Why Bosses Won't Let Offices Die 

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As a manager myself, I loathe the idea of going into the office. It cuts down our hiring pool, it's like a 2 hour drive in non stop traffic, and I trust my employees to get their jobs done. We have a quick 15 minute sync in the morning to just talk about what we've been doing and if they need help, etc. I honestly don't even care if they decide to just not work for 4~5 hours during a day as long as the work they committed to gets done.

Watching this instead of working

Fun Fact: When I worked in a call center, yeah, I had constant work all throughout the day, but once I got promoted to doing Quality Assurance, I would routinely get my work done in 2-3 hours. That left 5-6 hours of time where I litterally could do nothing but stare at the walls until my shift ended. At least with WFH, I could finish my work in 2-3 hours and then get on with my fucking life.

There's only one thing missing from this video, and that's the fact that despite now being empty, corporations and bosses are still paying for the office buildings. The push for folks to go back to office spaces is partially due to corporations being in leasing contracts and see the buildings being unused as unutilized cost. Rather than adapting, they are stuck in their ways.

But Wisecrack, if we let offices die, who would those middle management folks feel superior to then?!

Having to trust employees is not something companies want to do. But they want your full loyalty???

It about control. They want people in offices where they can loom over them. Even though I believe studies have come out recently showing that people working at home are more effective than they were in offices. Also just the add. There were many large companies and even individuals that own large commercial office spaces that would take a bath on their properties if they don’t actually have butts in seats. So they’ve been pushing hard to get people back into offices around the country.

It's ultimately a power thing. It's about being superior to those working under them. Working in an office is the equivalent of adult baby sitting. I've worked from home and I got more done in three hours not having my manager breathing down my neck all the time.

Just think it's funny that at the dawn of industrialisation, the owners saw people less than committed to grinding repetitive work for minimal pay while they watched said owners became vastly wealthy, and went "oh, these people must just be lazy"

I just left my last job because they made us all come back into the office. WFH during the pandemic was the best thing that ever happened to me. My new job is hybrid and that's all I really needed. I just can't deal with the endless petty office politics and forced communal fun 5 days a week for the rest of my life. And that's not to mention the time and money I save on the commute.

A big push to get people back to work is likely coming from local governments as well. Previously people had to commute, spend money at stores and resturaunts close to where they work bringing sales tax dollars to the local government. The bigger cash cow for the local government are property taxes and many cities are covered in buildings that are zoned only for office use. Once businesses realize that they don't need to rent physical space from office landlords, the landlord wont be able to pay property taxes, and the city will lose the tax revenue needed to pay for all the roads and infrastructure. The majority of "office park" cities are glorified suburbs and are very car dependent and would collapse without the revenue from offices due to the large cost of maintaining suburb type infrastructure.

Back in the office this week and it’s the dumbest thing ever. I’m on conference calls with other offices in our organization that haven’t returned to the office.

When bosses say they think of their workers like Family, I always assume they mean it in the ancient Roman sense of the word. The Latin term "Familia" did not refer to individuals bound by blood or affection. It instead meant the full household staff of domestic slaves (Famuli) that were not forced to do backbreaking manual labor in the fields or mines but lived under the same roof as the master and were at his beck and call 24/7/365.

I've been called out by manament for saying, "I work to live not live to work" despite being one of their best workers. Corporations just want control of every single aspect of their workers. If it was up to them, they would pay us as much dirt as possible. If we work from home, it's away from them not the work.

I worked from home for the first 3 months of the pandemic. It was amazing. I naturally woke up at 5AM. So, I could take my time, have a coffee, eat some breakfast, read, and generally relax in the morning, then sign into my computer at 7AM, an hour before I usually got to work, because I didn't have a 90 minute commute. I'd usually eat my lunch at my computer, so I wouldn't bother taking a "lunch break." That's not even getting into how much less I spent on lunch or how much healthier I ate. Then I'd close my computer at 3:30. At which point, my wife & I would take a walk, watch a movie, chat, or generally be together. In the before times, I had to be at work until 4:30 (meetings, meetings, meetings!!!), which would often run to 5 or 5:30. Then I had a 120 minute commute home, because the buses & trains didn't link up as well at night. So I used to get home at 6:30 or 7:30, just in time to grab a bite to eat and go to bed, often without seeing my wife, or with only spending a brief amount of time with her. While going back into the office wasn't the only thing that caused it, it definitely contributed to me eventually leaving that job and beginning a new phase of my life (where I am able to continue to work from home).

Man, none of those "positives" describe my experience. I hated pretending to care about my coworkers, office culture sucks, I work exactly 40 hours a week, ignore overtime when offered, and go out of my way to be unreachable off the clock.

I'm in IT and we had our best year in terms of customer satisfaction last year, when we spent the whole year being remote. Then they decided we needed to be in the office again 3 days a week and things are sliding down again. It's funny you posted this on a Friday. I spent the last hour at work trying to look busy because I finished my assignments as much as I could and there wasn't anything new until Monday. If I was working at home, it would be one thing but at the office, there were appearances to keep. I wished I asked my boss if I could have left early but he was here too and it would have felt awkward.

I’m really hoping for a hybrid model long term. I like interacting with my colleagues in person, and having in person meetings etc. that being said, 5 days a week isn’t necessary for everybody in the office. Ideally, you have to come in on, say, Tuesday and Wednesday; other days are up to you.

I've been working from home since March 2020 and I can't see myself ever working in an office again. It's just too convenient.

Once my workplace was forced by COVID to move everything online, they started having us send a survey to every customer we'd dealt with virtually, asking them how they felt about doing things virtually vs in-person. The overwhelming majority answered that they preferred handling their business with us virtually, since driving downtown and finding parking is a huge hassle, and expensive. We also discovered that a number of our business processes worked far better by handling them online than they ever did in-person. Despite this, the powers-that-be decided to switch as much as could be managed back to being in-person ASAP. Even when it was decided that the business processes that work better online would remain online, the employees who handled the virtual activity have to do so from their desks at the office downtown.

I think there's an element of "If people can work from home, then supervisors and 'middle managers' become less important (maybe even irrelevant)"

I think it mostly comes down to the control, domination, and power that comes with being physically around the employees.

I worked in an office until March 2020. I expected to be back in the office by May 2020, and that never happened. Now I work remote full time with no expectation to ever go into an office. It's great. I work 9-5. No one breathes down my neck, no one interrupts me. I can take breaks when I need it, and since I do software development, taking a break now and then allows my brain to relax and tackle the problem again a bit more fresh ten minutes later. I have no commute, I buy gas less than once a month now. I can literally wake up half an hour before I have to log in with enough time to shower instead of waking up 2 hours earlier to make time for breakfast, shower, morning routine, etc. And I don't have to wear pants.

Corporations have never had your best interests in mind. For them, it has always been about earning as much profit as possible, while paying their workers as little as they can get away with.

Hugely depends on the nature of your work and your home situation. I know some folks prefer the nice setup they have in their offices and the physical change of environment to create that boundary between work life and personal. Especially if you have a tiny cramped apartment. Some work also just benefits with physical interaction, we sketch in person to explain designs or concepts and that’s just difficult to do in a zoom meeting. But if your work is more data input, where you are doing it really does not matter.

"They were much taller than you thought." I just met a bunch of new co-workers in person. One of the new kids looked 12 on his screen. In person, he looks like a 6'4" 12 year old.

Working in the graphic design industry, I've noticed that middle and upper management love to have designers in the office so that they can interject their ideas at any given moment, check in on and "see" the design process and status of projects ahead of the usual weekly update meetings, and "bounce around a few ideas." As a smaller company, sometimes, they also like to show off the department to investors / business partners and walk them through the office... because that's totally not a potential breach of confidentialities if they see something they're not supposed to... It's a pretty big productivity loss, and sometimes a decent creativity engine. Every time they start spewing out ideas it gets awkward because then the team / designer has to internally guess, "was that a suggestion, or a /*suggestion*/?" It seems like most upper management is very "Guess Culture" oriented. One good thing is that there's been a few times where a sales manager checking in on relevant graphics and designs before the weekly update or submission caught that things were off-track and needed re-focusing. But that's happened maybe once every three months out of hundreds of interruptions.

I think work from home proved its potential. It's saving money and a lot of time. If we take only 2 hours for commuting and the regular 1 hour launch break, that means 15 hours per week! Basically one entire day in which you can invest your time into the things that really matter. Given the fact my work can be done 100% remotely and was done so properly for the past 2 years, proves to me there is no real reason to return to the office.

Considering that I'm introverted and I barely speak to anyone in person even when I go into the office post-pandemic, I think a hybrid situation is best.

I work in open office for four yrs it was constant burn out I actually like checking into the office when most people are working from home I have the set up and the infrastructure without people heckling so I just put in a shift and get done and go home If we constantly work from home it's hard to draw boundaries

I like work from home in Germany. I don't have a commute but my hours have not changed and I am not expected to be available at all hours. I am pretty sure I legally have the right to just turn all of that stuff off outside working hours. It even looks like work from home is going to be extended beyond covid to save energy because of the war in Ukraine.

Imagine skyscrapers being multi-purposed. every floor is used for a different form of entertainment and dining. The entire place is like a mall for employees who work from home to take part in when the days are long. That would be a great way to gain rent for the place as well as save on real estate for the surrounding area to build more affordable housing.

I'm in one of the few teams at my employment that has still managed to stay working from home for now since my boss is one of the few that actually wants to stay working from home. However the continued pressure from higher up looks like it'll eventually force us into a hybrid schedule. Before Covid, most teams consisted of a majority of staff working in the same location with a few members scattered across the country working remotely. We needed to make sure remote workers could call into any scheduled meetings but it was never particularly great for them. Although being on call, it would often come across as they were simply listening in, rather than being a participant in the meeting. It was often hard for them to hear what was being said as we talked to each other around a large table. They were always left out of in office chats and impromptu meetings. When we switched to work from home, everyone in the team was on equal footing. The remote workers were exactly the same as the staff we previously worked with in the office. Even members of other teams in who worked in different offices are seen as the same. Those impromptu meetings and random chats didn't decrease either, in fact there's probably more of that than ever, including cross team communication. We constantly call each other, invite other members into the conversations and make the effort to have team calls with no agenda where we can just talk to each other. It wastes so much less time or disrupt your flow as much since we no longer have to stop what we're doing and go to another room. There are so many metrics that our bosses can use to monitor our performance. From scrum meetings, to simply chatting with us (either casual or via performance reviews), to monitoring our Kanban boards and incident tracking systems etc... A manager has no need to see us in person to track our progress nor has any excuses for not knowing (if they actually do their job and get involved). There's been a couple of reasons put forth but so far I've not heard of a single good reason for a company wide requirement to return to work. The few I've heard are: Some staff are unable to work from home so this would create an unfair working environment: This is like arguing that a receptionist needs to wear steel cap boots because the builders have to. Different positions have different duties and requirements. You already require different things and have different arrangements for staff in different positions. It isn't unfair if you can provide good reasons for decisions and apply those decisions consistently. If a staff member has the job of greeting customers at a store, then sorry the reason they can't work from home is literally in their job description. It doesn't follow that everyone else need to meet the same requirements of another position's requirements. Some teams are not coping as well working from home: So... look into why that particular team isn't performing well and make the necessary changes for that team. Perhaps there are simple practices that other teams are doing that would solve these issues. I don't see what this has to do with any other team. It doesn't follow that everyone must return to work because one team isn't performing well. Some things are better in person, like on-boarding new staff: Sure, it is definitely easier and more comfortable for the new staff to be trained in person. This isn't an argument for everyone having to return to work though, this is an argument that certain situations may require going into work. There's no reason why this can't be arranged in a flexible manner. If you're bringing new staff into the team, organize a temporary schedule with some staff to come in to assist the new staff get up to speed until they are comfortable working from home.

I’m fairly certain that if my company ever says that we need to return to the office full time and can no longer work remotely it will be the proverbial straw that finally convinces me that it’s time to quit.

They are interested on bringing back the traditional office for everyone because of corporate culture BS. It's should be optional - to get back on the office or not. As a disabled person, honestly, I find my room much more accessible than an office crowded of people where, hm, ironically, I can't think straight therefore can't have any creative and nice ideas.

So my job is never really going to be a remote kinda job (I work in retail), but our corporate offices in California went to working from home for pandemic concerns. When things started to improve there was a big push from higher up corporate mouth pieces to get people back in the offices. I don't know how big the pushback was, but it was an ongoing point of discussion for months. Then, COVID numbers spiked again, and then it was out of the offices and back to home work. While this didn't directly affect me, I couldn't help but laugh at said corporate mouth pieces looking like tools (more so than usual) at this turn of events.

I’m probably in the minority here but I actually enjoy going into the office for work. Granted it helps that my current job is in a city with pretty good public transit and I planned ahead and consciously looked for a place to live in walking distance of said transit, not to mention the office itself is actually in the downtown area rather than some godforsaken soulless office park. All that being said, basically the entire point of my current role is to prepare me for entry into a PhD program in a couple years, and since most of my colleagues hold such degrees themselves from fairly prestigious institutions, these are definitely a handy bunch to have in one’s Rolodex and an unspoken rule is networking is the name of the game, as is research which granted is a more explicit goal. Personally I tend to struggle with communication, especially over text where my brain massively overthinks absolutely everything, which tends to happen a lot less when I can actually talk to the other person face to face, something that is a lot harder for me to make myself initiate remotely. I can safely say I have formed the beginnings of some really great connections just in the first few months back in, connections I would not have made, or at least not as strongly, had I not been in the office.

I actually prefered working in an office. It gives me structure. But, I also work in cubicle, I can cycle to work daily, my office is next to the central library and theatre, and I'm a civil engineer whose equipment is too cumbersome for home life. I'm also an advocate for the 4 day work week (30hr full time) and I'm perfectly fine with others working from home.

In my experience company culture is “this is what the CEO wants” its not collaborative its not “our” culture. Children have more input into their family culture( which is oft generational and not changing with every CEO contract renewal) than employees do. We just work to make our bosses happy tbh. Not to produce per se. But to make the face or warm body of the Co happy. 🤷🏾‍♀️

Wfh is great for people with social anxiety, like myself. Dealing with overly extroverted co-workers is just too much for me. I feel like I have to act like a different person when I'm around them because, apparently, if you're quiet, it means you're aloof.

Also remote work options are good for some Neurodivergent people. It allows these people to create the best environment that helps them work. Corporate spaces can easily cause overstimulation and burnout in Neurodivergent people.

"less pressure to look busy" That may be true for most, but my work mandated that we have to be on camera in a zoom meeting for the full 8.5 hours we work so we can see each other. (most of our work is done independently, at most 5% needs me to work with a co-worker)

I think this is one of the best videos that you guys have put out in a long time, well done!

these sociology of work videos are very good. keep em up!

I support mixed home and office work. Working from home has many advantages that we should continue to take advantage of but the social environment of meeting your coworkers has other advantages.

This is a great episode and I've been arguing about this since they moved be back in the office. Especially my job which deals with people all over the state I have no real need to work in an office because 90% of the people I work with is remote either way. But they just double down and now I work in the office all the time. What's more infuriating is that everything especially gas prices have shot up which is costing me more to do the same amount of work.

I am so glad that I work as a Software Developer for a tech company that trusts us to do our thing. The only regular meetings that we have are the 5 - 10 minute standups in the morning to see if anyone needs assistance and that is that. Sure we may have other meetings when needing to interface with other systems or speccing enhancements or new systems, but they are to the point and only as long as they need to be. I cannot imagine ever having to commute to an office again.

I’m glad someone made a video about this.

I worked in a consumer-facing nonprofit for several years - I took the job because I actually liked the social atmosphere and a lot of our regulars were legitimately nice people to be around. When the pandemic hit, I was offered two options: either figure out which part of my job I could do remotely, or else take an unpaid furlough but keep my health insurance. I was so scared, I was tempted to do the latter (I took the job for the nonprofit's mission and sense of community, not the money)... but then my supervisor pitched a fit and was all like, "No! M is an ESSENTIAL worker and they need to come into the office EVERY DAY of the lockdown!" Guess what they had me doing every day of the lockdown? Sitting ALONE in my office 75% of the time, answering emails and other busywork... with the bright florescent lights on to "look" even more "busy," which compounded heat along with our building's lack of air-conditioning... with the doors and windows closed (for "security") AND the "Closed" sign up... with crappy office chairs that were falling apart, but couldn't be replaced (because the Ergo Team got to work from home, the lucky bastards)... NOT working directly with our regulars (who were no doubt quarantining or isolating, but I had no way of checking because not all of them had reliable internet access)... spending 20% of each day listening to my supervisor waxing poetic about "returning to normal," bitching about masks, vowing they would "never" get the vaccine (at least until upper management forced them to), basically being their emotional tampon for EIGHTEEN MONTHS... and also feeling like a COMPLETE LOSER in our WEEKLY Zoom meetings (to make double-sure none of us were "slacking off" - especially the lucky bastards who got to work from home) because all of the consumer-facing stuff I used to feel good about doing and reporting on? Well, I can't do ANY of that anymore... and yet I STILL HAVE TO COME INTO THE FUCKING OFFICE ANYWAY... at the very least to keep the office tidy and be my supervisor's emotional tampon. I wanted to help the community, and be part of the solution, not part of the problem. So when I found out that the nonprofit had successfully applied for a PPP loan, only to blow it in 3 months on "administrative" costs (instead of, you know, OUR REGULARS?), that's when I decided to stop being my boss's emotional tampon. Never again. For anyone interested in finding jobs with better benefits and more stability, I highly recommend www.governmentjobs.com !!!

Excellent summary - 100% true. I’m in middle management of an engineering department in a big factory. I would add this: Work related: I would suggest that hands on/eyes on an actual physical object is worthwhile (go so far as to say priceless) - especially for new hires. You can’t design something properly that you’ve never seen. You gain invaluable experience talking to a machinist cutting metal chips at a 2 million dollar machine making the part you’re designing. I would add that being in plant is a much more enjoyable experience to run high end engineering apps. Yes , it works remotely, but let’s be honest, VPN sucks. Non work related… it is impossible to replicate being in the presence of another human being. This is really the reason to come to the office occasionally. To remind yourself and others that you exist in 3D and they exist in 3D. It’s the non work related stuff that ends up being the most work related.

This video spoke to my soul! ❤

Great vid! You're my favorite mainstreamers! It's about power. Corporate power is derived from "realness",a social perception that they provide "real careers for real adults". An equation of tangible goals,achieved in a "real world" context. Also,this equation is supposed to result in real cars,real houses and even real dinner dates at actual restaurants. An office job is far from the grandest dream people can imagine. But it is the peak of what most folks can really see themselves achieving. And that is why corporate structures are vying for rulership of this cerulean orb. Without that perception,they''re just a browser window. A closing tab. An illusion revealed.

I love working remote. Everything I need in one place (food, water, coffee), can't forget anything since it's all here already, NO COMMUTE (I buy gas like once or twice a month now), I can wear any comfortable clothes I want, no workplace distractions, if there's an emergency at the house with my baby I can help immediately, my PC is 20 times faster than my work iMac computer, and more. I don't work extra hours, the second it's past 6pm I'm done.

I like the mixed home/office format that I use. Solid 8-5 on Tu-Th M and F I put in the same hours, but tend to split it up more between 7 to 7 (with of course always making time for meetings) There are clear benefits to WFH... but it also does tend to make just quick discussions a bit harder and does make solid connections with newer employees nearly impossible. The mix is a good compromise.

Loved your stream yesterday! You should do a longform video about all the laws being passed and decisions being repealed and a philosophical view of what our options are

It's a difficult situation and I think there's plenty of room for compromise like a flex schedule where you can have the benefits of both. When I need to hunker down and just plow through a lot of work, working from home works wonders. For other tasks, going to the office really helps. It's often easier for me to brainstorm and come up with solutions to complex problems when I'm not at home. Everyone's situation is different, but I for one, am glad this shift is happening. People need (and deserve) to treated like people and the amount of job openings and people resigning to take other jobs are how they're fighting back.

Our office has worked almost 100% from home for the last two years. I think I had to come into the office twice in that period. They've been praising everyone about how things were still getting done and how good we all were. Now, the big bosses want us to come in at least two days a week. For what? Everyone won't be in the office at the same time so we will still need to do all our meetings online. There is hardly any personal interaction going on because the office is still 3/4 empty most days. Its just so pointless. 😒

Wisecrack: cities could invest in quality of life for their residents instead of handing out tax breaks to mega corps. Me: hehe, good one!

I worked at a tech startup where the CTO would say to everyone, "We're not a family. We're here to make money." The job still didn't treat people perfectly, but I appreciated the honesty.

I'm glad you mentioned the point about companies needing to do better at offsetting the costs of a WFH setup, because it *is* significant. Not just in raw money, but in the living space sacrifice. You're essentially giving up part of your living room and bedroom to your office, which is basically real estate cost you've offloaded from your employer out of your own pocket and should be compensated accordingly through more than a paltry one-time stipend, but an ongoing one, even to the point of assisting you upgrading to a new apartment/house with more rooms for you to have a separate, dedicated room/workspace to at least allow some semblance of a work/home dichotomy.

Honestly...Good, I don't want to interact with anyone at my job in person.

i like your take on this, i wonder if you'll talk about work/life balance and how it was tackled in severance? such a brilliant show

I'm moving to Ecuador and will work from there! Good vid with a healthy level of cynicism and hope

To an extent, certain professions need people in the office. As an engineer, the number of times I've come to a solution through a random conversation with a coworker are too numerous to count. Ignoring the amount of time I spend physically in a lab, the times everyone are in the office are still critical

When I worked from home, I just didn't know when to stop working. I also sometimes interpreted emails and chats like they were supposed to be offensive when they weren't. More productive? Maybe. But lack of interpersonal connection with people you work with really makes things toxic. As toxic as a crappy corporate culture. There's too many people DMing each other, talking crap about someone else during Zoom meetings. Also, for me, workspace and living space became inseparable, which is not great if you have a family that you should be eating dinner with at the same time, go to bed at the same time. I see permanent WFH working for unmarried singles moving forward, and there should definitely be WFH/hybrid option or flexible hours option for people who need it. But permanent, full-time WFH does not work for most people in the long run, IMO.

i love the interpretation of middle management as just the people that yelled at us to stop talking but evolved!! very amusing and somewhat accurate

I work in an open office environment with the option to work from home one day a week. It is ridiculous how much more productive, happy, and relaxed I am on my remote days. I love it so much that I’m currently working towards getting into a job where I can work remote full time. I’ll never work full time in an office again if I can help it.

Counter Argument: As someone who was working from home for 2 years I was NOT PRODUCTIVE AT ALL!! I was maybe working 6-8 hours per week, and probably should have gotten Fired, but because no one could see me playing Genshin Impact and latter Elden Ring during office hours I was able to get away with it. Almost all projects in my company had constant delays due to Covid, and I don't really believe the study that "people work better from Home". Sure some people do just as good work or better, but I think overall it is bad. Its also really hard to onboard new people without ever interacting with them in person. There's a lot of "tribal knowledge" about the company and project that's difficult to realize you don't know, until someone looks over your shoulder and says "there's a better way of doing that". I can also see the general Quality of products has gone down hill significantly during the Pandemic. From Cars being less fuel efficient and more expensive then earlier models, to games lacking proper soundtracks and voice overs, to software/hardware companies generally not producing as much new things as they usually do.

As fun as it is to think of the man, the company, your boss as some kind of evil corrupt entity that will force you back to work for their own gain, they aren't the once that aren't going to let offices die. I do a lot of consulting work, which can be 100% done remotely, however some of my clients have offered the ability to work out of their offices and by heavily working within their offices I have completely surpassed all my peers in knowledge, relationship building, work, and ultimately pay. Being in the office offers far more opportunities, than being remote and gives an added personal element to your work that isn't the same remote. I have people coming to me over my peers not because I'm any smarter, but because they know me, it's convenient. So my take on the current situation of most working from home vs offices, is if bosses let us choose that those established in their work will have the benefit of actually choosing, however those that wish to progress their careers will be forced back into the office because of their own desire to compete with their peers.

Great video!

I'm a software developer. While I love working from home, and recently switched to a fully remote job, nothing really beats brainstorming solutions with other people in the same room.

Wow I'm early :D

I literally JUST had an argument with my grandpa about this exact topic days ago. Thank you, now I can send this video to him and show his old ass how wrong he is.

A lot of my friends that work in a physical office missed the small conversations that would occur when moving around the physical space, they also miss the clearly defined boundaries of professional and personal life (that when they walk out of the office they can leave their paperwork and emails behind, but when working from home they can't). I, however, work as a tutor for a nonprofit organisation ... As such, I tend to work fairly flexibly because some of my work occurs at the company's office and some of the sessions I run takes place as outreach sessions away from the office - plus a lot of my paperwork and admin tasks occur at home, I also tend to use my own digital kit (as the company doesn't always have the money to provide me with digital equipment) ... Thus, I get to live my professional life as what I like to refer to as an "academic nomad" (in that my work is very academic in nature, i.e. teaching courses and learning about new areas of knowledge to teach - and it's nomadic in that I am constantly moving between my home-office, the company-office, and a variety of community hubs)! So while I understand my friend's point of view, I think that they need to understand that being geographically flexible in where you work is awesome - the issue is that whilst my friend's get this issue, their bosses don't!

As someone who relies on office, school, or other required spaces to socialize, since I'm an introvert who lives alone that sometimes has the urge to be friendly, it's been difficult to make new connections when my social battery is at a high and I have the urge to talk to new people. I realize that my friendly approaches may come of as too much when I utilize my usual friendliness, that was okay irl, in dms with people I find interesting (whether in trying to make new friends or romantic interests). Especially now that I've cut most attachments from close family for personal reasons, I often find myself too lonely at times. So for me taking away these formal meeting spaces was a huge loss I needed to adjust to. But if all offices moving forwards will just go obselete, I wouldn't be too hung up about it because I do value doing my work alone. Maybe I'll just be one of those guys who talks to strangers at the bar if things won't go back to normal.

I didn't know the false narrative that people are inherently lazy has been around capitalism since day 1

I hope they don't. I fucking hate working from home

The last section (on ppl moving to the suburbs) could really use some reflection on the idea of car-friendly cities, which are the main reason why cities are loud and stressful, and with their high demand for space, contribute to increasing prices.

Working from home is the best thing that happened in my life. I haven’t met any of my coworkers of the past 2 years and I couldn’t be happier, I absolutely hate talking to people in real life

I’m so glad to see this video because I’ve been thinking that WFH feels vaguely familiar to the early versions of “Company Towns” in a really dystopic way! Companies now get prime real estate in folks’ homes, can skip the cost of internet, electricity, heating and cooling, and slow the depreciation of the equipment they had in office, AND…they’ve taken up more of our time at home! It feels weird being plugged up all the damn time

that last bit about restructuring urban planning, especially the idea of making High Rise office Buildings into multi-purpose Buildings gives me all kinds of ideas of Skyscraper towns: small towns worth of people and businesses living and working primarily within ONE building. that sounds fucking awesome

I think it depends on the industry, but the hybrid model has been working fairly well in mine (medical diagnostics). People schedule lab days and home days, and middle managers like myself spend pretty much all of our time in hybrid meetings where half are at home and half are in a conference room.

I just go in 3 days a week these days. The other days I take care of laundry or make a mid day run to the grocery store at a less crowded time to get good deals on food.

Please more videos on this.

I think the hybrid way will prevail; giving workers and the culture a space to flourish, connect and get inspired, and take this energy home to do productive work. Voluntarily going to the office, if you need it, and have the peace and comfort of working wherever you want, whenever you want. Not as a slave, but as a contributor. This will promote more of a identification with your job not as a chore, but as a hobby you get paid for.

Lots of folks saying how impossible it makes connecting with people or being effective at home, but I’ve been working on a fully remote team that has never not been been remote together for the last year and a half and it’s the most well oiled machine I have ever been part of. It takes some new tricks and ideas but it can work just as well if not far better than a typical office

A mix of the two is the best way forward.

Great video as always. I do also hate open-floor layouts.

The cut down of commute is well worth it

One benefit of working from home tht is often not discussed is that your staff recruitment pool is MUCH bigger if you don't have to worry about hiring someone in a specific area. And for the employee, they don't need to worry about where they live to find a good job. I started my current job after the pandemic started and I've only worked remotely. I take pride in the fact that no one I work with knows what I look like (my LinkedIn photo is 19 years old)

I'm currently on a hybrid setup, which is the best option for me. It's also actually my choice, as officially my team is on permanent remote work. But I chose a hybrid setup because the commute isn't too much trouble, and it lets me more easily set boundaries between work and my personal life. Durig the pandemic I was still in medical school, and those hours of online classes and meetings were horrific. And I hope we never go back to everyday office work either.

I miss working in the office, though I don't want to do it all the time. I had about a year until recently (the other person on my team who went in left the company) where I was doing 1-3 days a week and that was kind of ideal. Right now I'm full time working from home.

When working from home, I get an hour and a half of my day back due to not having to commute. I decompress sooner, so am more present in the evening, and can do small jobs in my break times, freeing up my weekends for more relaxation time. I also save money on commute costs, coffee, lunches, etc. Given I am as or more productive from home, I see little point to going to the office beyond some training sessions or seeing colleagues I enjoy the company of. That I can do happily with 1-2 days a week in the office, so flexibility is key, to me.

Love the video boys. One point I think you missed though was the social aspect of the office, which often benefits younger workers. They make friends, meet spouses and engage in human social behavior, and ripping that arena away in favour of being alone in your bedroom all day is imo a downside. This is coming from a WFH lifer btw, I'm never going back to the office.

I learned to turn off my work number and email at 5pm and turn it on at 9am. My boss tried calling me out in a Zoom meeting and I asked her if he’s planning on increasing my salary to meet her new expectations. She told me we needed to have a talk, which I agreed to. She tried bullying me, I explained my employment agreement is a contract: she pays me a certain amount for my skills and the time I take out of my life to leverage them for her agenda. It is not a slavery contract. If she wanted to lease more of my life, I was happy to negotiate what would be considered appropriate overtime compensation, otherwise she gets me from 9am to 5pm with a paid lunch as we agreed to when I accepted the terms of her employment. Everyone turns on at 9am and off at 5pm now with no flak from management.

You guys should do a video on the tv show 'severance' It hits a lot of relevant beats

I used to live in bethlehem very near the steel, hearing it brought up was pretty cool.

I think the problem is that we still think of the "work from home" or "work in the office" as an either-or proposition. I have worked 100% from home during the pandemic and 100% in the office for most of my career. I found that hybrid work was actually what would make me most content. Working from home 3 days a week, but get together with my co-workers for face-to-face interaction for 2 days a week to combat feelings of isolation.

Gotta remember to do those TPS reports.