Conversation

I think there’s an actual conspiracy afoot to get people to quit working from home and get back to the office The industrial economy sometimes does feel like a continuation of serfdom by other means 🧐
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If your workers don’t need physical presence or access to specialized equipment, you’re externalizing the cost of your incompetent management and leadership in the form of commuter carbon externalities. A carbon tax on commutes for jobs that can be done remotely would be great.
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If you really think they’re X% more productive at home you should be willing to pay f(X) $ to get them to the office
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It’s not so much a management/leadership skill though, so much as a sort of reality distortion move. Keep them in your reality through most of their working hours and not comparing with alt realities. Not a bad motive, but detention realities are like weak authoritarian states
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Redevelop as residential and solve housing 😀
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Replying to @vgr
I've felt this way as well. All the "you're ruining it for yourself" articles seem really well coordinated, like it's funded by people who own corporate real estate.
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Feel for small businesses that rely on foot traffic, but most eateries in business districts tend to be corporate chains that took $ intended for small-biz PPP, so redeploy the capital into dark kitchens + delivery. Compete with the home kitchen on better food.
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Replying to @VicVijayakumar and @vgr
Millennials are killing small businesses.
"Both cities have urged workers in finance, tech, and other sectors to return to the office in order to support small businesses that rely on foot traffic." - a screenshot from the NYPost Malcolm Gladwell interview
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I recall being at a talk by an urbanist doing an analysis ~2018 showing heat signature of a global subprime real estate boom by hedge funds/PE/oligarchs etc. If they’re left holding the bag here a) they deserve it b) should not be bailed out c) are using small biz for cover
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Replying to @vgr
Have noticed this as well. It’s weirdly hard to find vacancy data and everything I find seems to point to steady and continued rise in vacancies. Also liquidity for these office buildings seems to be unavailable
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I’m not doing a bit here. I’m normally very anti-conspiratorial and suspect conspiracy types of crediting their boogeymen with way too much power and intelligence. But this is a special case. Commercial real estate is highly concentrated and financialized. Smells like a rat here.
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You don’t need secret sex parties by Eyes Wide Shut elites for thus. You just need an investor nudging an editor here, an editor commissioning a Gladwell there, an op-ed section that’s a crony club. A politician with a board seat somewhere and a pro-small-biz campaign…
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Older Gen X and Boomers managers have also gotten lazy managing for decades a certain way and don’t want to change or give up corner offices, holding court, etc. Even without a hard financial stake in real estate, it’s more convenient to side with them than learn new skills
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Damn. Maybe I should try to buy an office property instead of a house. Though I doubt my mortgage approval will carry over 😬
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Exhibit C. Notable that the keynoter set is at the forefront. They don’t have much of a career without speaker circuit economy on top of office economy. What do you want to bet the headliner keynote crowd is 95% against WFH? Hard to command $$$ speaking fees for virtual keynotes.
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Replying to @vgr
I feel this is becoming a real movement now amp-cnn-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.cnn.co
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Heh no org with the investigative resources to poke at this has the incentives to do so. At most a subreddit might nerd out over it. Someone go start r/returntoworkconspiracy
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