I hear a lot about how remote work is changing the way we do business, but I don't believe it.

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by wgabrie, Feb 7, 2021.

  1. wgabrie

    wgabrie Well-Known Member Donor

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    I passed a YouTube video with the title of "How Working Remotely Will Change More Than Work" today. (How Working Remotely Will Change More Than Work - YouTube)

    I didn't even watch it.

    My point is that I hear a lot about how remote work is changing the way we do business, but I don't believe it. If we ever get out of this Covid pandemic, then people are going to have to go back to work. Yes, everybody, including the office and technical field people who were working from home on their computer.
     
  2. ChiCowboy

    ChiCowboy Well-Known Member

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    Nope. Companies are happy not having those fixed expenses. If someone can perform just as well at home, why should the company rent him an office?
     
  3. MJ Davies

    MJ Davies Well-Known Member

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    How can you comment on it if you didn't watch it?

    With that said, I believe the WAY we think of work and our contributions to Corporate America has absolutely changed. Yes, there are many people that will return to the workplace just as they were prior to the lockdowns, but, employers have come to learn that they don't have to have brick and mortar buildings, high leases and in-person meetings in order to get the job done.

    I was working remotely years before it became popular and nobody on either side of the family "got" it. They were all used to going into a workplace, doing their job and coming home. The very idea that I could get just as much done (and usually more because remote workers typically put in more hours when working at home) without leaving my home was completely foreign to them.

    Like it or not, the pandemic has changed the way we live, work and even play and some of those habits are going to be the "new normal" when this is finally over. That isn't such a bad thing.
     
  4. 61falcon

    61falcon Well-Known Member

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    It will play holy hell with the commercial real estate market.
     
  5. Lucifer

    Lucifer Well-Known Member

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    Do you realize how much major corporations pay towards rent and upkeep of the buildings they lease?

    Personally, I am no fan of this work from home crap. There's just too much to worry about in your own private space that I never had to even think about in an office. However, depending on what it is that you do, it will be here for quite some time.

    The other change this pandemic has brought that I am glad about is that we are finally becoming a cashless society. No one wants to touch that green stuff, let alone fold it up and stuck in your pocket. Now, more than ever, money is dirty.
     
  6. MJ Davies

    MJ Davies Well-Known Member

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    Would you mind expounding on this (the bolded sentence from your post)? The only thing I can think of is cyber security but many employers provide laptops and servers for their remote employees. What other things would be of concern?
     
  7. Lucifer

    Lucifer Well-Known Member

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    I'm using my own laptop, so I'm always worried of accidentally doing a "Toobin". That's what I call what Jeffrey Toobin got fired for.

    I'm just having a hard time wrapping my mind around working from home. I enjoy the office, or at the very least just getting out of my house.
     
  8. MJ Davies

    MJ Davies Well-Known Member

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    Just did a quick read on Toobin. I think there are about 1,284 things that have to happen before that type of "mistake". It kind of reminds me of that judge (cannot recall his name) that got in trouble for doing that while sitting on the bench. I think some employees reported him.

    It sounds like you are an extrovert. I am not so I don't mind being isolated and having minimal contact with others. I'm not saying you are wrong for feeling that way, just that the things extroverts take for granted are sometimes very difficult for introverts. The lockdown has been more comfortable than it probably is for extroverts.

    P.S. I would never use a personal computer to do company work. For me, assuming the employer won't provide one, it would be worth the expense to buy a separate desktop or laptop to make sure "personal" and "professional" stay separated.
     
  9. Lucifer

    Lucifer Well-Known Member

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    While I don't consider myself a full-blown extrovert, I do enjoy real interactions with people. I like looking into people's eyes, their smiles, and mannerisms. Human interaction is such an amazing nuanced thing.
     
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  10. MJ Davies

    MJ Davies Well-Known Member

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    Oh, I absolutely agree. I just need to do it in small doses. ;-)
     
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  11. Chrizton

    Chrizton Well-Known Member

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    We'll see. On balance, most companies will want their people in a company owned building and most employees will want to go to a work place, but the experience will start to change how a lot of places handle situations. For instance, suppose someone's parent is dying of cancer. Now that the company has experience with remote working and found it doable, then perhaps they will allow that person to work remotely for a period of time without having to fully choose between employment or being with their dying relative. Maybe another company will be able to take college students they like and would like to keep and turn them from summer workers into part-time year round workers regardless of where they return to school. The latter experience already happened to me in college pre-covid. It hadn't really been planned to work out that way, but the person they replaced me with was such a disaster that my employer decided and I was good enough at the job that the employer decided to foot the bill to set me up to telecommute so I would return calls on a company supplied telephone as I could during normal business hours, I remotely connected to the office computer I had used at work to do computing stuff, and then do the other things like research/investigation/correspondence in the evenings as my schedule allowed. Occasionally there were overnight packages back and forth but most things were handled digitally. My last year I finished my final exam on a thursday afternoon, moved back home on Saturday, and was back at my desk on Monday morning at 8:30 am. I didn't even do graduation. I already had my full time job.
     
  12. Golem

    Golem Well-Known Member Donor

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    Many businesses have found it to be more profitable to let some of their workers work from home. And the pandemic has taught them how to do it.

    Some business meetings and collaborative work can be done better remotely. The companies for which this is true just didn't know this before 2020. But now they do.

    So I do agree that many businesses will change the way they do business. Whether that's good or bad... that's a different question. But change they will....
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2021
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  13. Turin

    Turin Well-Known Member

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    I already told my company I don't ever plan to come back to the office. Its not necessary for my job. They said no problem.

    When its safe to travel again, I plan to put my stuff in storage, and spend a couple years traveling around the world and just working from where ever.
     
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  14. Sanskrit

    Sanskrit Well-Known Member

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    The internet/telecom tech explosion has been drastically changing the service economy for decades now. The COVID1984 Political Moral Panic has only accelerated that trend, not materially changed it.

    The tax base of large, service-heavy cities and their immediate suburbs will continue to erode as outlying mid sized-smallish cities with livable infrastructure continue to grow. This is bad news for the gov-edu-union-contractor-grantee-trial lawyer MSM Establishment Complex and better news for the rest of us.
     
  15. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    well most people from India work report to America, remote jobs means they can be outsourced easily
     
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  16. Seth Bullock

    Seth Bullock Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    My wife is an office worker who just needs a computer linked in to her company’s system. When Covid hit us a tech from the company came to our house and set up her system in my study. She’s been working there for almost a year now.

    It’s been awesome for her. No commuting in rush hour traffic. No getting ready for work (dressing, hair styling, makeup). It gives her 3 hours a day of her life back to her.

    Before Covid her company was renting a large office building for what must have been tens of thousands of dollars a month. Now the company says they may never go back to the building. The company’s mission is getting done without it. The company is learning that it doesn’t need the expense of the building to stay in business and get the job done.
     
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  17. Golem

    Golem Well-Known Member Donor

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    My IT company has done this for many clients, setting them up to work remotely. Some had three or four offices, and now they've found they can work out of just one. Looks like their clients actually prefer Zoom to interact with their agents.

    Another one of my clients is now hiring people from other states to work remotely for them.

    This most definitely is changing the business environment for many companies.

    If there are any Asimov fans, they might remember Solaria, where people rarely interacted face to face with each other. Though in Solaria, most of the work was done by robots. Which outnumbered humans ten thousand to one.
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2021
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  18. Curious Always

    Curious Always Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I've been working from home for 20 years. My husband's company sent him home in March, and they aren't expected to go back with any sense of regularity, until July. Even then, they expect it will be once or twice a week, max.

    My company has said that if supervisor and employee agree that the productivity is there and everyone is happy, remote is okay.


    Good. I won't miss paying $30 to park downtown.
     
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  19. ECA

    ECA Well-Known Member

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    No, not everybody will got back to the office. My entire dept will be working from home for good as will many other depts in my company. Businesses are now seeing they can get the same production, maybe even better with people working from home. Add to that the businesses that can have all employees working from home they can save a ton not having to rent office space. While many companies may go back to business as usual many others will go the remote working route.
     
  20. cristiansoldier

    cristiansoldier Well-Known Member

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    What profession are you in? Our company has already started to consolidate offices and moving to a desk sharing system when people have to come into the office. We shut down 3 floors and moved essential personnel to another office. After covid I will probably only spend about 25-50% of my time at the office. For the majority of people in my department they would probably come in as little as 10% of the time.
     
  21. Doofenshmirtz

    Doofenshmirtz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Companies that do not constantly find ways to reduce costs and increase efficiency are doomed to fail. This saves the cost of commercial real estate and lowers risk. Why sit in traffic and take up 2 parking spaces? Of course, politicians are trying to raise the minimum wage, so much of this work is likely to move overseas.
     
  22. Darthcervantes

    Darthcervantes Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    no offense but it sounds like you can’t work from home so you wanna take everyone down with you
    I work 8 30 to 5 and since I no longer commute I just started to work my commute time as well and now work 8 to 5 30
    I drive less now meaning smaller carbon footprint
    I got promoted this year (I guess they thought I worked harder but not really. I just had nobody bugging me at my desk so I got lots done)
    Less commuting means less work outfits means less laundry and therefore less electricity
    I don’t see ONE downside
    Clearly there are some jobs that can’t be done remotely but if they can be then why the hell not?
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2021
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  23. wgabrie

    wgabrie Well-Known Member Donor

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    Yes, many people are getting accustomed to working from home. But, how will data come in and go out? It's the same problem with how technology can't take every job over. Someone needs to put the data into it.
     
  24. wgabrie

    wgabrie Well-Known Member Donor

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    I'm self-employed. I do some IT work and also work as a cashier sometimes. Basically, doing odds and ends at my father's business.
     
  25. wgabrie

    wgabrie Well-Known Member Donor

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    I wonder how businesses are going to reduce costs as inflation makes everything more expensive with every passing year?
     

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