As in: Both partners in a marriage will have to work at least two jobs each to pay the rent for the one-bedroom apartment and will still need to go to the food bank in order not to starve. And people wonder why they have no kids...
Among poly-workers identified by Deputy, the vast majority (78%) work in the hospitality sector, 12% work in healthcare, 6% work in retail, and 5% work in the service industry.
So the jobs that historically pay as little as legally possible are the ones where people are working multiple jobs? Shocker.
How soon do you think we'll start seeing articles about indentured servitude being great for you and the next hot thing in work trends? Some Linkedin lunatics are probably praising it already...
Next big work "trend." A fucking trend. Give me a goddamned break...
What is the point of LinkedIn anyways, can anyone actually describe it to me? All these years later and I'm still confused. The only thing I've found it useful for, is basically a digital rolodex for when I want to get ahold of someone. I can't read the news feed or whatever it's called, it's insufferable.
There’s an often overlooked part that you could call the “extrovert factor.” There’s always plenty of coworkers that thrive in group settings. Some number, maybe most, middle managers are extroverts, and when forced to work the way the average minion does, they suffer. It’s why they became middle managers in the first place. Their productivity suffers in isolation too, so when converted into a wage slave, they can’t complete with less extroverted people. Unfortunately they’re better situated to promote their own success, getting by in people skills while more competent people get screwed.
Extroverts also seem to suffer in productivity during WFH, even if they aren’t managers. They are stuck in a situation that hurts their functionality, offsetting the statistics. If they actually broke down WFH productivity by job description, I suspect that the extrovert/introvert factor will be a huge determiner of productivity.
Optional office hours seem the best fix, but the corporate attitude of obsessively monitoring the workers to be sure they’re not wasting time and therefore money is another factor that makes these companies want to favor their preconceptions. The confirmation bias kicks in and then we have to listen to them focus on it.
There may be some accuracy in your analysis about the causes for differences in preferences, but a broader issue might be the poverty of opportunities for meaningful social interaction outside the alienated relationships of the workplace.
I’m a middle manager. I run reports to make sure my team is doing what they’re supposed to do and identify things they need to be coached on if they’re falling short. I also attend meetings with other teams to figure out solutions to things my team collaborates with them on.
Ever see how much real estate companies like Google has? If all those bay area companies said fuckit let’s be remote it would crash the market and rock the economy.
No one cares about retail office market. A market bubble crashing is merely an opportunity to earn money for the others. Capitalism doesn’t care about losers.
America only has capitalism for the poor. For the rich, it’s socialism. You better believe retail office owners stand to be losers, and they have power to fight.
There is no money to be earned though if nobody needs office space then all those offices will need to be converted to living space which will reduce the price of domestic homes too.
My town has been stuck fighting over rezoning for decades. The urban sprawling is fucked. So many empty lots and buildings while the suburbs fight to keep half acre lots as single family zoning. Add in poor mass transit and it is an ugly mess
Certainly, it is expected that politicians operate on the same side as developers and owners, and that all such parties insulate themselves from the population through NIMBY.
I’m told that office buildings are actually terrible from a housing standpoint. Like, it’s actually easier to just tear the whole thing down and build an entirely new complex than convert it into apartments.
Perhaps. There are other possible uses, though, such as commons spaces. Also, even housing that has a quirky design may carry value, within the context, in symbolizing transformation away from the old.
Few organizations own their own office space, most lease. So it’s not so much “they”, the CEOs that want you to return to work, but “they”, the venture capitalists (whom the CEOs answer to). These investors have a stake not only in the organization, but separately have investments in commercial office real estate that they stand to lose money on if those leases aren’t renewed.
In principle, municipalities could gain control of the assets.
Little doubt, if a course were followed, the previous owners would be compensated at outrageously inflated prices, defended as rescuing the investors, but nevertheless, control by the public, in the sense of genuine control by the public rather than control by corporations pretending to be concerned for the public, could open pathways for many opportunities toward social interests.
That’s part of it. Another part is middle management can’t function without seeing you. Finally, it’s not worth it to a company to maintain a lease on a building if nobody works there and it’s not easy getting out of those leases.
What would you recommend to capitalists, for defending themselves from the broader population, that might be a superior alternative to using human shields?
I’m skeptical a company would take that. They want to be able to shut down contracts with employee on a whim but somehow they would engage for a 20 years in a building? If it’s not a big industry I severely doubt it, and those are rarely I city centers for obvious reasons.
I agree with most of this except the lease is a sunk cost, making people come in based on a variable that won’t change is bad decision making, the discussion should be made independently of lease. I agree some managers think this way, it’s usually the ones who could benefit from remedial business finance classes.
Yes and no. It’s more like a trap that the company is trapped in. It’s the corporate equivalent of having to keep renting an apartment you don’t live in anymore and can’t sub-let. The sunk cost fallacy applies, but also it’s a case of “we’re stuck with this and we’re going to USE it even if it kills our wage slaves.”
The larger issue may be that companies occupying the buildings supports interests of the owning class, and so its influence is being applied accordingly to shape the larger social forces.
Hey who knew that the best way to make money as a company is have very few workers and be an amazing talker that can dupe others into investing into your pile of shit. Oh wait, Holmes, Neuman and Bankman-fried already came up with that business model. The innovation on that model is just don’t get caught.
Nice, in theory, proving it is the real problem. Meanwhile you're not getting paid and they have an entire fund just for lawyering you into submission.
Yeah, that’s why unions are so important… Without one in that situation you’re fucked.
Kinda baffling to me most tech-companies don’t have one. I get they’re attempting to stop unionising but they can’t easily be replace their whole workforce at once. They’d loose all their know how…
That’s what I was thinking, it essentially makes bosses obsolete and they don’t want the system to be deconstructed from the top down, ever. That’s toppling capitalism, kinda talk.
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