Comment by highcountess

Comment by highcountess 3 days ago

7 replies

What all these discussions about home vs office work largely miss (I’ve seen a few tangential mentions) is that so much of this debate has a far different priority driving it than people think, it’s both capital investments and system pressure to keep the house of cards standing that is driving all meaningful measure of this issue and corporations/CEOs are willing to sacrifice the aloneness and even productivity and profitability of their employees in order to maintain the overall system and serve the central planners in the government that are pressuring them to get the commercial real estate house of cards stabilized by utilizing the floor space … even climate change and destruction of the planet’s climate (if we can believe the inconsistent propaganda in that regard) be damned.

It’s time to shut up and “toe the line” as I’ve been told from regarding this kind of matter. If it chokes down to it, you could even be a specialized and expert in the field that they absolutely need; if you defy them, at least be ready to move on or even be laid off. In this kind of authoritarian system, nothing else takes priority over obedience … no matter how much your corporate “family” would be cutting itself deep in the flesh. I know this from experience and repeated observation.

mattnewton 3 days ago

If that were true, I would expect a lot of smaller CEOs hiring away talent that likes to work remotely.

But I think the truth is much simpler- the C suite is primarily made of extroverted people-persons who work better in person and think others will too.

  • mlinhares 3 days ago

    If there's one thing the C-suite folks in these companies do is stay in the office. They're always "somewhere".

  • ipaddr 3 days ago

    They are but not at these high rates of pay.

euix 3 days ago

Well I mean, look back to the Covid mandates - if employees were compliant than, I see no reason why management wouldn't think they would be compliant now. Having worked middle management in the corporate world - corps are self-selecting, all the people I have met there who have been around 10-20 years already internalized their state a long time ago. My direct boss was quite transparent about this, once referring himself as "a slave for 18 years".

RNAlfons 3 days ago

> if we can believe the inconsistent propaganda in that regard

How is anything about those fact "inconsistant" when besides a few fringe scientists, everybody in the sector knows that for a fact.

  • whythre a day ago

    I think the conflicting idea is that the ‘messaging’ is that we simultaneously need to reduce carbon emissions by whatever means possible, and at the same time we must maintain a labor force that spends hours in traffic each day emitting more Co2.

blindluck 3 days ago

I love a conspiracy but I dont see how the incentives align.

Real estate leases and ownership is a sunk cost. Office space can be relet. And even Amazon wont make a dent in the office realestate marker (warehouses, maybe...)

They want people back in because either they think it makes the company more productive, to get people to quit rather than layoffs, or to give the appearance of doing something. Knowing Amazon they probably have some data to drive the decision too.