
Who still needs the office? U.S. companies start cutting space - onetimemanytime
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-results-realestate/who-still-needs-the-office-u-s-companies-start-cutting-space-idUSKCN24N2NL
======
ravenstine
I know it's cool now to rag on remote work, and I definitely get that not
everyone wants to work remote. But boy, I don't ever want to work in an office
again. It's not just the time saved, the privacy, and the lack of commute, but
the simple fact that while code is building I can throw some laundry in the
washing machine, check the mailbox, keep an eye on my 3d printer, have my pets
around, crash on the couch for 10 minutes, make a quick trip to the grocery or
post office, use my pull-up bar, be home when large packages arrive, eat out
of my own fridge and pantry, have a podcast going without having to put on my
headphones, not wear shoes, use my own bathroom and spend as much time as I
need in there, and so much more.

~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
This works great if you have a huge and well-equipped home. I could set up my
place to be both a home and an office, but it wouldn't be cheap (for starters,
I'd want to rent something bigger). Considering taxes, this would be
equivalent to at least a 20k pay cut due to costs being offloaded on me.

I totally see why employers _love_ that.

Additionally, FAANG and startup tech offices often serve as more than an
office - they tend to have a lot of shared amenities that are just not
practical to have at home. I don't use a 3D printer often enough to own one,
but there is one in the office. Gym? Office, and it has more than a pull-up
bar. Post office? Office. Inbound packages? Post office. In the office.
Grocery shopping? Happens much less often if you eat out. In the office. Why
would I want to eat out of my own fridge and pantry (and have to prepare the
food myself) when I can grab tasty food prepared by people who actually know
what they're doing?

The benefit isn't just that the stuff is free; the benefit is that it's all
right there. It's an incredible time saver.

This is going to be a huge benefits cut for tech employees, and a massive
cost-cutting measure for tech employers.

If the office is just an office with no amenities, and you have a sucky
commute, then I can see why WfH would be attractive.

~~~
Cthulhu_
What I want is that if you work from home, you get a stipend to your wage
equivalent to the cost they would normally spend on your office space.

I did a quick google which said that in SF, office space is $80 / sq. foot, I
presume per month? Assuming you need idk, 15 - 30 sq. foot per employee (not
even counting shared spaces), that's $1200 - $2400 / month to be added to your
wage, plus a bit for expenses like desks, coffee or lunch that are normally
offered by the employer.

I read another post or article that made the statement that if you work from
home, you should be earning enough to have a bigger house with dedicated
office space. Of course, working remotely would also mean you can move around
the state or country where housing prices are lower.

For me, I bought a two bedroom house a few years ago; it works for me, I have
my desk set up in my bedroom, quite comfortable but I would still like a
dedicated work / hobby space, so if this work from home keeps up, long-term
I'm looking at moving back to where I grew up in the north part of the country
(NL), where houses are bigger and cheaper than they are over here.

~~~
heliodor
Your employer passing their savings onto you is not how the labor market
works.

~~~
blaser-waffle
Absolutely true, but it's worth mentioning that it does free up capital. That
could go straight to a CxO's bonus, but also to larger budgets for Project
X/Y/Z.

Not having to commute is also a big time saver, and that one is just on you,
the worker. The Mr Money Mustache blog calculated that every mile you cut off
your commute saves you like ~700-800 bucks a year.

[https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-
of-...](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of-
commuting/)

~~~
sundaeofshock
Or that capital could be returned to the people whose labor earned in the
first place.

------
danny_sf45
The only reason for me to not go back to the office is: fixed working hours.
Sure, my contract says I have to work 40h/week, but I just can't. If I'm at
the office, I would probably work (focused) around 4 or 5 hours. The rest is
"wasted" with: chat with other coworkers (non-work related stuff), breaks...
but I have to be there for 8 hours no matter what. At home, I can work those 4
or 5 hours (focused) and call it a day. I don't have to pretend I'm working, I
just close the laptop.

Same outcome (for the company), less (wasted) hours for me. This is impossible
to achieve if one has to go to the office. (can you imagine entering at 9am
and leaving at 2pm while telling everybody: "hey, I cannot work anymore, I'm
only able to work focused 5 hours per day. See you tomorrow!".)

~~~
Nition
I have to say I'm a bit surprised at the positive reaction to this here. This
person admits that they're contracted to work 40 hours/wk but they they only
do 20-25 hours when working from home. I've always tracked my time even when
working from home to make sure I'm doing the amount of hours I'm getting paid
for.

If this person was contracted to achieve a certain amount of _work done_ I'd
totally understand, but they're contracted based on time. Kinda surprised how
positive the Hacker News crowd is towards skipping work for up to 50% of
contracted time. I know work gets tiring, but I find it hard believe anyone
can really do great solid work for half a day and then can't possibly get
anything productive done in the second half.

~~~
PragmaticPulp
> I have to say I'm a bit surprised at the positive reaction to this here.
> This person admits that they're contracted to work 40 hours/wk but they they
> only do 20-25 hours when working from home.

In all seriousness: The people putting in the most focused hours are less
likely to be discussing their work deep in the HN comment section during
daytime hours. The people who think procrastinating for half of the day is the
norm are going to be over-represented in the HN comment section. And yes, I
realize the irony of posting this comment.

> I know work gets tiring, but I find it hard believe anyone can really do
> great solid work for half a day and then can't possibly get anything
> productive done in the second half.

It's a common trope on internet comment sections, but I haven't seen it nearly
as much in the real world.

Sustained work and focus aren't exactly the easiest thing in the world, but
people can and do learn how to put in 6-8 solid hours of work per day all of
the time. It's one thing to subtract meetings and e-mail from your count of
productive hours, but it's strange to hear so many people claiming that they
can't physically work more than 20-25 hours in a week.

In my experience, I've noticed this thought becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy
in some of our junior hires. If people arrive at the workplace with
preconceived notions that no one works more than 3-4 hours per day or that
focusing for 8 hours is physically impossible, they don't even try to improve
their ability to focus and be productive. Pairing them up with more productive
coworkers usually fixes this misconception very quickly.

~~~
R0b0t1
>but people can and do learn how to put in 6-8 solid hours of work per day all
of the time.

This isn't true. It depends on whether the work is cerebral or not. Certain
workloads are limited to as little as 2 hours per day, for 2-4 hours of real
knowledge work per day. The rest of it is either extremely suboptimal or of a
different class.

Something semi-mechanical like translation or categorization that isn't
obviously mechanical could probably occur for a full workday.

~~~
hanfsi
Ah come on thats still bullshit.

I have and had plenty of full days of coding smart solutions where, when i was
in the flow, would even forget that i hit 8h work.

If i really hit my head against a wall because i literaly have an issue i
can't figure out right now, i will still try to find different angles or take
a walk but i will not just close my laptop after 2-4h of work oO?!

~~~
R0b0t1
If you're working 8hr straight I'd guess you're following up on work you
previously invested a lot of time into.

I don't really see "coding" as productive work. The entire point is the write
as little as possible. Most of my day is full of reading and thinking about
the problem. The actual coding part is quite small.

------
progman32
A coworker of mine recently pointed out that not only are businesses saving
money by closing offices, they're also offloading other costs to the
employees. Things like:

\- Water, electricity, HVAC, sanitation

\- Desks, chairs, ergonomic equipment, safety equipment

\- Telecom, networking support

\- Physical security

\- Office supplies

\- Misc. amenities like coffee and snacks

Some companies are taking this into account, but not all.

A personal anecdote: we had an all-hands meeting today and the amount of
emotion on display when the topic turned to returning to the office strongly
suggests people want to go back. Whether or not that's temporary nostalgia for
a previous life or an enduring need is an interesting discussion, but there
are definitely people wanting to go back. I for one am even more in the no-
remote-only-gigs camp given recent events.

edit: formatting, I'll learn eventually

~~~
notJim
> I for one am even more in the no-remote-only-gigs camp given recent events.

I don't understand this, why?

Regarding the rest of your comment, I totally agree. My mom and sister both
work for a large, old-fashioned company, and the company didn't even let them
take their dual monitors home with them when WFH started. They both had to buy
setups out of their own pocket, and these are not people making tech salaries.

Really the biggest cost you're leaving off is space though. It's really
preferable to have a dedicated space for an office, and this is not free. It's
one thing for someone who made a choice to go remote, but for people forced
into it, it feels unfair to me.

It wouldn't surprise me if in the new world, offices are viewed as a perk
rather than a requirement due to all this. I personally work remotely for the
record, but talking to many people in my life, it's clear this is not for
everyone.

~~~
bonestamp2
> I don't understand this, why?

As far as I can tell, this seems to be an introvert/extrovert thing (for the
most part). Extroverts miss being around people they can engage in
conversations with, while introverts love not having extroverts around trying
to engage in conversations with them. I think both camps have valid needs and
right now the extrovert's needs aren't being met to their satisfaction.

~~~
Noos
This isn't always the case. If you are an introvert, work often is your main
contact with other people. Work at home would be like working third shift for
me, no "sunlight" of contact with other people. It'd be way too easy to be
alone.

~~~
tkwj
Well said. This is a point being missed by many here. I feel it too!

------
chasd00
It's interesting to me that companies are threatening to reduce pay if a
remote employee moves to a lower cost of living area. It's hard to understand
the logic when geography is the only change driving the decrease in pay. Same
person, same job, same skills, same productivity, the only thing that has
changed is the person's cost of living.

I wonder if a remote employee working in a low cost of living area moved to a
high cost of living area would their pay be increased or would the company put
up a fight? "You voluntarily moved to a high cost of living area, why should i
pay you more?". However, "you voluntarily moved to a low cost of living area,
i'm paying you less" is reality.

~~~
rsweeney21
I don't understand why people have such a hard time understanding that the
value of something changes depending on the context (aka "the market").

Soda at the grocery store? $1.50 Soda at the gas station? $1.99 Soda at Disney
World? $30

Your skills are not worth a fixed rate. Your skills are worth more in certain
areas because the demand is higher in those areas. As soon as you go remote,
you are competing with every other remote worker in the US. More competition,
lower price.

~~~
minikites
Soda is a fungible commodity. People are not.

~~~
rsweeney21
So if you quit your job, the company...

A) will be irreparably harmed and have to cease operations.

B) will hire a replacement and be fine.

(Hint: It's B)

~~~
disgruntledphd2
As my Dad always said, the graveyards are full of indispensable people :)

------
m_sanders
There was a fansinating take on the potential impact of a WFH revolution on
white collar works in The Telegraph the other day.

As companies embrace working from home and downsize their offices presence, a
lot of the barriers to entry to offshoring start to disappear - if everyone is
remote then a remote individuals in cheaper Eastern Europe will likely
integrate a lot easier than when most the employees were sitting together in
expensive London.

White collar workers could face the same globalisation pressure and wage
deflation that’s happened to blue collar workers over the last 50 years or so.

Personally, if my team stays remote, then our next hire will most likely not
be London based. There’s a much larger pool of European talent available to us
and we’re now better setup to and culturally open to hiring remote first. This
isn’t something our company would have considered before COVID.

~~~
philjohn
The flip side to that is with the UK leaving the EU will there be legal and
taxation hurdles. Also, sometimes having local context, and the ability to
meet locally at short notice is an important requirement. I don't think it's
as clear cut in all cases.

~~~
anpago
Will there? Plenty of workers fly in from non EU countries to work in the UK
and rest of EU.

We have staff from Asia fly in with a few days notice and vice versa.

Few ever need a work visa they simply visit as a tourist. Certainly if a short
trip.

Not that what they are doing is correct. But it happens so regularly, I don't
think many office workers even consider they need a work visa.

Anyhow this saga has just proven the vast majority of meetings can be done
remote hence why your all working remote will be the companies reply.

If a global company the data is probably shared across the globe and regulated
as need be already.

I really think people need to be careful for what they wish for with remote
work.

Companies will see savings (well what they perceive as savings) and will see
margins increasing.

People thinking they will get the money back the company saves on property
costs or paid that "London/New York/SF weighting". That or fully kitted home
office's. I think they maybe disappointed.

When a company makes big savings they then often get hungry for more.

------
oakfr
Companies _think_ that remote work works but they fail to realize that most of
what happened over the past few months was based on prior momentum built
inside the office they are carelessly ditching.

~~~
triceratops
Couldn't you bring people together once a quarter or bi-yearly? Book a nice
villa someplace exotic for a couple of weeks, get all the planning and
coordination out of the way, give everyone the last few days off with families
invited.

~~~
greenyoda
Going "someplace exotic" may be great for some people, but if you have
responsibilities such as being the caregiver for an aging parent, being forced
to be away from home for a couple of days or weeks can be a big problem.

~~~
triceratops
True. OTOH, and not to invalidate anyone's experiences, but people shouldering
such responsibilities typically have help already (either paid or other
family). Otherwise they couldn't do their current job. They also, presumably,
have plans/protocols for when they need to take a vacation or break. Unless
they were otherwise spending all their free time on caregiving, which isn't
sustainable or healthy. They could potentially use those same measures when
it's offsite time and even be given some makeup time off later.

They could also get an exception and attend the working sessions remotely. But
there's a chance that could lead to fewer opportunities for advancement for
them, because they weren't there. Which sucks. It's not an ideal situation.

BTW, lots of enterprise sales companies already do annual "sales kickoff"
events where they fly all their salespeople globally to a single place. It's
not unprecedented.

~~~
stormbeard
This is resolved by going somewhere within an hour of the office location.
It’s a good idea, but not everyone wants to be forced into traveling for work.

~~~
triceratops
If everyone's 100% remote, there's no "office location". The best compromise
is to find a location that minimizes travel for everyone. That might mean the
city nearest the centroid.

------
spectaclepiece
What I find most interesting is how this might transform inner cities. If
central space is cheaper more space will be available to artists and other
cultural activities while also making room for early stage startups which
could give rise to a renewal of a vibrant inner city atmosphere in places
where this has been on the decline due to high rental prices.

~~~
andyljones
There's no shortage of cities where central space has become cheaper after
their industry has collapsed, and they do not have a great record of turning
vibrant. The rust belt and the north of England are the first areas to mind.

~~~
notJim
That's true, but if now there is central space freeing up in major cultural
hubs like NYC and SF, maybe it could be cool. These places might, although to
a lesser extent, have the customer base of affluent people to support new
cultural spaces.

~~~
cortesoft
For the short term, maybe, but will they still have that customer base if
those affluent people don't need to stay there for work?

~~~
notJim
IMO that's a big open question. Anecdotally, I've heard of a lot of people
moving away from these cities, but most of them say they intend to move back.
Since the appeal of both cities is largely in activities that are unavailable
now, this is plausible to me. But it's also plausible people will find they
miss the city less than they expected.

------
blitztime
For me working remote has come with a mix of upsides and downsides. One of the
main upsides for me has been mentioned a few times in this thread, and that's
the fact that without having people physically present, your performance is
now necessarily more tightly tied to what you actually accomplish rather than
how long you're present in an office. This gives employees a lot more autonomy
and freedom with how they spend their time as long as they manage to get
everything done. No energy and time needs to be spent keeping up the
unproductive facade of _looking_ busy.

On the other hand, losing the ability to have spontaneous hallway
conversations does cut out a lot of the communication that would normally
happen in office. The signal-to-noise of these conversations may not be so
high in terms of actually communicating purely work related topics, but they
do a lot to foster a sense that you're actually part of a team with people you
enjoy working with. With IMs and video calls, communication happens much more
deliberately so coworkers feel much more like these virtual entities who you
only contact for purposeful knowledge transfer. Perhaps some people actually
prefer this and see it as more efficient, but I personally find it to be a
somewhat dreary proposition.

Ultimately, I think what I would prefer is a flexible WFH policy, with maybe 3
days in office and 2 days of flex.

~~~
amiga_500
None of this is about your personal life.

Work is just work. I get to see my kids more. I have more time. That is going
to trump anything work related.

------
jackcosgrove
I have relatives who grew up on a farm. Their jobs and their parents' jobs
were at home on the farm, and they all worked together. It was something I was
always envious of, although almost everything else about farm work is tough.

Now many of us might have a chance to live similarly. The schools will
eventually reopen, but in the meantime many of us are working at home with our
families nearby. There is a greater sense of family connectedness, and less
peer connectedness. I actually think that is a good trade-off because spending
too much time with people who are similar to you in age and interests causes
some social skills to atrophy.

We can relearn to live how most people in history have lived.

~~~
bargl
This has been one of the positive notes of the 'Rona for me. Being home with
my kids so much during the school year. Helping them with homework when I got
the chance.

I feel like I've seen my wife more than since we met. It's been awesome in
some ways.

Obviously some issues with kids and work but I have a great team and company.
They understand.

------
supergeek133
I'm still amazed the fight seems to be "everyone works from home" or "everyone
works from the office".

I've been fairly productive since we all started full-time from home in March.
However I prefer working at the office. As time has gone on I've found myself
losing routine. Either working sporadically through the day or longer hours in
general.

Being somewhere does a better job for me of time-boxing work.

That being said, I also have my work and personal machine in the same room. So
now I'm spending most of my time in one room! I'm working to rectify that
situation.

~~~
_asummers
I agree with you and find myself in a similar situation and mindspace re: time
boxing. I found having a KVM switch to have to actually "go to work" and "go
to personal" was a good mental switch. And make sure you have a good chair. I
was having minor back issues before I upgraded my chair with how long I was
spending at the desk.

------
davidw
I miss working in the office a lot. It's nice to have a physical separation
between 'work' and 'home'. And I enjoy the company of my coworkers - it's fun
to occasionally chat about something tangential to work, perhaps some
interesting problem they dealt with in the past, or local politics or
whatever.

~~~
foobiekr
I agree with this. I've known some of my coworkers 15 years. We talk now, but
it's not the same as getting a bunch of people together to go to the terrible
chinese place across the street for an hour and a half.

------
jacquesm
If there is one business I would not want to be in right now it is commercial
real estate. I'll be letting go of 2/3rds of our office space at the end of
this year and I may even get rid of all of it depending on how things develop.

With some luck this will have a nice downward effect on house prices in and
around Amsterdam, where plenty of companies have converted houses to offices.

~~~
cableshaft
My wife used to be in commercial real estate. She said that that from what she
heard from colleagues, the industry is actually doing pretty well at the
moment, since so many offices have to be completely refitted for covid-19
precautions, and that's something that's also handled by those companies.

But right now a lot of places are still under contract for their leases. Might
be a different story in a year or so when more leases expire and they just
don't bother keeping their offices.

You want to know an industry that's really screwed? The industry she left
commercial real estate for: events/conventions. Her current company has had
basically no revenue since the first lockdowns, and that's not changing
anytime soon.

She's been eyeing jobs in commercial real estate again as an escape from
events, as they're in better shape for the moment, at least.

~~~
jacquesm
I always keep our leases short because you never know what the future brings.
I'd hate to be locked to a five or 10 year contract. Sure, I don't get the
best rates. But that flexibility has paid off more than once.

You're right about the events/conventions business, that's been more or less
killed for the foreseeable future. I know someone that organized a few of them
every year and it's not a pretty picture.

------
yogthos
Arthur C. Clarke predicted that by the year 2000 cities as we know them would
no longer exist all the way back in 1964 [1]. We would live in a world of
instant communication where we could contact anyone on Earth without leaving
our home. This technology would make it possible for many people to conduct
business without having to be present at a specific physical location. Today,
we know the technology Clarke was talking about as the Internet. And while his
technological predictions could not have been more correct, he severely
underestimated the pace of social progress.

Despite modern office jobs being done entirely on a computer, most workers are
still expected to get up in the morning, battle the daily commute, and
physically congregate at the office to work. Companies have given innumerable
arguments for why this must be so, and until recently there wasn’t an
empirical way to test any of them.

Unfortunately, it’s often difficult to tell whether an argument holds water
without running an experiment since ideas that sound great on paper can
spectacularly fail in practice. However, the pandemic presented a unique
scenario where it was no longer safe to continue following these practices
resulting in a forced experiment of mass remote work across the world. We now
know beyond a shadow of a doubt that remote work was possible all along, and a
recent study [2] shows that there is no loss of productivity associated with
it. It would appear that the main barrier to remote work was the desire to
stick with the familiar. Now that this valuable experiment has been run we
shouldn’t simply discard the results, but rather learn from it.

As we start coming out of the pandemic, workers should demand the ability to
continue working remotely. There is no longer any justification to keep up the
daily commute.

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT_8-pjuctM&t=294](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT_8-pjuctM&t=294)

[2]: [https://www.docdroid.net/vhPmnxg/valoir-report-the-real-
prod...](https://www.docdroid.net/vhPmnxg/valoir-report-the-real-productivity-
impact-of-remote-work-pdf)

------
beltex
The elephant in the room to me is that companies talked a ton about creating
spaces that are conducive to great work. The design and architecture of an
office matters. Not all have it right, but for those who do, it goes a long
way. See Pixar as an example. But all of a sudden everyones acting as if none
of that matters, all because we get to skip a commute and sit in our pyjamas?

You truly don't know what you've got till its gone...

~~~
Tomis02
What's special about Pixar, that you have your own office? This is very rare
in the industry, and it's unsurprising people don't miss the open office.

------
jorblumesea
I wonder if this will result in the hollowing out of the American downtown
similar to the 60s and suburban white flight. It just started to feel like the
American inner urban core was coming back, density was increasing, more
funding to transit.

One of the great tragedies of American society in the 20th century (in my
opinion) was a focus on building everything around the car, the suburb, and
the commute. Producing well paid office workers disconnected from any sort of
community or the issues around them. Everything is a drive away, no one walks
anywhere, feelings of isolation and segregation.

~~~
triceratops
> yet more focus on sprawl and car based transit.

Would it? With commutes dead, a good chunk of weekday traffic is gone.

~~~
jorblumesea
It will, because people will buy farther out. One of the major drivers of the
urban core, density and transit was how bad traffic can be. You want to live
closer to work, which is usually downtown. Now you want pretty much live on
the outskirts or the sticks. Without the commute, nothing stopping cities from
becoming extremely diffuse.

------
irrational
My company is just finishing building millions of square feet of additional
office space on our campus. I wonder if someone up high is starting to regret
that decision.

~~~
Andow
AZ?

~~~
rwmj
If AZ = Astra Zeneca then drug research is not something you can easily do at
home!

------
fortran77
I don't have to work in an office, but I do. My consulting company owns
commercial space in Sunnyvale and Tel Aviv. I like separating home and work. I
work at work, and do non-work activities at home.

I worry that this trend is simply to squeeze employees harder. Now employees
have to pay for their own workspaces, desks, chairs, etc.

~~~
dougmwne
If I may ask, how far do you live from your office? Is your home comfortable
and does it meet your needs? Is your office a pleasant and productive space? I
know many people who do grueling 2-hour, one-way commutes so they can afford a
modest-size home and half-decent schools for their kids. Consider that many
people might not be in your position.

~~~
fortran77
It's a ten minute drive in Sunnyvale, walkable in Tel Aviv.

~~~
dougmwne
If I could walk to my office and could also work from home, I'll probably go 3
times a week and go home in the afternoon if I had no meetings.

------
huy-nguyen
Will this trend revive the fortune of WeWork? We can have a future where teams
within a company decide on “core days” where everyone is in the office but WFH
the rest of the week and the company can pay for a variable number of office
spaces depending on the week day. WeWork can become the cloud but for office
spaces.

~~~
chosenbreed37
I think there was always a viable business in WeWork. Just not with all the
excesses and crazy valuations. But prior to the current pandemic it certainly
meet a need. Granted they were not the only ones offering the same service.
But even that in itself would suggest that with the proper management it would
be successful operation.

~~~
birdyrooster
WeWork should make studio space for YouTubers that has ambient noise dampening
and good facilities for lighting and rigging.

------
theshadowknows
My cat is getting old, one of our dogs is nearly 15, the other has cancer, and
my wife has a chronic disease. I’m glad that I can work from home and make
sure my family is happy and comfortable. Working in the office has its perks
for sure. But at home I have my own office with a coffee bar that is always
open and always has the coffee I like. I can cook my own food or order it from
any number of delivery services. I can take a nap during the day if I want or
go for a run to help clear my head. It’s a net gain, for me, in every way.

Edit as I was thinking about it: I realize I’m lucky. I live in CT and rent is
pretty cheap here. We’re only paying 2100/month for a 3br 4bath two story home
+ fully finished basement. Not everyone has that luxury and in a smaller space
I’m sure I’d be more on the fence.

------
ed-209
2021: Who still needs US developers? They're all remote anyway, why pay more
for people in the US?

~~~
abledon
inflated US developer salaries... the english speaking world is comin for ya!

~~~
disgruntledphd2
As I keep explaining to people, timezones are a harsh mistress.

The furthest you can really go in terms of proper outsourcing (as opposed to
building part of the team remotely) is around +- 3hrs either side. For SF,
that basically only allows for the American continent.

This is potentially something that could happen a lot more in the EU, as
there's (somewhat) common laws and less of a timezone shift between the
expensive (London, Paris) and the cheap (Sofia, Warsaw) places.

------
JMTQp8lwXL
The owners of traditional office buildings who will see the most success in
this crisis will be those who realize that --while, yes, corporations may no
longer need as large a footprint-- there's still valuable use of the capital
infrastructure they hold. The first ones to pivot to alternate property uses
will do best.

Another set of commercial property owners will sit on their above-market lease
agreements and try and squeeze blood from a stone.

------
irjustin
There are lots of "for remote" in this thread.

I will take the other side that I need some sort of office. If it's only a few
days a week.

My cabin fever is real and I get a little depressed. I'm one of those guys who
fully remote don't work so well.

------
sriku
> Reductions in office spending could likely be followed by layoffs and
> investments in technology that should help improve productivity with a
> reduced workforce, said Bill McMahon, chief investment officer of active
> equity strategies at Charles Schwab.

Why wouldn't anyone invest in such "technology that improves productivity", if
that's available, outside of COVID times too?

------
giulianob
Wow I'm surprised people are so eager to go back to the office and completely
aren't valuing the potential freedom of being able to live where they'd like
rather than where their work happens to be.

------
game_the0ry
Corporate managers need to run the following exercise:

1) Quantify the loss in productivity from employees working from home. Call
this "x."

2) Calculate the savings in rent you don't have to pay for putting the
company's employees in an office. Call this "y."

3) If x < y, pass on savings to shareholders, take your bonus, and have a nice
day.

4) Explore hiring candidates outside of major metros and see if you can pay
them less.

Will not happen, of course. The modern corporate middle manager thrives as a
sycophant, constantly praising their bosses / and boss's bosses - yes sir /
ma'am, how high would you like me to jump for my bonus? Thus, they are
desperate to get back into the office and play that sweet, sweet game of
"office politics." Also, they probably leased additional space for more tech
and digital marketing workers, so they are trying to not regret that decision.

~~~
rwmj
What loss of productivity is that? Knowledge workers get a whole lot more done
when they're not being constantly interrupted in an open plan office.

~~~
game_the0ry
x can be negative.

~~~
Terretta
So call it gain and have X positive.

Even the folks in non-tech jobs who hate WFH, griping about missing look-em-
in-the-eyes managerialism, or how they can’t do management-by-walking-around,
acknowledge the past few months have been more productive and curiously more
collaborative (right people across national offices invited to “meetings” and
able to attend).

So actual productivity up, other factors important to Taylorist managers (but
not to individual contributors) sharply down.

------
bluekite2000
A few years ago I had to commute from Orange county to Manhattan Beach. It
takes 1 hour to get to the office (leaving at 5:15am in the morning) and 1.5
hour to get home (leaving at 4pm). By the time I got home I felt dead. It was
a 30 mile trip. So to me the long commute is what makes WFH convincing.

------
piokoch
I have read somewhere that maybe in future place in the office will be given
by some employers as a perk, by default people will work from home (those who
do office-like work, obviously, nobody will have car production line at home).

This can end up as dystopian nightmare, people will have to have cameras
installed that will be watching them and some AI-like software will check if
they work, when they leave designated workplace, etc. Spy software will check
what they do on their computers and if this is work or something else.

All of this will count how much hours people work and wages will be calculated
on that base.

My guess is that people would need to work more as compared to current work in
the office setup.

------
catsarebetter
Personally I prefer an all-remote job but honestly it's really hard to grow a
corporate career if you're not in the office regularly

~~~
mac01021
Will that still be true if there is no office, or if nobody is in the office
regularly?

~~~
catsarebetter
If nobody is in the office, it won't be true. But is that even possible? A lot
of people really like working in offices, even though the voice of those who
don't are presently louder in media

------
s1t5
Hopefully in the future we'll have more options rather than offices becoming
completely obsolete. Personally I still need a good office environment to do
my best work and an all-remote future looks pretty bleak.

------
adregan
Have any of y'all given mob programming a try? Several teams at work have
adopted the practice and it's been really interesting.

Essentially, we camp out in a video chat and work on the same task together.
One developer will "drive" sharing their screen—ideally, a conduit to type for
the rest of the group—and everyone will talk through the approach.

It takes some tweaking (we're always experimenting with the driver's time),
but it seems to be leading to better code. It also gives you face to face time
talking with your coworkers, which you'd otherwise be lacking.

~~~
rubans
My team has been doing this almost all the time since we went remote in March.
It works well for us.

It helps more junior team members as well, since they're able to watch how
more senior people figure stuff out and ask questions whenever they like.

It also has the social element, which many people have mentioned they're
lacking while working remotely.

As long as you're on a team with people who can communicate well enough and
are happy to have their camera on, it's great.

I've only had issues when there's someone who is just lurking without a camera
and they seem to refuse to turn their camera on for whatever reason. They're
making people forget about them and they miss out.

------
j45
I see a real rise in each company having it's own internal coworking/hoteling.

Getting together still has value but spaces will be transformed more for
collaboration... and also small individual offices as work pods

------
jariel
This is going to be another short decision making drive, decided by the CFOs
because they have the 'cost' numbers in front of them, whereas issues like
productivity are a little more intangible.

We work in 'open spaces' because the CFO can definitively say "$/employee!" \-
whereas the impact on staff is difficult to measure. The 'up front cost' is
the driver.

This same 'cost logic' will apply to remote working, once Ops can see 'how
cheap it is' they will love it but it may have nothing to do with true ROI.

------
kibleopard
Just to offer a different perspective from the people lauding WFH - I get that
it's nice to have your amenities all in one place, not have to spend time
commuting, etc. And I get that for people who were already working from home,
making the switch wasn't that hard, since you already knew your coworkers and
had built relationships with them.

But consider the new people here. I've had a totally different experience
coming into a company during this pandemic, not having already built those
relationships with coworkers and having to ramp up on the team's
tech/codebase. Every day I wish I was in the office, just because as a new
person it is so much harder to get the help and guidance you need online.
Whereas in the office I could casually shout over a question to a coworker,
WFH I don't have that same ability. Everything feels super scheduled now, much
more like a meeting, even when I just want to have casual banter. I think this
is the huge downfall of WFH.

What I'm hoping will be the future of tech jobs is a hybrid of WFH and in-
person work. I think that if you're someone who's been at a company for a
while and can be self-sufficient at home, more power to you - feel free to
work from home more often. But as someone who really needs more oversight and
assistance while learning how to do my job, I still believe the office has its
purpose -- we shouldn't just get rid of it.

------
vikramkr
I hope this leads to drastically lower rents in the NYC area. A lot of
companies like mine still need _some_ space, but even needing a little bit
means we have to head way out of the city before we can find anything
affordable. That makes commutes longer and we cant rely on public transit.
Less giants eating up huge amounts of space hopefully means more smaller space
needing businesses getting a better shot at profitability and sustainability

------
cpascal
So for a little anecdata:

My company maintains offices in NYC and Boston (among others). We chose not to
renew our Boston lease and are in the middle of breaking our NYC lease. We do
still intend to maintain physical offices, but they will be much smaller and
used mainly for meetings. Once its safe, employees will likely only be going
in 2-3 times a week if they are near an office. I doubt there will be assigned
desks in our new offices.

------
uberdru
We need ateliers, not offices.

~~~
david927
Brilliant. I hope you don't mind if I quote you.

------
future_unclear
A few things that will likely come from this:

1) It will take away the only social outlet many people have. Someone may
reply that work was never the appropriate place for that anyways but the real
world has never worked that way. Humans have always combined work and social
life since the beginning of time. And there won’t be some spontaneous rise in
people joining social clubs or anything like that. It will only result in
further isolation, further mental problems, further strange behaviors.

2) This will make hiring even more parameterized. Employers will count even
more on pieces of paper and LinkedIn connections to gauge whether or not to
hire someone. No ability to gauge someone’s presence.

3) This further enables corporations to have no concern for geography. No skin
in the game. No loyalty to a place. No loyalty to people. You are now
competing with people who are willing to work for a fraction of the price you
do, and on paper you both have the same credentials.

~~~
cblconfederate
sounds like what is already happening in europe where a lot more people worked
remotely in tech, due to the lack of local tech. People adapt, and learn to
socialize off-office. Limiting oneself to the office was always unhealthy
anyway

------
microcolonel
Closing the office has increased our productivity, and for those of us who are
not too socially isolated in our private lives, it hasn't cost us much.

We closed very early (early February) since most of the company came in by
regional mass transit and I had been tracking this thing outside of the
(confused) mainstream media bubble, saw it becoming a very big deal.

------
birdyrooster
The reason I won’t be coming back to the office is because my managers love
not having to come in anymore. It’s that simple.

------
osigurdson
Imagine the situation were reversed: high speed internet widely available
prior to the technology required to construct office buildings. Once office
building technology did become available, how many would be constructed to
shelter workers purely tasked with creating and manipulating information? I
would think very few.

------
throwawaysea
I really hope this trend sticks so that we can decentralize away from big
urban centers. It would really allow us to free ourselves from crowded
spaces/amenities, painful commutes, and high prices, as well as letting us
seek out the community/culture that fits us best.

------
minusSeven
Am I the only affected by the work from home policy? Not having anyone to talk
to for months is bad for my mental health, even as an introvert. I now wish I
could go to office atleast once a week.

Also I struggle to find motivation to work and procrastinate everything.

~~~
morbusfonticuli
If I'd be in your position (lacking social contacts outside of the work
environment), I'd take the time to reflect my life and would try to determine
what makes me happy.

For example: Do you miss interactions with others? Join local clubs that fit
your hobbies and meet new people. This is how life works IMO.

Personally speaking, joining different local orchestras/bands in the city im
currently living in (since ~1 year) helped me a lot. I decided to let my work
be only work and search "purpose/fulfilling" in other aspects of life.

------
x87678r
For me I dont really like working from home, but I would like the flexibility
of having most time in the office but spending chunks of time like a few weeks
or even a whole summer elsewhere. Doesn't save much on office space though.

------
markus_zhang
I have mixed feelings about working from home.

In one hand, it's great to be able to get up late/avoid bad weather/go
shopping in the middle. On the other hand, I don't have adequate space for a
proper office, and I surely miss the great food/coffee/printer/extra
screen/etc. services the office provides. Plus, as a BA, communication with
Teams is always less efficient. There is also a huge risk of getting more
friction with family members as well.

Overall I prefer to work in a proper office environment, best if I have my own
office. Damn I need to be a VP to have my own office, meh, that's way beyond
my pay grade.

------
ahominid
Everyone raves about the work-from-home deal but forgets that we’ve all only
been doing it for a few months - it’s still new and fresh. After a year or so
of doing it I think we’ll start to see more mixed opinion.

Personally I’m OK with either arrangement, it’s more about the _choice_ in the
matter. The change of pace that comes with sometimes going into an office vs
not is rejuvenating. Or even potentially the choice of being 100% remote and
living in a different city for a while. Having those options are the real net
benefit.

------
aresant
Office buildings are a $2,500,000,000,000 asset class in the USA alone.

Throw in retail and you're at >$5 trillion of value.

And the market is in total chaos due to COVID-19, fortunes are going to be
made and lost on a ridiculous scale over the next decade as institutional
investors reposition their trillions of dollars of equity in this market.

Institutional investors rely on commercial real estate as it's one of the only
asset classes at SCALE that can:

(a) Generate cash flow

(b) Is asset backed

(c) Is highly leverageable w/relatively low default risk (debt)

As a result the world's largest institutional funds - pensions, sovereign
wealth, insurance companies, etc typically invest a large allocation of their
overall funds (10 - 25%) in the CRE class.

This lets them pay their current liabilities - teacher pensions, public
services, insurance coupons, etc - with cash, while also generating longer
term IRR returns on the appreciating assets to cover ever expanding
liabilities.

For generations of institutional wealth managers retail and office space were
the #2 and #3 largest overall allocations of their real estate portfolios (1)

Part of this is due to the scale in office / retail - those two product types
represent ~$5 trillion in asset value and are only outstripped by multifamily
($2.9t) in scale. (2)

But as both office and retail have been slipping for the past decade
institutional managers had slowly begun to reposition and reallocate to other
sectors while keeping a toe in.

But as it's done elsewhere COVID-19's arrival has massively pulled trends in
CRE forward by probably a decade with regard to the reallocation.

As a result what most CRE investment pros are expecting a significant increase
in valuation multiples across alternative CRE asset classes including
multifamily, self storage, industrial, etc.

What's terrifying about the idea of massive winners & losers in the space is
the potential further erosion of returns on institutional investors, who are
typically already well behind investment targets to maintain their expanding
liabilities.

Great resource / primer here if you're interested - (1)
[https://www.leggmason.com/en-us/insights/investment-
insights...](https://www.leggmason.com/en-us/insights/investment-insights/cp-
major-shifts-in-ocde-sector-allocations.html)

(2) [https://www.reit.com/data-research/research/nareit-
research/...](https://www.reit.com/data-research/research/nareit-
research/estimating-size-commercial-real-estate-market-us)

------
ookblah
Not sure if this is the best place to post, but I'm trying to gather some
insights for a personal project related to working at home. If you have 5
minutes would love to get any feedback. Google form is linked below. Thank
you!

[https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSccwNqYrdBYQSNhLrPQ...](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSccwNqYrdBYQSNhLrPQKR5NFvAzSnb_B1Q_XdnnowvOat4qpw/viewform)

~~~
disgruntledphd2
So, I'm filling out your form, and on page 3 there are four point scales from
Strongly disagree - Strongly agree. You really should provide a neutral
option, as forcing people to make a decision when they are indifferent will
mostly just provide noise (some people will just be indifferent to everything,
but you can normally remove those easier).

------
holler
How will this affect commercial real estate? I've already noticed an uptick in
"for lease" signs on commercial buildings throughout the major city I live
in...

~~~
anpago
Big effect as it will on many pension funds and so on.

------
MangoCoffee
we probably going to needs Starlink to cover rural area first.

------
torcete
I wonder if this is going to be the beginning of the decline of big cities.
Who wants to live in a expensive place if you don't need to commute to work
everyday?

~~~
mac01021
People who can afford to live there and enjoy the variety of cultural
attractions and outside dining.

The number of such people may not be enough to sustain the cities, though.

------
cblconfederate
Post-corona , the offices are like churches. Yeah, you go there once a week to
attend, but you do most of your prayer at home.

------
lmilcin
I think this is horrible idea.

Being developer and working with developers (already pretty antisocial,
introverted bunch) I see only minority of people can function well working
completely remotely and almost none of the newcomers.

Thinking that people can work remotely for couple of months and extrapolating
it to years and decades is pretty silly idea.

------
fasteddie31003
We will let the free market decide if an office is a net positive to the
company. Each company will be different.

~~~
Polylactic_acid
In the past it seemed that every manager saw wfh as a disaster where people
will spend all day on youtube. Now at least everyone has been forced to try it
out and see how it works. For us at least we have found things to be at worst,
just as productive as before.

------
stunt
There is just so much benefits for employees, employer, city, public health.
And it's stupid that we couldn't try it at scale until we had to.

Obviously, we still have lots of jobs that can't be done from home. But, even
they would benefit from less people going to office everyday.

------
ipiz0618
I imagine remote work will be much more prevalent post-pandemic. But what
would happen to H1B workers?

------
ghaff
I was already unofficially remote. Meetings are actually a bit better with
everyone at home on camera. The thing I miss is travel which was about 1/3 of
my time. (And, fortunately, I live in a fairly rural location with a dedicated
office and forest paths out my door.)

------
_hao
Company I joined recently will not renew the lease on their office next month.
They'll get another smaller office that won't have the capacity for everyone
and you'll have the option to go there (if you wish) on a rotation.

P.S. Based in London

------
replyifuagree
If home based staff cost 10% less due to not having to pay building overhead,
and your competition takes full advantage of that savings and you don't - that
10% cost savings might just be enough for them to win in the long haul.

------
focus2020
Remote work fights against ageism. That is one huge plus to me. I am in my
30's and worry about getting unemployed due to ageism. I am happy rote work is
embraced.

------
Razengan
Working from home becoming the norm can only be a net positive for society and
the environment and the economy.

Fewer traffic, less pollution, fewer buildings, more space, better health,
more leisure time.

------
im_down_w_otp
We got our rent cut in half. Pre-pandemic we were getting a fantastic bargain
on an office. Mid-pandemic, even with the rate cut, we're getting a terrible
deal on a mailbox. :-)

------
rossdavidh
Predicted headline about 1 year from now: "U.S. companies decide to move away
from WFH arrangements, return to office".

(saying this as someone who's been WFH for a few years now)

~~~
phendrenad2
Agreed. Getting managers to agree to WFH (and keep allowing WFH) has always
been a struggle. Management hates it, because they can't see with their own
eyeballs that everyone is "working" (with "sitting at their desk" as a
somewhat-useful heuristic proxy for "working"). Lots of companies have tried
full-remote, and very few stick with it long-term. I think that once the risk
is low enough, we'll all be back to the exact same long packed commutes and
open-plan offices.

~~~
rossdavidh
I think one way in which we saw this movie before, was with the move to
offshoring programming. It was really big 5-10 years ago, and then quietly got
unwound when it turned out that close communication between teams requires
more than phone, email, and video. There are places where it works (I am an
example of that), but it normally doesn't work all that well, because the
advantages of being in one physical space are normally hard to quantify and
thus hard to reproduce.

------
saos
I wonder when 4 day work week will be considered. My company did it and we
took a pay cut. But man those 4 day weeks were amazing.

------
bamboozled
Will I get paid more to get a bigger apartment?

~~~
sgt
Not at all, but the good news is that your company will save lots on not
having to pay for your office space. This money can be used for that executive
level bonus your boss has been dreaming about.

~~~
bamboozled
I've worked from home and while I do enjoy aspects of it, I feel like a lot of
executives only see the money saving aspects of it.

Ideally, we could have an office, but we could also have flexbility, I think
this would be the ultimate outcome for both the worker and the employee, it's
a shame it seems to be one or the other right now.

------
narrator
How about people who work with expensive equipment? Obviously not HN people
who all work on MacBooks, but biotech people, etc.

------
cblconfederate
This is such an interesting turn of things. Science fiction has been talking
about this since the 60s. It's a shame it took so long for a remote work
revolution to happen. I am currently at my office but everyone else in the
office is telecoferencing, so i have to wear headphones. This is a new normal.
Office is not office anymore.

Cities have been left behind all these decades, they were hyperoptimizing for
people commuting daily to factories which dont exist anymore, separated in
residential and commercial districts for no real reason, managing peak hour
traffic as if peak hour is an inevitability (and this hyperoptimization is
much more prevalent in the US). We ve learned that "work" is a place while
truly it's an amount of energy that can be put any hour. The cherished
"work/life separation" is just a shift in attention, or rather, it can be all
life now, a life that includes work. It's not like work-life separation
existed before , in the sense that people don't stop thinking about work when
at home or vice-versa. 9-5 schedules are only applicable to a small percentage
of remotable-work. We have now the opportunity to redefine living itself. It
feels like we are finally entering the 21st century.

An interesting question is what opportunities arise in this post-office world.
One could see co-working offices becoming as common as corner stores for
people who need them, not via global conglomerates like wework, but mom-and-
pop converting their old abandoned properties to a work-from-office
workplace/cafeteria. We will need new places, places to meet people that don't
exist yet, services for people who will prefer nomad-style medium-term living,
remote work visas, co-living spaces with all amenities, home-office
retrofitting services etc. Work defines cities, and this change is not going
to be different.

We also need to stop treating remote work as marginal , and remote workers as
some sort of pariahs that are never accounted for in public city planning.
Business happens at home as much as in the busy streets now.

What will come in the future boils down to psychology: Yes, being at home the
entire time is miserable, we know that from animal studies. Our hippocampus
gets excited by changing our environment. Going out for exercise is nice, but
it's too short to matter, we need to find ways to maintain balance between
movement and routine. Nomad living, or perhaps changing cities every few years
(the way many academics do) may become a lot more common and commercialized.
Schooling services for nomads may become a thing. It's tempting to think that
we 'll go back to village-living, but if you've lived it you 'd know it's
suffocating. Our new normal has to be better, not worse.

------
golergka
And tens of thousands of engineers from other countries around the world
rejoice at what's about to happen to the job market to the remote senior
developers with fluent English.

What I don't understand is how HN audience, mostly from a couple of tech hubs
in US, is enjoying this. Don't you guys see that we're finally coming after
your FAANG salaries?

------
marv3lls
Has "cut costs" ever meant anything other than "hurt the worker"?

------
pfdietz
Our financial advisor has told us to reduce holding in commercial real estate.

------
bozzcl
...every company hoping to sponsor a green card?

------
jamespitts
I see a lot more housing options ahead.

------
dave_4_bagels
Personally, I can't wait to get back into an office. Working from home has
helped me break some previous bad habits and improve my self-discipline -
which both positively impacted my productivity while working from home.

However, even with commuting time, I'm happier (due to distinct separation of
home-time and work-time) and more productive when I have an office I work from
3-4 days a week.

During my last "remote" engagement I joined a small community co-working space
in Boston after two weeks of "true" work from home. I've found my idea balance
is 3-4 days a week in-office and 1-2 days "remote".

I envy those of you who can work remote without issue, even as an introvert
who dislikes lots of people and distractions I can't see "remote first" as
something I enjoy going forward.

~~~
my_usernam3
I agree with this.

There was a poll on linkedIn I came across with over 10k responses where the
slight majority of people believe partial working from home was the best,
beating out full working from home by a little, and no working from home being
significantly in last.

------
blue52
Unless you are a multi-nation megacorp or a specialty who needs dedicated
space, I see no reason for the need to waste funds on it.

