I love the “might HAVE to go out for drinks with the coworkers on the way home”. This is my most dreaded fear.
ScrivenerX@lemm.ee 1 year ago
It’s because a huge amount of business is centered around made up things for going to work.
Things you need to work in an office: suits, dry cleaning for the suits, dress shoes, a car (because public transportation is woefully inadequate for this reason), gas for the car, maintenance for the car, lunch, daycare, a dog walker, you have less time so you are more likely to eat out for dinner, also more likely to hire maids, you are stuck in a commute and radio is awful, so a music subscription, maybe a new phone, and might have to go out for drinks with the coworkers on the way home.
Staying at home, and much of the country on highly limited income, taught us how much we spend on the “privilege” of work. Everyone is still shocked at the emotional and opportunity cost work had, we’re just starting to realize that most of what it sold to us either isn’t real or isn’t needed.
If people don’t go back to work a sea of businesses will fail.
BeHappy@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Dagwood222@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Pre-pandemic. Maybe 2005 [?] one of the big American news companies assembles a team of financial experts to study various big companies. Then they deicde to apply all that brain power to an average American family. Husband and wife with three kids, two jobs and two cars. Both have middle class jobs. After running the numbers, the experts told the wife to quit her job. The savings on childcare, running the second car, no fast food dinners, etc. more than made up for the second salary.
AnalogyAddict@lemmy.world 1 year ago
[deleted]Dagwood222@lemm.ee 1 year ago
If you read what I wrote, the experts looked at all aspects of the couple’s situation. The experts decided that the wife’s job was the one to go.
If you’re having a problem finding dates, maybe you should look at what common factor all your relationships have.
AnalogyAddict@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I don’t have a problem finding dates. I don’t want to date. Men aren’t worth the cost, in my experience. But nice attempt, trying to attack me personally to cover up your misogyny and the misogyny of the “experts”" you quote. Such a “surprising” tactic. Too bad for you that I’m quite comfortable in my choice to live relatively male-free.
Tacking the words “expert” and “study” onto misogynistic propaganda doesn’t make it scientifically rigorous. And even though there is still truth in women making less in general, that’s changing. Women need men less and less every year. Thankfully.
Professorozone@lemmy.world 1 year ago
This is why it costs a lot less than people think, to retire. A lot of the costs of working go away.
Azzu@lemm.ee 1 year ago
You missed the most important thing. Real estate investments that aren’t allowed to go down in value, which they would if offices became superfluous. Just imagine how many buildings would become “worthless”/could be used for something else.
gmtom@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah, this is BY FAR the biggest reason. Pretty much all the rich people and most big companies have huge investment in portfolios that contain a lot of commercial office spaces. If we were all allowed to work from home those investments would plummet and all the rich people and big companies would take MASSIVE losses on those investments. Which is why all the media and even companies like Zoom are trying to pull a 180 on working from home.
Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
Zoom forcing employees back to offices still baffles me
bemenaker@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The video conferencing software that saved the world during covid and made all the companies survive the lockdown.
ScrivenerX@lemm.ee 1 year ago
That is a huge pressure, but it’s less obvious why a company in a business unrelated to real estate would want real estate prices high.
The secret is that companies aren’t in the business of making a good or providing a service, they actually are just giant schemes for raising money for “investments”. For example, airlines don’t make their money off of selling tickets, but through prospecting jet fuel. Most companies aren’t as direct and clear about what their business actually is.
Also the link between real estate and all of jobs isn’t very clear and is very abstract. It’s easy to see the costs and interactions with companies forced by working in an office, it’s difficult to see how a building losing value effects anyone.
Iamdanno@lemmy.world 1 year ago
A forward-thinking wealthy person would start buying these buildings at fire-sale prices and converting them to residential buildings.
Revan343@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
You have to be very choosey, because most office buildings aren’t easily convertable
Dagwood222@lemm.ee 1 year ago
In the Wall Street area of Manhattan, some of the biggest buildings are already being converted to apartments. It’s been a trend for a while, because the older buildings are too expensive to rewire for computers/HVAC.