’s POV say about me? Do I not exist? Am I a paid shill? Honestly, and I say this as one, developers can be so bloody petulant.
- jamil7 2y ago
  You could also adjust your world view so that your employees or potential employees aren’t automatically considered petulant and grumpy based on their job title.
- aeze 2y ago
  Well, OP's POV is challenging you to reconcile your views with the information they presented. You say you prefer in-person for productivity reasons. TFA provides several sources indicating that working remote actually improves productivity. So, you can either disagree with the books/studies based on your anecdotal experiences or specific circumstances, in which case the rest of the article isn't relevant to you (and unless you consider yourself an 'elite', it probably never was). Or you can understand that you may have a flawed understanding of the relationship between remote work and productivity, leading to your current opinion on the matter. Or you could have another motive, which may or may not be one of the reasons presented in the article. Which one sounds the most likely to you?
throw892998 2y ago
[flagged]
- MaxHoppersGhost 2y ago
  Way to stereotype bald, overweight, and 50 year old+ people. This is an absurd post.
  - throw892998 2y ago
    I was going to mention one person in Hollywood that done it for 20 years. It is very hard to touch someone remotely ;)
ThinkBeat 2y ago
Nobody is forcing people to return to the office. If your employer mandates or requests people to work at the office and you find it unacceptable just quit. Then the market decide.
- munksbeer 2y ago
  > Then the market decide. The problem as always is power imbalance. Big corporates have a lot of mechanisms to skew the power to their side. Employees have much fewer. That is why employees eventually form unions, because then they can organise as a counter balance against the machinery of big corporates.
aloha2436 2y ago
I've been hearing about this for a while and many of the entities holding the bag are publicly traded, given there's plenty of mercenary firms out there able and willing to make a buck off of a catastrophe is there any reason to believe this isn't already priced in?
ThinkBeat 2y ago
Yes, commercial real estate is hurting but that is only one component of the bigger picture. Everyone in the surrounding area finds it desperately hard to make ends meet. The restaurants and cafes, the minimarts, the cleaners, janitors, security, various stores: clothing, bookshops, bakeries etc. All these people lose their jobs and for the small independent Stores where the owners have poured in their savings they lose all that, There are a lot of positives with working from home but dont forget about the wider repercussions,
- obscura 2y ago
  Yes, this is undoubtedly also a factor. Cities offer incentives to these large companies to open offices because they have an impact on their surroundings (see [1]). Workers support surrounding businesses; with the workers at home, these businesses must surely struggle. I can't imagine that the cities are not putting pressure on the large companies to bring workers back to the offices. [1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/heres-what-cities-are-offering-amazon-to-host-its-new-headquarters https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/heres-what...
- munksbeer 2y ago
  > There are a lot of positives with working from home but dont forget about the wider repercussions The issue I have with that type of argument is you're moralising on causing harm to one group of people to limit harm to another group. Who gets to decide how do do that? And then you could also moralise by saying the commuting causes huge amounts of pollutants which cause actual harm to people's health. And the stress of the commute. And the lack of family time. Etc.
- surgical_fire 2y ago
  Wouldn't opportunities arise to where people live instead? Things would just not be as concentrated in the areas surrounding commercial buildings.
- EasyMark 2y ago
  But why is that my problem? The restaurants that are closer to me will get more of my business as will closer businesses to me. Of course some will get hurt and some will get helped, that’s just economics.
anovikov 2y ago
My belief is that return to office is simply a tool to combat "overemployment" scam. They can't say that because "overemployment" is a crime, and claiming someone to be a criminal without proof can be a crime in itself, but this is what hangs in the air: they want people to work from the office to make sure they don't work full time in several places at same time.
JSDevOps 2y ago
The whole “remote work kills productivity” argument is outdated. Studies and real-world examples show the opposite: many people are more productive at home without the daily commute and office distractions. Plus, companies have tools and strategies to keep teams connected and engaged, so the idea that culture just dissolves over time isn’t based on reality. Culture isn’t about being in the same room; it’s about values, leadership, and communication. And remote companies are proving you can have a strong, action-driven culture without a traditional office. Also, let’s talk about this idea that employees’ good intentions aren't enough and that without the office, everything falls apart. This screams of a lack of trust in workers, which is not how modern businesses run. Successful companies trust their people, set clear expectations, and hold them accountable—whether they’re in the office or working from a coffee shop. It’s not about babysitting; it’s about outcomes. And this notion that computer science professionals won’t have bargaining power because of some glut is just not accurate. Sure, there are more CS grads, but the demand for skilled talent is still high, especially for top performers. Companies offering WFH flexibility are not just doing it out of kindness; it’s a strategic move to attract and retain talent in a competitive market. Restricting WFH options actually puts companies at a disadvantage. Bottom line: dismissing WFH as some kind of fad or liability ignores the reality that a ton of companies are making it work and even excelling. If anything, leaders worth their salt are those who adapt, trust their teams, and leverage the benefits of remote work, not those who cling to outdated office norms.
- jbverschoor 2y ago
  Really? A workplace with no proper desk, chair, lighting, multi screen setup, isolation from domestic distractions, crappy phone lines due to bad internet, the hurdle of contacting someone who used to sit next to you, and the impossibility of scribbling something on a whiteboard etc? Sure, remote work can be productive for certain work, and for certain people. But people underestimate the value of an office. Working in a coffee shop? Sure, if you have nothing to do but read some email. I love both. And I don’t mind a short commute, as it starts and ends your work, resulting in a better work-life balance
  - -mlv 2y ago
jldugger 2y ago
> They only care about one thing, forcing warm bodies back into office buildings to stop the commercial real estate apocalypse. If they can’t fill those zombie towers, they have to trim their budgets with stealth layoffs. The problem with these evil capitalist conspiracy theories is evidence: there should be evidence of this motivation _somewhere_. If you're a captain of industry, your compensation is driven by equity, which is in turn driven by shareholders' forecast of future earnings. So CEOs should be shouting their evil plans from the rooftops --anything you do but don't tell shareholders about might as well not have happened! Yet it doesn't come up in earnings calls, shareholder reports or at industry analyst reports. Probably because commercial real estate has no bearing on most company's valuations, and the ones it does impact are usually lightly staffed anyways, or couldn't really work from home in the first place. I don't think the "us" vs "elites" framing helps the analysis at all, as it's far too reductive and treats actors as monoliths. Instead it's probably better to use something like "us" versus "small businesses, politicians, tech CEOs, bankers, and real estate investors." (And maybe even split up "us": not every job can work from home!) Tech CEOs generally have no exposure to commercial real estate. But bankers do, and real estate investors definitely do. These firms tend to be local in scope, and more directly connected to local politicians. In that network of actors, tech companies are the mark. Politicians come after them with taxes and rules while carving out small business exemptions without which they would otherwise be voted out. And unlike the 'Jeff Bezos is worried about the long term viability of REITs' theory, this one has evidence, from politicians telling us their plans[1][2]. They campaign on these in-all-but-name writ-of-attainder taxes. How any individual tech company reacts can vary. So that's the causal path between commercial RE and tech as I see it and it doesn't look like a strong one. Maybe it's more prevalent in the east coast where the banking and legal sectors are more represented, but here on the west coast only one company is fully 5 days in office They are widely reputed to have the highest employee churn target among big tech, and WFH lowered churn across the board. [1]: https://www.sanjoseinside.com/opinion/op-ed-cupertino-city-council-should-hold-apple-accountable-through-employee-head-tax/ https://www.sanjoseinside.com/opinion/op-ed-cupertino-city-c... [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/technology/san-francisco-tech-free-lunch.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/technology/san-francisco-...
csomar 2y ago
This conspiracy theory needs to be substantiated either by 1. Showing that the "elites" are conspiring together or 2. That the same people who own the companies also do own the commercial real-estate. The problem with the first point is that why would a certain elite support their commercial real estate elites. This would suggest a certain transaction that the real-estate elite are not able to uphold since all of their income is coming from the companies. For the second point, it'll be much easier to point at the conflict of interest in corporations.
0xbadc0de5 2y ago
While I believe the real estate issue to be part of the reason, I think there's also an aspect of control involved. WFH leads to increased personal autonomy and agency. Having too many high agency individuals is bad for the existing hegemony.
kkfx 2y ago
Thanks to the author and those who post here to have well written down what I say for some years! I add a thing: giants NEED the city to keep their business, who use Uber in a spread area where parking is never an issue and we all have cars? Who use JustEat where there are few restaurants around? Who buy ready-made food if most WFH? Who buy shiny macrobugs also known as smartphones, smartwatches etc where we WFH and outside there is nature, not a big city? Who will implement the "in 2030 you'll own nothing", meaning that those who say that count to own anything and rent to anyone? That's more then mere real estate, the neofeudal economy of few big and powerful will fail to a new dynamic economy of SMEs and a free market. And yes those who are so big do not want to loose their status.
KoolKat23 2y ago
Definitely soft layoffs when it comes to Amazon. In their last earnings call, their AWS operating income increased $4billion to $9.3 billion, they said it's driven by "our continued focus on cost control, including a measured pace of hiring." That is a dramatic jump in returns, they will squeeze that until the gains from doing so are minimal, implying that specific cost base is then efficient.
sub7 2y ago
Cool conspiracy theory but no, remote workers are just less productive and companies that allow them are going to lose more
Narhem 2y ago
In America it's more like the wealthy people (typically older people who purchased homes when they were less expensive) disliking the idea of people spending time alone at home possibly deteriorating their mental health and providing mandated "normalization time" to socially adjust to what the office space defines as "normal". Case example: The weird YouTube parents who likely never spent time with other parents and got into child abuse scandals.
Chinwe888 2y ago
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275 points by kruuuder 2y ago

The problem with remote work is lack of accountability. Every worker bee buzzes that "just let me finish my work and be on my way", but that's just not how business works. Employers require either bossware to watch employees at home or they will watch them physically in the workplace. Take your pick.

fire_lake 2y ago

Ok, so which “elites” are holding real estate portfolios and creating these stories in the media bashing remote work? Who are they? I don’t think the world is so coordinated. Some people made a bad bet on real estate. Some other people want to write click bait pieces about lazy workers. Some other corporate leaders are scared that employees are goofing off outside the office (because productivity can’t be measured for most work).

dools 2y ago
"You don't need formal conspiracies when interest converge" - George Carlin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAFd4FdbJxs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAFd4FdbJxs
- winternewt 2y ago
  But also, there's Blackrock and Vanguard
- rdtsc 2y ago
  Right, they don’t all have to fly to a secret island. They can just read each other’s blog posts. They understand the hierarchy, too. The smaller companies usually parrot whatever the “prestigious” companies do. “Google is doing it, so should we”. It’s like the saying “Nobody got fired for picking IBM”. Same for these trends: nobody gets fired for mimicking Google or Amazon, even though it doesn’t make sense or is downright harmful to the company.
okamiueru 2y ago
I don't think it is far fetched tho. If you have a couple of millions to spare, you can easily set up a little think tank on how to effect certain changes. If you're willing to throw money at something, it requires minimal effort to coordinate. Your question as to who these people are, is still valid. So my objection is only to the extent that it being unknown doesn't mean it isn't likely.
- fire_lake 2y ago
  It would be a fantastic piece of investigative journalism if someone could link these stories to real estate investors somehow.
  - ustad 2y ago
    That would be neat but its very difficult to get someone to reveal who is paying for it behind the scenes. For example, this is the “survey” referenced in the article : https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/surveymonkey-research-workplace-culture-and-trends/ https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/surveymonkey-research... Now, who is “Sam Gutierrez” and how is he benefitting? Did he get compensated for it? Is he doing a public service? Is he licking ass? Do we care?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
DSingularity 2y ago
Or if maybe big landlord pay millions to consultants to fix this problem dollars get involved and you start seeings these PR pieces and these CEO edicts and so on.
lrem 2y ago
> I don’t think the world is so coordinated. I suggest you read or watch something about McKinsey.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  Oh please. The fact that McKinsey exists and has done plenty of shady shit doesn't mean they coordinate stuff like this. "People who believe in conspiracy theories have never been project managers."
  - drw85 2y ago
    It's a known fact that in many situations they already have both sides as customers and play them against each other. They absolutely have the power to move the chess pieces on both sides to guarantee an outcome.
  - computerthings 2y ago
    Calling stuff a "conspiracy theory" is just a thought-terminating cliché, and measuring the ability of humans to conspire [0] by equating that ability with stuff like Elvis still being alive isn't the attempt of an argument, it's just a slogan. [0] for which there is no communication between them required, or even conscious desire to "conspire" of single one of them. Consider how mobbing can go. People don't go "so, we're all racist, and this new guy is X, so I propose you are kinda sarcastic to him, and I forget to remind him of the thing tomorrow". It doesn't even happen that way in bad fiction, much less so in real life. Or put more positively, consider how teamwork and healthy group behavior can go, too. Most of it is simply done, gets fine-tuned by doing, and only some of it is thought, spoken or written about, usually in hindsight, often as a rationalization.
    - hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
      What is "cliché" is to offer up "McKinsey is this shady organization we all hate!" as some sort of evidence that they could conspire to organize this sort of thing. Getting back to the original thesis of the article, the author is stating that people making the decision on RTO (the "elites", another nebulous scary term...) are doing so because commercial real estate is so critical to their decision making process. If anyone can provide any evidence that McKinsey could orchestrate such a thing (with actual details), I'm all ears.
Log_out_ 2y ago
Sum of all people receiving pensions? aka Boom(AndBust)ers. Welcome to the Gerontonecropolis, where we work hard to be burried in similar luxury .
coffeefirst 2y ago
I would agree, but... Didn't we just see a giant string of mass layoffs in spite of excellent company performance for no apparent reason besides investors wanted them? I rarely believe in conspiracies, but mindless group-think is very real.
- klodolph 2y ago
  > no apparent reason besides investors wanted them? If investors want it, I don’t see why any other reason would be necessary, ever, to explain a company’s behavior.
  - hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
    Yeah, that's why the comment you are responding to makes no sense. "Investors believe they can get the same amount of revenue with fewer expenses" - is that supposed to be some sort of "group think"??? Not to mention that the proposition of "for no apparent reason" is total BS to begin with. There was a ton of over-hiring during the pandemic for an expected long-term change in consumer demand that never materialized. Plus, lots of people just fundamentally don't understand how rising interest rates make many projects uneconomic. If your company is chugging along making, say, 4% return on capital, that may be fine in the ZIRP era, but when treasuries are paying north of 5% it means it makes more economic sense to close down the company and put your cash into government bonds. That's a bit of an oversimplification but not by much. Rising interest rates fundamentally mean there is a higher bar for getting ROI.
jaggederest 2y ago
It's all the people you'd expect, some purpose-built REITs, big investment firms and private equity, Blackrock, Blackstone and other wealth management, the larger investment banks and the commercial mortgage paper owners are also directly invested (double dipping just like we saw in 2008, where banks would buy mortgages and also leverage those mortgages with derivatives) Many of them are some of the companies that wax lyrical about remote work being bad and are often featured in articles. Submarine PR is absolutely rampant alongside "native advertising".
- dvt 2y ago
  It's so crazy to me how 2008 was barely a decade-and-a-half ago, and people already forgot how much of a coordinated, organized, and pseudo-fraudulent shitshow the CDO merry-go-round was. Loans were given out, rating agencies were being bought, and everyone was skimming off the top until the music stopped. Are we really pretending it can't happen again?
- erwald 2y ago
  Do you have any evidence to back these claims up? (genuinely curious)
  - jaggederest 2y ago
    You can look at who owns what in their portfolios, none of this is especially private information. They publish it all online. I literally just googled "who owns the most commercial real estate" and "commercial real estate bond ownership amounts" and things like that. It's not subtle, companies tout their ownership percentages and REITs list their investors.
    - erwald 2y ago
      I meant evidence of them campaigning, or financing/instigating campaigns, against remote work, thereby influencing decisions of companies to implement "back to work" policies. ETA: I agree that you did not say this was happening in your original comment, but it seems to me your comment implied that these companies were actually influencing major decisions (since that's the topic of the OP).
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
JimDabell 2y ago
> Ok, so which “elites” are holding real estate portfolios and creating these stories in the media bashing remote work? Who are they? It’s not just that. The article talks about “landlords who buy up trophy office buildings”, but fails to draw the connecting line to the managers who demand RTO. The managers aren’t the landlords but the article seems to treat them as one single “elites” entity. How can the landlords demand RTO? Where is the financial incentive for the managers to RTO? There’s a story here when Amazon gets tax breaks, for instance. But that doesn’t generalise to RTO mandates everywhere; it’s the exception rather than the rule.
hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
Exactly, these articles always just make me face palm because the authors never manage a cogent argument about who is making the actual RTO decisions and who cares about commercial real estate values. It's much easier just to chalk it up to the nebulous and scary "elites" and then the authors don't have to do any actual research. For one, look at the expenses of some of the large tech companies that often make the front page here on HN due to their RTO plans. Real estate is a relatively teeny portion (salaries are obviously the biggest). Point being, no sane CEO would demand RTO to "prop up commercial real estate" if they thought it would be a net negative for their actual business long term, precisely because their concerns about real estate values are so far down on their list of priorities.
- jaggederest 2y ago
  If you're a C-level at a Fortune 50 company, some massive percentage of your personal assets, if they're invested in the stock market or private equity, are in commercial real estate. There's no mystery here. People with assets want those assets to remain valuable, and act directly to reinforce it. This is why we don't let athletes bet on their own games. > Point being, no sane CEO would demand RTO to "prop up commercial real estate" if they thought it would be a net negative for their actual business long term, precisely because their concerns about real estate values are so far down on their list of priorities. What if they thought it didn't make any difference, or was mildly net positive to the short term value of their shares? Like, say, 2% increased value through voluntary attrition over the next 2 years, followed by 10% reduced value? And it propped up their portfolios? Is that really so far fetched? We see companies making a lot more questionable decisions in pursuit of quarterly numbers.
  - chii 2y ago
    > act directly to reinforce it. any real evidence of this will be easily evidence for a breach in fiduciary duty of the ceo towards the shareholders. RTO can be seen as costing more money, and likely reduce productivity, force attrition (of the best employees), etc.
    - 2y ago
defrost 2y ago
> I don’t think the world is so coordinated. The "think tanks" that are pre staffed and fully capable of churning out and placing 3x major long form articles per week that are pro or con {Subject X} (and an additional few that fence sit and are "just asking questions") already exist and have been about since at least Nine out of Ten Doctors Recommend Smoking. You know, 5+ decades ago. The "elites" that are losing money in {Domain X} simply have to question their circle, get a line on a half decent agency or three and hire them to pitch for the thought changes that will move money back towards {X}. Job done.
- erwald 2y ago
  Can you link some think tank pieces arguing against remote work? I tried looking but couldn't find any. I found a few things but clearly none of these are part of an anti remote work effort: an AEI interview https://www.aei.org/workforce-development/the-future-of-remote-work-highlights-from-my-conversation-with-nicholas-bloom/ https://www.aei.org/workforce-development/the-future-of-remo... which seems pretty balanced overall (and doesn't take a prescriptive position) an AEI piece https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/the-trade-offs-of-remote-work-building-a-more-resilient-workplace-for-the-post-covid-19-world/ https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/the-trade-offs-... which seems pretty balanced too a Heritage piece (from early in Covid) https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/labor-policy-covid-19-and-beyond-recommendations-get-americans-back-work https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/labor-policy-... that seems mostly bullish on remote work (but mostly focuses on other issues, like labor rights) a McKinsey report (also from fairly early in Covid) https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/whats-next-for-remote-work-an-analysis-of-2000-tasks-800-jobs-and-nine-countries https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/wh... which is mostly descriptive and also seems pretty balanced a Cato piece https://www.cato.org/commentary/remote-work-here-stay-mostly-better https://www.cato.org/commentary/remote-work-here-stay-mostly... which argues in favor of remote work
  - defrost 2y ago
    > Can you link some think tank pieces arguing against remote work? That's not the argument I made in my comment. I simply noted that if anyone wanted to hire a group to argue for (or against) remote work then such groups already exist and have done for decades. If there's a coordinated press placing of "back to work" articles then the starting point would be all the articles that make that case (or talk about that subject) and look for authors, their bio's, whether these are staff writer pieces (and if so whether they heavily quote "research shows" vague sources), opinion pieces, etc. The hardest to spot and most common is staff writers who cover all manner of things (no obvious bias) who are 90% copy pasta'ing unacknowledged "press releases" "media statements" handed to them on a plate by the Institute for Lazy Reporting. US work from home isn't an area of any interest to me and I have no particular awareness of any of the US writing on the subject. I'm an Australian that's largely worked remote (but not always from home) since the mid 1980s, largely for transnational resource companies. Part of my professional career did involve tracing and sourcing released information intended to sway opinion, but that was all related to mineral and energy resources.
XorNot 2y ago
The world doesn't have to be coordinated. People mistake the fact that it's easier to selfishly gain from chaos for conspiracy: what you see is a result of every man for himself thinking, combined with their being little downside to seeding a narrative and seeing if it sticks.
endgame 2y ago
Lobby groups like the Property Council of Australia were extremely supportive when the public service in New South Wales (a state of Australia) started forcing RTO: https://www.realestatebusiness.com.au/commercial/28416-nsw-s-return-to-office-directive-set-to-impact-property-and-people https://www.realestatebusiness.com.au/commercial/28416-nsw-s... ; https://www.governmentnews.com.au/nsw-public-servants-ordered-back-to-the-office/ https://www.governmentnews.com.au/nsw-public-servants-ordere...
esolyt 2y ago
Wealthy people are in the same social circles, of course they keep hearing these concerns about commercial real estate. They don't have to formally coordinate because they share the same class interests. You could even argue part of this coordination happens subconsciously. Of course, not all wealthy people invested in commercial real estate. But they still have an interest in preserving the existing economic system. They certainly don't want a domino effect.
hshshshsvsv 2y ago
If you have billions of dollars in real estate losses and think can offset the losses by driving some anti remote work stories in media, I don't see why rich people would not do this. Also you think planting stories needs coordinated work across media. It doesn't. Read more about it.
mitthrowaway2 2y ago
I can't answer this definitively; I doubt anyone can, but I can suggest at least two possible mechanisms that don't require a shadowy cabal of elite conspirators. These don't require anything other than people acting in accordance with incentives that they already have. I'm sure it's not hard to find more. Mechanism 1: Those S&P 500 shares that you own through Vanguard and BlackRock index funds, you don't actually control the voting rights to them. Vanguard and BlackRock do. They have coordinated voting power and a big voice in the C-suite of many large corporations. I do think that execs will listen when they make a suggestion, and it's in their interests that the value of assets under management stays high, because that's what determines their pay. Mechanism 2: C-suite comp is tied to stock price, often through options. Well, as it happens, asset markets are tightly interrelated, and high valuations are a result of leverage. Strangely enough, a dollar invested in real estate can also be a dollar invested in Amazon (even if it's not Amazon's real estate). When asset valuations are high, their owners can borrow against those assets and use that money to bid for other assets, raising the price of everything together. In this process new money is essentially created ex nihilo and increases the price of assets. Conversely, when asset prices start deflating, that can trigger a sell-off of other assets, and this money doesn't simply change hands, it disappears along with the leverage that created it. A pop in commercial real estate valuations can mean that many investment funds which own Amazon will have to sell them off at fire-sale prices to cover a margin call. If you're an exec, this wouldn't be a good thing to happen before your equity compensation package vests.
Lio 2y ago
Well here in the UK Lord Sugar has vocally complained about people working from home (whilst doing so himself). He's well know to have made most of his money in commercial property and has said he wants to protect that. If a billionaire, lord of the realm, TV celebrity doesn't count as "elite" I don't know who does. I can't really think of a bigger hypocrite that that. https://fortune.com/europe/2024/02/05/british-billionaire-lord-sugar-remote-work-morale-learning-the-apprentice/ https://fortune.com/europe/2024/02/05/british-billionaire-lo...
cess11 2y ago
It's not exactly coordinated. Powerful businesspeople usually own real estate, it's great for financing new ventures and so on, and they have habits. They go to clubs, golf courses, rather exclusive hunting trips and so on, where they meet other people with power in business. And they talk, speculate on the future and develop a community. A community where they go looking for contacts when they need something, like a public affairs firm for pushing political buttons, or a real estate investment to put a big payout into, or whatever. If you are in this environment and fuck around you'll make enemies. People won't recommend you as a public affairs customer, won't tip you off on good investment opportunities, might start to talk shit about you behind your back. Undermining the value of real estate can make these networks and communities a serious hazard to your business. And undermining the value of office estate means you undermine the really tasty cash cow in real estate, residential properties within commuting distance. Enforcing commutes to offices means that people will pay a premium to shorten the commute.
JeremyNT 2y ago
> I don’t think the world is so coordinated. Some people made a bad bet on real estate. Some other people want to write click bait pieces about lazy workers. Some other corporate leaders are scared that employees are goofing off outside the office (because productivity can’t be measured for most work). Right, I think there's pretty clearly a combination of factors at play and it's difficult to untangle them (adding one factor you didn't mention, soft layoffs). I'm incredibly skeptical of any attempt to quantify "productivity" with this granularity, and this is especially true as technological advances over the last couple of years like LLMs are providing some substantial time savings for many tasks people do.
oooyay 2y ago
There's two curious things happening at once that are not often talked about together: there are RTO mandates and tech companies are also dropping stock compensation without a replacement. Whether that lends credence to the authors theory or not is an open question, but it's another financial motivator.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

bpm140 2y ago

The author keeps mentioning capital-E “Elites” and never names one or even defines what that means. My Spidey senses go off whenever someone uses an undefined label to describe a sweeping societal change. And, yes, it is all about real estate.

benjaminwootton 2y ago

I run my own business. I have zero motivation or incentive to help out people who own office blocks.

sulandor 2y ago
granted thou, most businesses need some sort of real estate and getting it from someone you already know is often preferred
bravetraveler 2y ago
Did you also dangle your next headquarter location in front of them? No? Might be a connection. Or rather, no connection. You don't have the same economic development incentives. That much is obvious. I could be more rude and press the 'so you think you're part of the elite?' angle, but I don't want to belittle your success.

klodolph 2y ago

I’ve heard this argument before and I don’t buy it. By that, I mean it may be true (that people want to prop up real estate prices), but I don’t think that this is enough of an explanation. If it were just about real estate, then Amazon would not be calling for 5 days a week return-to-office. I don’t think real estate interests are powerful enough to push Amazon around and I don’t think they’re entrenched enough in Amazon leadership to make it happen. As an alternative contributing factor, I suggest that Amazon wants employee attrition, and five day return-to-office is a convenient tool for that. One of the things that makes return-to-office such a convenient tool for employee attrition is that it’s a deniable tool. In cities like New York, it’s pretty clear that commercial real estate interests are in bed with the city government. I just don’t think that real estate has enough power to push through a return-to-office agenda at the scale that we’re seeing. Don’t get me wrong, I think commercial real estate interests have a ton of influence. I just don’t think it’s enough influence to explain RTO at this scale (but it can explain RTO policies in some specific cases).

Log_out_ 2y ago
Its about socio pathic no life loners with power wanting company,the company be damned.
ronjakoi 2y ago
Can you please explain what you mean by employee attrition to a non-native English speaker?
- vertalexgraph 2y ago
  They're hoping a bunch of people quit (instead of complying with the mandate) to reduce headcount/the negative PR of layoffs.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- shwouchk 2y ago
  I think he means that some companies would like employees to voluntarily quit

ipv6ipv4 2y ago

[flagged]

dvt 2y ago
At least don't be lazy with your research. Divisive or not, she's[1] been writing for years. The idea that her writing is Russian disinformation is ridiculous. [1] https://x.com/JessicaLexicus https://x.com/JessicaLexicus
zmgsabst 2y ago
> It’s garbage meant to sow divisiveness. You mean like random unfounded fear-mongering about Russians?
starspangled 2y ago
Maybe they are traitorous Putin assets, if that would help lower standards of proof and be more palatable bogeyman for you.
rob74 2y ago
Right, counter a conspiracy theory with another conspiracy theory...
Lewton 2y ago
It's a substack blog, there's no trickery going on. It just means she used https://jessicawildfire.substack.com/ https://jessicawildfire.substack.com/ until now
ttctciyf 2y ago
> It’s some kind of influence effort. Maybe even Russian. Russians are amateurs compared to proper "influence efforts" like, for example https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/r/rk-ro/ross-clark/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/r/rk-ro/ross-clark/ : > Why are the BBC weather maps on fire? Is it none too subtle climate propaganda? > Electric cars are a Trojan horse for the destruction of driving > Net zero now threatens our national security > The heat pump fantasy is dead – only our blinkered elites haven’t noticed > The Brexit revolt is spreading across Europe – and the Brussels elites are terrified Oh, yes, and: > Lazy Britain now needs to be paid to get back to the office - Slashing Friday travel fares is the wrong way to fix our entitled, WFH, unproductive workforce All these are real "thought pieces" in a real British broadsheet, if you can believe it...

noobermin 2y ago

I understand how one can talk about the "elite" or capitalist class as a single entity, but employers pay corporate leases and landlords are two different entities (although not always, of course), thus the motivation for employers to issue RTO is not as clear. I can imagine other scenarios though (like sunk-cost for the employer in the middle of a lease, or not being able to break a lease without huge expense), but barring that, the "control" explanation makes more sense here for these employers. Sure, city governments and landlords want the employees to return, but occupying corporate offices downtown doesn't make as much sense as a reason for employers beyond them wanting to control their workers more closely.

Melchizedek 2y ago
Blackrock is on the board of both these entities.

senko 2y ago

How does leased buildings being empty or full in any way affect the financial burden on the lessees (companies mandating RTO)? If anything, those companies could sublet and/or negotiate the cost, lowering the downside, instead of doing something they know (according to the article) won't move the needle. The math doesn't add up.

hello_computer 2y ago

It really isn't that complicated. "Elites" pay their house slaves house slave wages because they want them in the house, not out in the field, shucking and jiving with the field slaves. If the house slaves manage to preserve their incomes under "field" costs of living, it won't be long before they have enough savings to buy their freedom. That simply won't do.

jimjimjim 2y ago

I tend to dismiss automatically anything said by someone when the include the word 'elites' in a sentence.

justsomehnguy 2y ago

> It's about debt on zombie office towers. No. It's about total loss of the control of the one of the most effective productivity measurements those 'elites' ever had: BiC/h. Zombie towers too, but the middle management don't (and won't ever) get any profit from the sqaure meters, so they eagerly support their top-level executives specifically because they no longer can imitate the vigorous activity of managing people and projects and with WFH it's became way too obvious. They literally don't know what they subordinates do. PS: Butt-in-Chair, of course.

gleenn 2y ago
What's the "/h"?
- dtdynasty 2y ago
  Per Hour

nisarg2 2y ago

This is backwards. When covid started, the executives were saying that working from home will not affect productivity. They said zoom and slack are the new way to work. Some even said that productivity increased when people didn't have to commute. Some said people were working longer hours than earlier. Now, all of a sudden, they realize their blunder. While the workers are happy, they are not. So now they will try to convince us that we are not productive enough, or that some of us are slacking, or that we have stopped innovating, or another 50 reasons for which going to the office will help us. More recently, they have realized that they are not fooling anyone. So now they are threatening lower pay or layoffs for those who refuse to come back.

raister 2y ago

TL;DR: "It’s about real estate." Real.

erie 2y ago
I think it is about the idiotic old mentality of control, sense of 'ownership' and distrust.

mjbale116 2y ago

Here's the thing: The reasoning behind the work from office mandate does not concern me; nor I will attempt to rationalize it. I will not return to office, and I will organize with colleagues to make sure our interests are protected. See you in the strike.

otabdeveloper4 2y ago
Won't work, because those who work remotely are already striking every day, by slacking off. From management's perspective your strike changes nothing. (Yes, yes, I know you personally are a conscientious worker with a stellar work ethic and would never slack off on the company's dime, but let's be real here and recognize the population averages.)
- meiraleal 2y ago
  These slackers you mention will slack in the office too while the productive remote workers (that would be the productive ones at the office) will leave for the competition.
RestlessMind 2y ago
Out of curiosity, which country do you live in where software engineers can strike.

cyclonereef 2y ago

The idea that there's a global cabal of ultra-wealthy real-estate owners who have globally conspired to control people to go back to the office holds about as much weight in my mind as the idea that there's a global cabal of ultra-wealthy who have globally conspired to create a virus to control the population. Covid was an outlier event, and the outcomes that occurred as a result of it will revert to the mean over time.

zmgsabst 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias What you’re describing is a cognitive bias. https://centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/tabletop-exercises/event-201-pandemic-tabletop-exercise https://centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/tabletop-exerci... You can believe COVID happened however you want — but it’s documented reality that the elites practiced exactly the authoritarian response they used mere months before the virus outbreak. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Reset https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Reset Similarly, those same elites wrote a book about how they want to use the authoritarian measures they implemented during COVID as a gateway to imposing their vision on society. Again, documented reality.
- ElFitz 2y ago
  > it’s documented reality that the elites practiced exactly the authoritarian response they used mere months before the virus outbreak. Isn’t that point of training and exercises? To be ready and have a plan when the situation you trained for actually occurs? If you read the John Hopkins’ Center for Health Security link you provided, they did similar exercises in 2018 ("Clade X"), 2005 ("Atlantic Storm"), and 2001 ("Dark Winter"). To me this doesn’t prove that there is a conspiracy of any kind. It simply and reassuringly shows that some of those who’s responsibility it is to be prepared for and help us collectively get through these kind of situations are actually taking their jobs somewhat seriously. I guess you could call that a conspiracy. A conspiracy to do their jobs well.
rob74 2y ago
Aside from conspiracy theories, remote working was already a thing before Covid, Covid just accelerated the process and showed to everyone that it worked. IMHO what we are now seeing is a "counter-revolution", an attempt to get the genie back into the bottle, and those are mostly doomed to fail...

Saline9515 2y ago

I didn't think of Jeff Bezos as a benevolent community member of "the elites", doing everything he can, for free, to save the real estate portfolio of his unlucky landlord friends. The truth is that after the initial movement toward remote work, we are starting to see the secondary effects. For instance, starting as a junior in a remote job can be really daunting, and you're sure to never make any personal connection with anyone. Being stonewalled by a non-cooperative senior coworker in a slack chat while you start your job is a very stressful experience, I can tell you. Remote also allows some slack if you don't enforce a very tight and intrusive management. See the countless stories about people holding two jobs at the same time.

n_ary 2y ago
I do not think that you need to be around to make connections. I have had colleagues who were at office once every blue moon but everyone in the office knew them and invited them everywhere. And I also know of people who sit on opposite desks for years and only have greetings and coffee chit-chats when forced to. Anyone with good people skills will break any barriers to connect and build a network of influence regardless of their expertise level. Anyone with communication issues or extremely introverted will have more difficulties to connect however, not that they would be doing great in person. If non-cooperative senior coworkers are stonewalling, then it is a cultural or personal issues that needs to be managed, not the mode of work. Starting a new job is always stressful, as any major change is difficult for human to adapt and needs time. > See the countless stories about people holding two jobs at the same time. This needs to stop, there were few reports, not countless. A few bad apples does not generalize the orchard. Also, if the pay is decent and living costs are affordable, no one needs to hold two jobs. If someone is holding two jobs remotely, it mostly means they are in "bulls!!t" job where they are not utilized to adequate levels and the symptoms of low output is not correctly noticed.
- Saline9515 2y ago
  All of your posts supposes that companies are managed and composed of perfectly balanced and reasonable people. The truth is that other employees may have personal issues, too much work, lack of will to let go some moat, and so on. Management usually doesn't care, especially if a junior is complaining. Especially in IT where workers aren't selected for their social skills. Remote lacks the casual interactions, at lunch or at the coffee machine. We are social animals and the lack of face-to-face contact reduces a lot the bonding, especially if you know that everything personal you write is recorded and can be read by the HR department. Will you tell about your divorce on a company Slack? I work remotely, I enjoy it most of the time, but I have seen the difficulties that emerge from it. And yes, people holding multiple jobs at the same time is common, I know several persons who do, or have done, this.

dmazzoni 2y ago

I don't understand the logic behind this argument. Yes, some people made a bet on office real estate, and they're in a bad position right now. But those aren't the same people who are running businesses that use those offices. Why would most businesses care if real estate is propped up or not? How would increasing utilization of their buildings actually help them?

ed_mercer 2y ago
I guess the argument is that business leaders feel that their unused office space is a waste and/or they want to exercise more control as mentioned in other comments.
Ekaros 2y ago
Also wouldn't the most sensible strategy for these ruthless capitalist to let in entirely crash and then scoop it up at the bottom and then mandate RTO...

lovich 2y ago

There are a lot of arguments in this post about what does or does not constitute an “elite”. I don’t have an answer to that question but I am curious as to why my company and multiple companies my friends work at, are having events where they direct us to command our entire team to come into the office and then tell us the next day that there aren’t enough seats and some people should be told to stay home. It seems like a lot of companies want to eat their cake and have it too. I mean that in the sense that they want all their employees in the office but don’t want to pay for enough office space to make that possible. Hell, even the “golden path” schedule for my team or any other in the company doesn’t have set desks. Where we sit in office changes depending on the day because we have the seating capacity for 75% of the employees mandated to be in office, and hr is doing their best at accommodating this. I don’t think as many real estate firms would be looking at their offices sitting unused if corporations actually put their money where their mouth is when it comes to the return to office push

Kon5ole 2y ago

Real estate is just a small piece of the puzzle. The larger issue is that millions of people commuting daily is big business. It drives a large piece of demand for the auto industry and causes literally and figuratively tons of fuel to be consumed, just to take some obvious examples, but there are many many many more when you consider the chain reactions. Fuel is heavily taxed in most countries as well, so reducing the demand is a major hit to the core economy of many nations. This is a problem for everyone, not just the 1%. It might actually be a smaller problem for them than for most. This is not a conspiracy so much as it is a real problem that might cause problems for all of society unless its handled well. I think we need to elevate the discussion from the tiresome "It's all $category's fault because they're evil" to stand any chance. In this case as in so many others.

rob74 2y ago

> It especially benefits those of us on the spectrum, who need a quiet place where we can focus. I'm not on the spectrum (at least I've never been diagnosed, but many software developers have autistic tendencies, so who knows), but I also need a quiet place where I can focus. Funnily enough, many people who prefer working from the office also want all others to see how hard they are working, so they sit in the biggest open plan office and do calls all day long. Which is kind of at odds with other people's need to focus...

VirusNewbie 2y ago

This is maybe the stupidest article I've yet to see discussed on HN. This person thinks that multibillion dollar companies would be willing to sacrifice productivity to prop up the minor real estate assets they hold at the expense of their revenue and market cap?

throwaway984393 2y ago
[dead]
surgical_fire 2y ago
I've seen multibilion dollar companies sacrifice productivity for even more retarded reasons.

DiscourseFan 2y ago

I prefer...both? I like having regular interactions with colleagues, I also like being able to have the time to be by myself at home and think. Perhaps there might be a 9 months on, 3 months off rotation, similarly to when you're in school. Spend the summer at home, working, thinking, reporting, maybe not as intensely as during the rest of the year, and then the colder months at the office collaborating, socializing. It would offer a nice break and a different kind of rhythm to life. Just a thought.

n_ary 2y ago

It kind of makes sense, if you consider real-estate. When remote is possible, people will no longer flock to expensive city centers or highly populated areas(except rich young singles with big pay grades seeking entertainment), which means less rent revenue for expensive commercial residential properties in such areas. Additionally, it also means less human traffic causing a ripple effect on the nearby businesses(less people at coffee shops, restaurants, bars, grocers etc). Also, as a self-preferred hybrid, I often go to office 3-4 days weekly and I see more goofing off and also get pulled into goofing off by peer pressure(c'mon, lets have a cup of coffee, you such work-a-holic, there is tomorrow blah blah), because people will definitely take a 30-60mt coffee break after each meeting, compounding to around ~1.5-2h (if we do not consider meetings as work) effective productivity. Lets take lunch break at office, first grouping with peers starts 15-20mt before everyone is ready and heading out to canteen or restaurant depending on the mood and then taking a long walk afterwards because everyone is sleepy after meal. Coming back, some will still feel sleepy and spend another 30mt on coffee sipping and gossips and then walk to a meeting. Compared to my work at home, I get decent min. 4h concentrated work. Additionally, I can focus on other stuff(debugging, reviews, experiments) in background without coming off as rude, while a meeting takes place that does not directly need my input immediately. Same meeting at office means I am either super bored and sleepy and others are mostly scrolling their FB/TikTok under the table while some random people get into nerdy arguments with another someone who suggested a bad design or a manager gets at the neck of another team's manager because they can't align on the coordination or responsibility distribution correctly. One benefit of in-person office days is, when I have a problem, I can walk up to my peer and get a clarification immeidately, while at home, they might set their status to do-not-disturb or would cite some other meetings where they are just sitting around listening to blah blah and tell me to come back later. Other than that, I do not see any immense benefits. The bonding/cultural stuff are anyways enforced by corporate team events and parties and what not and in EU, people do not often socialize personally with colleages outside work unless they were childhood friends or live in same house.

Kiro 2y ago

I think it's about productivity. Maybe not for you or me but if you're on TikTok you've probably seen the 'quiet vacations' trend, where kids learn how to fake working in their remote jobs. This is why we can't have nice things.

EasyMark 2y ago
Then their jobs didn’t mean anything to start then? What well run business doesn’t have metrics for their employees to meet ? If they are able to “vacation” and get their jobs done, what is the harm in that?
- Kiro 2y ago
  I haven't worked in a single company where it wasn't easy to game any metrics. The only effective countermeasure to people slacking is having eyes watching them.

planb 2y ago

I just don't see a compelling argument here. So either a) The company that is ordering workers back to office owns the property - then they get absolutely no financial gains from it, because they need to pay for the office space in any case. or b) They rent the office. In this case, they get financial gains from renting less space and keeping workers at home.

al_borland 2y ago
I’m not sure how the accounting works, but I witness the head of facilities get short with a guy who was coming to the office, but was listed as a remote worker. She said he was costing them a desk in the office, while also the expense of being remote. This all sounded like nonsense to me. The office had dozens, if not hundreds of empty desks. He wasn’t taking anyone’s spot, the desk would otherwise sit empty. When someone first goes remote they are sent a bunch of stuff they don’t really need, but it’s a one time cost, not recurring. The laptop, the VPN, these are all things the employee has regardless of their remote status. I don’t know if she was making stuff up just to cause trouble, or if companies like to count per-seat expense in the office and at home.

anshulbhide 2y ago

Conspiracy theory - The reason why All In hosts and David Sacks is so negative on remote work is because he owns a ton of commercial real estate in SF :)

svara 2y ago

The borderline conspiracy theories on this are odd. If you're a manager, having a remote team is just harder. It can still work well with a certain type of people, people who are self directed and take pride in their work, but let's not fool ourselves into believing that's the only kind.

vishalontheline 2y ago
During quarantine, companies universally congratulated themselves and their staff on the boost in productivity that WFH enabled. The non self-directed types were still employed, and their productivity wasn't much better or worse, but I suspect that the self-directed team members were able to deliver even more than before.
- MaxHoppersGhost 2y ago
  WFH productivity was probably high at first but then people realized they could move to Tahoe and hike/ski during the workday.
al_borland 2y ago
What I typically saw were people in the office doing a lot of nothing, because if they were in the office it was “working” just being there. Those working from home worked extra hard to try and prove they were actually working and making sure they were getting noticed.

deleted 2y ago

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throwaway984393 2y ago

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Animats 2y ago

Is a split appearing between companies which are saving money as their office leases expire and those who own property?

mzimbres 2y ago

Here is a low hanging fruit for governments around the world fighting low birth rates. Allow your people to work from home and they will start having more babies, simplle as that. I am my wife had to switch jobs just so we could work more from home, an unnecessary annoyance.

librasteve 2y ago

this is purely and simply about boss power

appendix-rock 2y ago

It’s kinda…interesting…to see the sort of people that think that this topic, and point of view, haven’t both been talked about to death. As with all things like this, the closer we get to the end of the line with this WFH discussion, the more utterly delusional (as to the originality of one’s POV) one has to be to choose to write yet another ‘think piece’ about it. As an effect of that, the more utterly braindead the opinions become. It also says a lot about modern online society. Instead of just being grumpy that something didn’t go your way, you need to form a worldview that makes The Other Guys out to be a cartoonishly villainous cabal, set to attack everything you hold dear. I’m a manager that prefers an in-person team. My reasons are related to productivity. Any commercial real estate that happens to be in my portfolio is separated from me by enough intermediate aggregators that I don’t spend an iota thinking about it. I actually work for an organisation whose senior leadership prefer remote work, so I’m not just a kiss-ass or anything. What does OP’s POV say about me? Do I not exist? Am I a paid shill? Honestly, and I say this as one, developers can be so bloody petulant.

jamil7 2y ago
You could also adjust your world view so that your employees or potential employees aren’t automatically considered petulant and grumpy based on their job title.
aeze 2y ago
Well, OP's POV is challenging you to reconcile your views with the information they presented. You say you prefer in-person for productivity reasons. TFA provides several sources indicating that working remote actually improves productivity. So, you can either disagree with the books/studies based on your anecdotal experiences or specific circumstances, in which case the rest of the article isn't relevant to you (and unless you consider yourself an 'elite', it probably never was). Or you can understand that you may have a flawed understanding of the relationship between remote work and productivity, leading to your current opinion on the matter. Or you could have another motive, which may or may not be one of the reasons presented in the article. Which one sounds the most likely to you?

throw892998 2y ago

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MaxHoppersGhost 2y ago
Way to stereotype bald, overweight, and 50 year old+ people. This is an absurd post.
- throw892998 2y ago
  I was going to mention one person in Hollywood that done it for 20 years. It is very hard to touch someone remotely ;)

ThinkBeat 2y ago

Nobody is forcing people to return to the office. If your employer mandates or requests people to work at the office and you find it unacceptable just quit. Then the market decide.

munksbeer 2y ago
> Then the market decide. The problem as always is power imbalance. Big corporates have a lot of mechanisms to skew the power to their side. Employees have much fewer. That is why employees eventually form unions, because then they can organise as a counter balance against the machinery of big corporates.

aloha2436 2y ago

I've been hearing about this for a while and many of the entities holding the bag are publicly traded, given there's plenty of mercenary firms out there able and willing to make a buck off of a catastrophe is there any reason to believe this isn't already priced in?

ThinkBeat 2y ago

Yes, commercial real estate is hurting but that is only one component of the bigger picture. Everyone in the surrounding area finds it desperately hard to make ends meet. The restaurants and cafes, the minimarts, the cleaners, janitors, security, various stores: clothing, bookshops, bakeries etc. All these people lose their jobs and for the small independent Stores where the owners have poured in their savings they lose all that, There are a lot of positives with working from home but dont forget about the wider repercussions,

obscura 2y ago
Yes, this is undoubtedly also a factor. Cities offer incentives to these large companies to open offices because they have an impact on their surroundings (see [1]). Workers support surrounding businesses; with the workers at home, these businesses must surely struggle. I can't imagine that the cities are not putting pressure on the large companies to bring workers back to the offices. [1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/heres-what-cities-are-offering-amazon-to-host-its-new-headquarters https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/heres-what...
munksbeer 2y ago
> There are a lot of positives with working from home but dont forget about the wider repercussions The issue I have with that type of argument is you're moralising on causing harm to one group of people to limit harm to another group. Who gets to decide how do do that? And then you could also moralise by saying the commuting causes huge amounts of pollutants which cause actual harm to people's health. And the stress of the commute. And the lack of family time. Etc.
surgical_fire 2y ago
Wouldn't opportunities arise to where people live instead? Things would just not be as concentrated in the areas surrounding commercial buildings.
EasyMark 2y ago
But why is that my problem? The restaurants that are closer to me will get more of my business as will closer businesses to me. Of course some will get hurt and some will get helped, that’s just economics.

anovikov 2y ago

My belief is that return to office is simply a tool to combat "overemployment" scam. They can't say that because "overemployment" is a crime, and claiming someone to be a criminal without proof can be a crime in itself, but this is what hangs in the air: they want people to work from the office to make sure they don't work full time in several places at same time.

JSDevOps 2y ago

The whole “remote work kills productivity” argument is outdated. Studies and real-world examples show the opposite: many people are more productive at home without the daily commute and office distractions. Plus, companies have tools and strategies to keep teams connected and engaged, so the idea that culture just dissolves over time isn’t based on reality. Culture isn’t about being in the same room; it’s about values, leadership, and communication. And remote companies are proving you can have a strong, action-driven culture without a traditional office. Also, let’s talk about this idea that employees’ good intentions aren't enough and that without the office, everything falls apart. This screams of a lack of trust in workers, which is not how modern businesses run. Successful companies trust their people, set clear expectations, and hold them accountable—whether they’re in the office or working from a coffee shop. It’s not about babysitting; it’s about outcomes. And this notion that computer science professionals won’t have bargaining power because of some glut is just not accurate. Sure, there are more CS grads, but the demand for skilled talent is still high, especially for top performers. Companies offering WFH flexibility are not just doing it out of kindness; it’s a strategic move to attract and retain talent in a competitive market. Restricting WFH options actually puts companies at a disadvantage. Bottom line: dismissing WFH as some kind of fad or liability ignores the reality that a ton of companies are making it work and even excelling. If anything, leaders worth their salt are those who adapt, trust their teams, and leverage the benefits of remote work, not those who cling to outdated office norms.

jbverschoor 2y ago
Really? A workplace with no proper desk, chair, lighting, multi screen setup, isolation from domestic distractions, crappy phone lines due to bad internet, the hurdle of contacting someone who used to sit next to you, and the impossibility of scribbling something on a whiteboard etc? Sure, remote work can be productive for certain work, and for certain people. But people underestimate the value of an office. Working in a coffee shop? Sure, if you have nothing to do but read some email. I love both. And I don’t mind a short commute, as it starts and ends your work, resulting in a better work-life balance
- -mlv 2y ago

jldugger 2y ago

> They only care about one thing, forcing warm bodies back into office buildings to stop the commercial real estate apocalypse. If they can’t fill those zombie towers, they have to trim their budgets with stealth layoffs. The problem with these evil capitalist conspiracy theories is evidence: there should be evidence of this motivation _somewhere_. If you're a captain of industry, your compensation is driven by equity, which is in turn driven by shareholders' forecast of future earnings. So CEOs should be shouting their evil plans from the rooftops --anything you do but don't tell shareholders about might as well not have happened! Yet it doesn't come up in earnings calls, shareholder reports or at industry analyst reports. Probably because commercial real estate has no bearing on most company's valuations, and the ones it does impact are usually lightly staffed anyways, or couldn't really work from home in the first place. I don't think the "us" vs "elites" framing helps the analysis at all, as it's far too reductive and treats actors as monoliths. Instead it's probably better to use something like "us" versus "small businesses, politicians, tech CEOs, bankers, and real estate investors." (And maybe even split up "us": not every job can work from home!) Tech CEOs generally have no exposure to commercial real estate. But bankers do, and real estate investors definitely do. These firms tend to be local in scope, and more directly connected to local politicians. In that network of actors, tech companies are the mark. Politicians come after them with taxes and rules while carving out small business exemptions without which they would otherwise be voted out. And unlike the 'Jeff Bezos is worried about the long term viability of REITs' theory, this one has evidence, from politicians telling us their plans[1][2]. They campaign on these in-all-but-name writ-of-attainder taxes. How any individual tech company reacts can vary. So that's the causal path between commercial RE and tech as I see it and it doesn't look like a strong one. Maybe it's more prevalent in the east coast where the banking and legal sectors are more represented, but here on the west coast only one company is fully 5 days in office They are widely reputed to have the highest employee churn target among big tech, and WFH lowered churn across the board. [1]: https://www.sanjoseinside.com/opinion/op-ed-cupertino-city-council-should-hold-apple-accountable-through-employee-head-tax/ https://www.sanjoseinside.com/opinion/op-ed-cupertino-city-c... [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/technology/san-francisco-tech-free-lunch.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/technology/san-francisco-...

csomar 2y ago

This conspiracy theory needs to be substantiated either by 1. Showing that the "elites" are conspiring together or 2. That the same people who own the companies also do own the commercial real-estate. The problem with the first point is that why would a certain elite support their commercial real estate elites. This would suggest a certain transaction that the real-estate elite are not able to uphold since all of their income is coming from the companies. For the second point, it'll be much easier to point at the conflict of interest in corporations.

0xbadc0de5 2y ago

While I believe the real estate issue to be part of the reason, I think there's also an aspect of control involved. WFH leads to increased personal autonomy and agency. Having too many high agency individuals is bad for the existing hegemony.

kkfx 2y ago

Thanks to the author and those who post here to have well written down what I say for some years! I add a thing: giants NEED the city to keep their business, who use Uber in a spread area where parking is never an issue and we all have cars? Who use JustEat where there are few restaurants around? Who buy ready-made food if most WFH? Who buy shiny macrobugs also known as smartphones, smartwatches etc where we WFH and outside there is nature, not a big city? Who will implement the "in 2030 you'll own nothing", meaning that those who say that count to own anything and rent to anyone? That's more then mere real estate, the neofeudal economy of few big and powerful will fail to a new dynamic economy of SMEs and a free market. And yes those who are so big do not want to loose their status.

KoolKat23 2y ago

Definitely soft layoffs when it comes to Amazon. In their last earnings call, their AWS operating income increased $4billion to $9.3 billion, they said it's driven by "our continued focus on cost control, including a measured pace of hiring." That is a dramatic jump in returns, they will squeeze that until the gains from doing so are minimal, implying that specific cost base is then efficient.

sub7 2y ago

Cool conspiracy theory but no, remote workers are just less productive and companies that allow them are going to lose more

Narhem 2y ago

In America it's more like the wealthy people (typically older people who purchased homes when they were less expensive) disliking the idea of people spending time alone at home possibly deteriorating their mental health and providing mandated "normalization time" to socially adjust to what the office space defines as "normal". Case example: The weird YouTube parents who likely never spent time with other parents and got into child abuse scandals.

Chinwe888 2y ago

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