[Is the office dead?]

29 minutes ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

Pleated pants go great with my double breasted suit jacket with big shoulder pads and a super wide tie.  

I still have my suit I got for graduation, and it still fits like a 12 year old trying on his dad's suit.  90s style was the worst. 

[Is the office dead?]

1 hour ago, Neonmoon said:

It will be industry specific, company specific, persons specific. No one size fits all.

There are two sides to every coin. For every person that benefits from quick drop by conversations or after meeting conversations, or overhearing something and learning, contributing to that conversation, I can show you some dumbfuck that spends 3 hours per day just shooting the shit and believes he’s the hardest worker on the company because he thinks that 2 minutes of work talk justifies 2 hours of bullshitting. 

People have way to many fucking meetings. This meeting should have been an email is a real thing. Same goes for the dumbfucks who send an email and then walk over and say exactly what they said in the email. Do one or the other. Both is not needed. Some meetings are important. There is a healthy medium. Just don’t think many companies try to reach that medium 

I was originally excited about working from home. I always felt I could never get any work done because of meetings, drop-by conversations, etc. but after working from home, I realized I would have liked some kind of balance, some days at the office, some at home. Maybe it was the never leaving home that made it worse, but missed the human connection after a while. 

This reminds me of the private office v open concept debates. There are pros and cons to both. Companies will always choose what their consultants say is best anyway 

I just had a meeting to set up two additional meetings. That was the entire purpose of the meeting. And you say meetings are worthless. 

[Is the office dead?]

1 minute ago, Sbbruin said:

Wait, are you saying they're NOT in style?

Even if they wanted to be, where can you even buy a pair?  Have to get them custom made. 

[Is the office dead?]

11 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

I was only working from home for a couple of months in April and May.  Prior to that I was typically biz casual- slacks, dress shirt, no tie, sportcoat with me but rarely on.  More casual on Fridays- i.e. jeans instead.  Since June I've been jeans every single day.

 

And the short sleeve dress shirt needs to make a comeback.

What about the pleated pants?

[Matthew McConaughey Truly Considering Run for Governor]

47 minutes ago, UncleSonny said:

From what I've seen when he talks about politics he comes off as pretty moderate, anti-extremes on both sides guy. Of course in Texas he would be seen as solidly D, especially with his stoner guru self-actualization vibe.

20 years ago, he would have been a Schwarzenegger type R. Current Republicans love celebrities, but only celebrities who are both B list and assholes. MM is neither one.  "Can't we all just get along" is an entirely Dem thing now. Doesn't matter where he stands on economics or any of the old issues.  Even libertarian nice people are voting Dem these days. Hes a Dem.  The entire new GOP platform is "I want to be an asshole to other people."  That's it. It has no other platform planks. There are still a few old stragglers like Romney, but they are going the way of the dodo.

[Is the office dead?]

7 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

This.  This is also really important.  The intangible of human connection in many jobs (not all, but you'd be surprised how many) is really important.  It creates energy that feeds on itself, it creates connection and trust and familiarity.  It's important in a thousand ways.

Also, pants suck.  After a couple of weeks of picking out a pair of slacks and actual shoes once we go back, I'll sigh and miss my shorts and flip flops.

Roll into the office in shorts and flip flops then.  Back in the dot com era, I often did. Office dress codes are sexist. Men's business dress code is entirely rigid while women have some flexibility. One shouldn't have to choose to identify as a woman in order to show some leg in the summer.  At my old job, I had to sweat my ass off in a damn tie every day. Those summer dresses started to look real comfortable. 

I'm also not even sure I have a pair of slacks that currently fit.  The gym misses me. 

[Is the office dead?]

2 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

The bolded statements are in direct conflict with each other.  They want to be seen, they want to be around the CEO because they know that is how you advance in a small company.  Facetime matters.  Not so much in a satellite office.

Not at ours. Most of our promotions are based on productivity and client relationships. Seniority still happens too. None have been about facetime or being seen sitting at a desk. I suppose if someone was trying to recover from a mistake or client complaint, facetime would help, but that hasn't happened. 

Along those same lines, there has been something positive that's happened during the pandemic. When people aren't that busy, they now admit to it, so work has been better distributed. This was not the case when just being at the office, with work to do or not, was considered "work."

[Is the office dead?]

4 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

I had my IT remove the Teams chat program from my laptop.  It would launch every time I turned my computer on, and I NEVER used it.  Some of the youngsters do, but I have dual monitors at my desk and one almost always has my outlook on it as that's how I deal with people- email.  So you need something?  Send me a fucking email.  

Ok gramps. But yeah, email should be the only thing used for work.  People are also a little too lax with what they say in company chat apps. 

[Is the office dead?]

1 hour ago, tantric superman said:

I'm a TEAMS man, myself.

Zoom sucks, but Teams is a monstrosity. Sets my laptop on fire when it's running. Nobody asked to have everything in one app. I was fine using Skype for business and SharePoint separately. And since my company uses Teams chat now, we also need it on our phones which shortens the battery life to about 15 minutes.  The old Microsoft was better. The customer used to always be right. Now the customer is forced to take updates whether they want to or not.  

[Is the office dead?]

14 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

I'm seriously considering dropping my office and going to a shared office setup.  But then I'd have to deal with all my furniture.  So I'll probably just stay here for a bit longer.

With the shared office, dont you have to adjust the work area every day to suit your needs after someone else did the same the day before?  Sounds like getting in the driver seat after my wife drove the car last. Can never quite get it back exactly how I like it. 

[Is the office dead?]

25 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I’m here for this. Video calls are for checking in with kids when I travel or for allowing said kids to see their grandparents. I loathe work video calling and will actively look for excuses to just do a call instead.

It would be interesting to see bosses’ assessments of productivity versus people’s own assessments. I’ll say this,  I have absolutely noticed that my best are still getting things done and maybe even working harder. My stragglers are finding ways to do less, I notice it, and they are most vocal about “wanting to be more flexible when this is over.”

Then there are the things that are no one’s fault.  Like a talented new employee, if we are in the office maybe I kick a project down and say “give this a shot and come find me when you get stuck” and it’s learning time. Now— I’ll do it myself, especially since I am still planning to go back to normal and have that chance. If we went permanently to distance work, I’d have to reassess. And that’s fundamentally my problem as a boss, I get it, but I don’t have to like it. I will never enjoy mentoring via Zoom.

The last paragraph isn't your fault though.  I have a still open position that can't be filled because I need someone that knows what they're doing and my CEO wants to lowball them. Historically, this position would be a hire up position.  But there is nobody to hire up. 

But at one time, I was that talented new employee. I climbed a ladder that was not even offered half the time. And what I want out of an employee is the same. They should want my job. But they also have to be willing to wait when waiting arises. 

[Is the office dead?]

18 minutes ago, swraith said:

I think this topic splits into segments.

Our 2 offices, Austin and Chicago, have been closed for a year. Staff has worked remote 100% the entire year. We were 100% an 8 to 5, Monday to Friday shop pre-Covid. I can easily spend 6 hours a day on Teams in meetings, audio or video, managing staff from home now.

We are putting plans in place to dump both office leases. Nobody except the top guy for each office has even been in the buildings the past year.

Line level staff that just do their daily tasks/grind love the remote work. None of them voice any desire to return. They all love having zero commute. None of them seem to care about the lack of socialization but it does concern me. Even our call center is 100% work from home now. Those people are never coming back to the office. Waste of money.

Creatives want a collaboration space. Our Marketing department. Our high level software engineers/architects. They want to do the bulk of their work remotely, but they want a whiteboard and conference room for collaboration sessions.

So we will be looking for office footprints that are 25% of what we currently have.

We have hired new staff during the last year. Integrating with the new team members takes a different approach.

The people in our offices are not friends. They are coworkers. Our under 30 crowd would grab drinks after work...but anybody with kids...they stopped that so missing out on drinks after work...I don’t miss it.

I plan to do work lunches before/after in person collaboration sessions.

Flex schedules seem like they just suck. Never know where anybody is on any given day. At least now...with everyone remote...I know I can get anybody on Teams in a reasonable timeframe.

I will never return to a full office schedule with my current company.

That all sounds miserable. What do you do?

[Is the office dead?]

7 minutes ago, UpperWestside said:

Not married yet, but I understand the challenges faced by those who have them. I will gladly welcome those challenges when they come even though I have an aversion to noise and am comfortable by myself. I look at the world a little differently after what happened to me personally in 2020 so that might have something to do with having somewhat rose colored glasses about this subject. 

I had the opposite thought. As a married person with a child, covid has been irritating but never dark or challenging. Remembering my single self, I know it would have been much harder for me then. But everyone is different. 

[Is the office dead?]

1 minute ago, shnsajax said:

Seattle traffic is just garbage and there is no public transportation to Bellevue yet. I had similar issues at times going from Flower Mound into Dallas. If you can flex your office schedule into 4-5 hour chunks from 10:30-3:30 I could see why its fun, but I also don't fully understand the point. I mean during the World Cup when we all dock into a conference room and pretend to work sure, and lets have the company order in some lunch too.

A 2 hour commute is never worth it. Especially doing a reverse commute. You could live in Bellevue for cheaper.  But I get it. You want to live where you want to live. For one of my first jobs post college, I drove from South Austin to Round Rock. Lasted about 6 months and quit with nothing.  I could not stand the commute.  But I dont expect everyone to be me. I moved to NYC specifically not to have to drive to work, had less than 2000 dollars to my name, no job lined up, but I did have a couch to sleep on. Here I am 20 years later doing quite alright in NYC. Maybe I could have done that in a remote environment. But probably not.  So I do get it. Driving commutes do steal your soul. But that is really a problem with your local urban planners. You think you live in cities, but most of you don't. 

[Is the office dead?]

2 minutes ago, UpperWestside said:

I think that long-term the mental health of the American worker will be better if they either work at home or have a flex schedule where they are in the office a couple of days per week. This pandemic has shown that the old way of doing things was not good for the overall health of people who were commuting into work. There are certain jobs where you have to be there in-person. I will have one of those jobs starting in the fall. However, if you are in a career where working from home is an option it should be pursued if your company will still allow it once the pandemic ends.

Are you single or married?

[Is the office dead?]

4 minutes ago, shnsajax said:

All of this. My previous company in Bellevue, Washington everyone spent 2+ hours commuting every day and it created a lot of waste once you are in the office & less time with the family. Now I wake up at 7:45, kids play till I get up. Make breakfast for them, and walk into home office at 8:30. Of course with online school this year things are a little different, but it won't be much different next year dropping them off 2 miles away at 8:30 and being back home.

To each their own, but I have no problems with working from home 95% of the time. 

Are you friends with any of those people you worked with in Bellevue?

And I would never commute 2 hours. 30 minutes is my limit. And I will still avoid the morning rush, work at home in the morning, and stroll in at 1030 to 11. 

[Is the office dead?]

2 minutes ago, DalTxHornFan said:

I confess that I am not doing a very good job of mentoring younger folks these days.  That said -- most of the mentoring that I received wasn't in the office -- it was over drinks after hours in the evening.  Once the senior partners learned that I could hang with them and knew some shit, they started trusting me with more important client relationships.

Right. For me too. But there isn't an entry point now to even make those drinks happen. Organically at least. 

[Is the office dead?]

15 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I am twice as productive working from home as I am M-F in the office.  I work 7-10 hours every day, Monday-Sunday, and I am nowhere near as close to as fatigued as I was doing the daily grind.  I am the living breathing example of why work from home can work.  Of course, my job is tailor made for it, but that doesn't change the fact that I am providing much more value at home than I did at the office.

Before covid, I did 2 or 3 days a week in the office, and the rest at home. At that time, I was absolutely more productive at home. My daughter was in school, and in day care til 5 after school. My wife was either working or physically at her own school. Yes, she is over 40 and going for a degree. And I could work from home in blissful silence. 

But during covid, my wife is doing school remotely and tries to stay quiet. Tries. My daughter is at school until 2 pm, 2 days per week, and remote schooled the other 3. On those 2 days my daughter is at school, I do actually get some things done until 2 pm. But when she is there, almost nothing. Don't get me wrong though. I'd love to have play time all the time with my daughter, but then how are we gonna eat?  

I am sensing though, that a lot of yall don't have friends at work. I dont know whether that's good or bad in the long run. But as someone who moved to a city knowing nobody, I would not have wanted to be remote then for sure, even if I could be now. 

[Is the office dead?]

11 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Agree with most of this. I think some processes and tasks can be done flex or entirely from home and it makes a lot of sense to allow people to do that. But anything that’s at all creative, that is at all collaborative— we underestimated the value of hallway conversations and the proverbial watercoooler chat.  You can’t schedule that stuff around a Zoom call. The loss of someone sticking their head in an office and saying “hey, I want to get your take.....” is just now being appreciated. 
 

I also run my office and have been advocating max home office for my subordinates’ sake. But they feel the lack of facetime with me and with each other; and it’s undoubtably effecting my ability to give—and get— what I need. 

There is the "work" aspect of it, but cameraderie may actually be more important, and it just doesn't happen all remote. 

The aforementioned coworker who was the best man at my wedding was actually hired to replace me when I was quitting a job to go to law school. I later came back and worked a higher level job in the exact same department to make money during law school.  Because I also made a connection with the department head. None of that happens in a remote only world. And that place was one of the 10 largest law firms in the world.  To be fair though, I am also very good at what I do.  I am the backstop who became a manager.  I've never been just a manager. That is still a work in progress. 

[Is the office dead?]

23 minutes ago, DalTxHornFan said:

I'm in the professional services space.  I control my client relationships and haven't needed to do office "facetime" for the last 20 years or so.  In fact, when I was on deadline or deep into a client project Pre-Covid, I'd get a hotel room to work in so that I could focus on the client deliverable without office interruptions.  Not having to make excuses for going dark for days at a time has been a great thing.  I'm gonna be taking a hard look at our office lease commitments as the renewals start coming up.

Im in the same space, and that's all great. Prior to covid, I was also more productive away from the office. But covid has made me understand the need for the office. 

But I will also ask.  At your office, do you count even a single person as a friend?  Had you been entirely remote from the start, its unlikely that you would know any of them very well. 

Perhaps my experience is colored by the fact that I moved to a new city, where I wanted to live, and worked entry level office work at the start. I'm still friends with many of my coworkers from the beginning.  Going on 20 years now.  One of them was the best man at my wedding even.  Had I met them on zoom with the occasional forced get together, I wouldn't have known them at all.  But also, I became an effective manager through mutual trust. Is that possible remote only?  

But there always has been and will be a place for folks who work like you. And really I'm one too. I do manage people, but I'm also the backstop for them. And I also work better in the solo dark place. Which is why the "no wife there, no kids there" part of my office post may be the truest part. Most people just aren't wired like that though.  The Nats fan coworker needs to throw ideas off me.  Sometimes people don't want to write the question they need to ask in email. And even with me, there are times I would ask "what do you think about this?" but I don't because it isnt for email and I'm not going to zoom it. 

But also maybe I'm weird because I truly loathe video calls. To my core. They really change my whole being. In person meetings, fantastic. Audio, great. Video, fuck everyone. In fact, one of my biggest issues with the covid world is that clients that used to be perfectly happy with audio conference calls now want video. 

[Is the office dead?]

Probably not a CR topic, but DT is trash these days. 

Much has been made of remote work becoming the norm. And of flexible office space for those that want to work at the office on occasion.  To those who say the office is dead, I'd say not so fast.

I worked at my office today for the first time in several months. And it was glorious. No wife around. No kids around.  I got more done today than in the last month probably. 

Before Covid, I was flex. 2 or 3 days a week in the office when I chose to be there.  My small company has 2 offices. The CEO runs one, I run the other.   My urban office has been closed for the entirety of the pandemic.  His suburban office has been reopened for about 6 months.  Before the pandemic, everyone was allowed 1 flex day a week, but most weeks, hardly anyone used them and came in every day instead.  But everyone also had their own space. Either an office or at least a desk. 

I'd like to think that flex office will be the way going forward, but Americans just don't work like that.  Our CEO opened his office because he wanted to go in. He openly announced that everyone else based in that office were welcome to stay remote, but could also work on a staggered schedule there with masks. All signed up for the staggered schedule on day one.  But the CEO isn't going in every day, so they have also been competing to be there on the days when he is. And these are employees who are experts in their field and who have the email and client satisfaction track record to prove they have been working great at home.  They have no need to brown nose. 

So I think ultimately, it will go right back to being about facetime with the boss in less than a year. Two employees working in the same department flexing in and out of the office just won't work.  That flex desk will belong to some individual.  They'll compete their way to 60 hours a week both in the office.  The only reason all this remote work worked is because everyone was remote.  When everyone was in the office, at least the boss saw you there even if you were posting on surly and didn't have shit to do.  

That being said, I do run my office so I dont care where people work as long as everyone does their work, and it's in Manhattan so way more expensive than it needs to be.  And we happen to be at the end of our lease.  So we are about to downsize it.  But that could still end up being shortsighted.  Because another thing that really matters is cameraderie.  I'm a huge Astros fan and have a coworker who is a huge Nats fan. That World Series mattered for office mojo.  And neither of us were going to take a flex day during it.  We had to be there to either talk shit or accept shit.  He is lucky that he is good at his job though. Nah, Nats won fair and square. But we all want that type of connection with coworkers. It doesn't happen on zoom and it actually matters. 

[Senate confirmation of Biden's nominees]

On 3/6/2021 at 5:50 PM, TheStoicPaisano said:

Cancun Cruz places hold on CIA director.

 

What do those 2 things even have to do with one another?  I am going to ground my kid until Vince Young is retroactively awarded the Heisman Trophy. 

[Abbott being Abbott]

13 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

My wife is a Canadian citizen and we’re having serious discussions about her and a couple of my kids (16 and 22) becoming Canadian citizens and possibly packing up and moving to Canada.

I would have to stay here though since my job doesn’t really exist in Canada and I don’t think I can become a citizen there anyway. I suppose I can western union money to them like the illegals here send back to their families in Mexico. 

If you move to Canada with your wife, you can reside, work, and have a path to citizenship.  But if your career isn't available in Canada that would make it difficult to get by. 

I've been thinking about moving to Europe the same way, but I also feel too damn old to fuck around with that. 

[Joe Biden 2021]

49 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

Have they split Wyoming into twelve states or something equally as insane?

That's what they're going to do next time they have a chance, and removing the filibuster gives them a chance much sooner. We're basically saying "we have one party that's insane and will do anything they can to grab power and oppress people", and at the same time we're making it easier for them to do those insane things in the future. 

Republicans will always beat Democrats at a game of brinksmanship because they are insane, cynical, and don't give a fuck. 

Every person in Wyoming is now a state. 

Splitting states up is harder to do than adding new ones. 

[SALT cap repeal]

2 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Schools are differently funded.  My point was you can hear a similar line of argument to the one that fed tax dollars shouldn’t go to Alabama or Mississippi....that tax dollars should “stay“ in a geographical region.We all want our dollars to stay close to home and that’s how Congress critters get elected but it shouldn’t be a principle.

There really was no time of ideal limited federal government, and the usefulness of federal investment to improve the nation has been understood since we gave it the power to build “post roads.” 

The larger problem is that the federal government doesn't properly "invest" anywhere in America. It gives a ton of handouts to corporations, funds foreign wars, and does little more than that other than bail states out because they fail to plan for natural disasters. It needs to get back to building infrastructure and providing for the welfare of Americans. Since we don't have that and rely heavily on local and state funding, we should prioritize local and state tax revenue. 

If my tax money was actually doing something for the residents of MS and AL, I'd be okay with it being distributed in such a manner. But it doesn't do shit for them. Their state government doesn't do shit for them either. So I'd rather just fund my state until the residents of MS and AL finally wise up and vote for better governance. I'm tired of rebuilding your coastline after every hurricane because yall refuse to properly plan as well.