[matmann2001]

Keeping it.

Every company all hands for the past year wouldn't be complete without an exec making comments about our eventual "return to work" policy, which has been delayed over and over again by surges and variants.

Asses in chairs is not a "company culture". I'm 10x more efficient in my home office than my open floor-plan desk next to the bathroom (with no sound-proofing) in a high traffic area. The 45-minute commute (each way) that I save largely ends up translating into more hours worked from me. With communications primarily happening over email and chat, we now have written records of decision making processes and we lose a lot less information along the way.

We're not a purely software company, so I understand some roles simply don't work remote, but I don't agree with a company-wide policy preventing regular remote work. I'm not looking forward to the struggle that is on the horizon.

[999900000999]

Agreed.

Many bigger companies are pushing to get us all to come back to work.

I'm pretty sure the real reason behind this is if remote work became the norm trillions in commercial real estate would become worthless

Many auxiliary businesses, like caterers, cafe owners, would go out of business.

I have noticed small companies have been much more willing to go all in on remote work. I strongly suspect the board members at many bigger companies have stake in commercial real estate. Or maybe I'm hopelessly navie and without billion dollar office buildings in central Manhattan the economy would collapse....

[silverpepsi]

>if remote work became the norm trillions in commercial real estate would become worthless

That's exactly what I don't get. Why aren't they greedily crunching numbers thinking about how much they can save by selling off half the office space and going to a "come and show your face a few days a week" & floating desks even

There's yearly property tax and millions on upkeep on top of whatever pile of cash goes into holding the property when it can be sold off...and if they sell before all the other companies, they can still get a higher sales prices before commercial real estate plummets