Imagine that the “covid economy” could’ve been the first step to long term survival of the species
There are theories about climate lockdowns to slow down pollution seeing how well it worked during Covid unintentionally. Personally I would froth for a periodic lockdown where everyone stayed home and chilled
I once lived in a city that had a by-law where all businesses were closed on Sunday. At first I found the law annoying, but honestly those super quiet Sundays really grew on me.
When I went to Tuscany there were places I visited with half day work hours and Sunday everything was closed. People just enjoyed life, not needing to shop, but just living. I crave a society like this.
That was pretty much everywhere in my province until the late 90s or so…
Take that corporate bailout and PPP loan money to fund buses and highspeed rail, mandatory WFH in jobs that are able to implement it, heavy fines for violation. Bing bang boom a whole bunch of cars just got taken off the street and bought us slightly more time to unfuck ourselves
Tbh, I really enjoyed the lockdowns. We have young children and I got to spend so much time with them. I got much closer to them than I ever could have without covid. Was stressful though my wife and I had to work in shifts, so that one of us could be with the children, so long days.
But now they are in school and I think lockdowns are not that great for young school-children. So, I am undecided. Maybe a lock down excluding schools up to year 8 or so.
School buses are a thing, and no one would disagree with that I’d think.
Oh, I live in Germany. My children walk or go by kick scooter. :) But yes, I hope so.
Lockdowns provided short term relief for reducing GHG but later bounced back to pre-COVID levels [1]
Long term we need to improve the efficiency at the source (power generation) and get rid of O&G dependency. In addition, transform cities to become less car dependent (the microplastics from ICE/EV based cars tire wear is not good) Also Western diets have to change (reduced meat consumption).
I do like the idea of keeping WFH as an option though. The mandatory RTO sentiment of C-level executives is annoying to say the least and data is not backing up their reasoning. Keep an office for the people that prefer it and reduce the office footprint. Gather data over time and let teams and team leaders decide.
Maybe the next strain will be the real one.
We would need one that targets middle managers and narrow-minded bosses.
For a year and change, nobody in my house got sick. And then most people said, “Finally I don’t need to mask.” and we get sick all the time. We learned nothing.
That’s one of the unintended consequences Fauci was talking about, reduce viral load all around the immune system weakens, when you finally expose yourself back you get sick.
long term survival of the species
Bro that went out the window when people were fighting over 🧻 and causing local supply issues at grocery stores.
Correction to the first panel:
“YOU need to reduce carbon emissions.”
fucks off to Cabo on a private plane for the 5th time this month5th time this month? Isn’t Tom Cruise taking his jet to New York daily for the coffee?
The fact that there’s still any debate regarding viability of working from home after we’ve had definitive proof of that during the pandemic is absolutely surreal.
You have data, but Andy Jassy has a gut feeling. Sundar Pichai really missed seeing everyone. Who’s thinking about their feelings? We have to live our lives according to the whims and fancies of billionaire CEOs or else they’ll be really sad.
Hippo protocol. Highest Paid Person’s Opinion.
I wonder though if in the near future because of the popularity of work-from-home the boundaries between public life and private life could errode more. Prior to work-from-home many employers already assumed they could contact their employees any day, any time, and expect prompt action/response. Once a living-space is also a work-space why shouldn’t I encourage my employees (who I don’t have, I’m not an employer) to work extra hours? They’re already not commuting, that’s time they could be working.
Living time is not working time though. That we just should normalise more. Shitty employers are trying to make people work overtime regardless, so the solution for that is the same, no matter where are you physically.
I absolutely agree that we should however it’s a prisoners dilemma. The person who is willing to sacrifice their living time to work is a more desirable employee than someone who respects their living time, and we’re seeing automation replace not only laborious jobs but cerebral and creative jobs as well. We’re just starting to see the next generation of jobs being replaced by more advanced automation and AI. I don’t think we’re all doomed but the future is beginning to look pretty uncertain.
That’s definitely a danger, work already bleeds into private life with people being expected to be always connected and available. Lack of clearly defined boundaries between work and home could make that worse.
I love it.
Take this oil-baron founded Q nonsense out of here
Cringe
Ah, they don’t mean reduce emissions though. That might actually do something.
Instead it’s all about becoming “carbon neutral”, which means slipping £20 to a company that offsets emissions, they slip £10 to a company in a third world country offering the same thing, they slip £5 to a farm owner who gives £1 to a guy who throws some seeds into a field.
It’s like paying a man to be celibate so you can cheat on your wife guilt free.
Or they run carbon scrubbers that are actually a net negative because of the power they use.
I don’t think the big business folks are the ones saying we need to limit emissions…
Imagine if laws were passed for the sake of emissions that if an employee is able to work from home then you cannot force them into office more than 2 days a week.
2 days? No it should be that if the employee is able to wfh they should be able to.
Yeah I agree with that too. I say 2 days because that’s currently what the minimum is for our company now and I am seeing the benefit of coming in to collaborate with other team members face to face where you normally wouldn’t have unless you were really diligent in meeting over zoom. That which I didn’t realise/believe before. Then there’s the downside where anyone can approach you at any time and annoy the shit out of you with their mindless ramblings about any shit that comes to their mind whilst trying to concentrate. That being said, it’s all subject to different work structures. If there is no team and only reporting to a manager then yeah why not wfh full time…
In truly flexible work cultures, teams chose their working style as a group. If that means y’all pick 2 days a week to voluntarily commute, go for it. Me on my team of 1 will absolutely not be going in to collaborate. Even 100% of unscheduled discussions happen asynchronously
Sure they do. But only because it has become en vogue with the common folk. Aand only as far as it doesn’t negatively impact their boni.
What’s a “boni”?
German short form of the remuneration (“bonus”) managers & co. often get themselves. It’s “bonus” in english too, so i thought “boni” is common.
Something like this: https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/drei-von-vier-ceo-konnten-sich-2021-ueber-mehr-lohn-freuen-496654556941 (thefuck, 15% more extra in one year?!)
Thanks. Nope, never heard that in English and a Google search shows nothing related to bonuses I can find. Interesting to know about though
Ever heard of ASG?
My work keeps testing the waters, holding mandatory in office meetings… but most of the IT department is in other countries, so I get arbitrarily punished for living in the same city.
Isn’t it crazy you moved 5 hours away to be closer to family? I thought you told your boss.
Let people work from home
Restructure cities to focus on humans first, cars last. This requires changing suburbs to have mixed use buildings, smaller shops and cafes and restaurants mixed / close by with houses. This requires changing a large amount of roads to become smaller, replacing lots of roads with bicycle infrastructure. Add GOOD public transportation
This way, people can walk to the vast majority of destinations (< half a kilometer). If it’s further, they can bike (< 5-10 kms) and it’s further yet they can take easy and good quality public transportation.
In very rare occasions people actually really really need a car. For those, they can use an Uber type service.
This works. Check the Netherlands, Finland and other countries. It requires the will to do it. Bicycle infrastructure is much cheaper to build and maintain and with the cars mostly gone we can repurpose huge parking lots to be nice parks, better housing and generally cities can get more taxes from designs like that. Less costs, more income, nicer and cleaner and safer cities!
Good luck with any of that though, car companies want to print more money money money…
My work instituted a policy for field workers that have to go out in teams of two.
This means everyone has to be at the office because they need to be available to accompany a field worker.
Its stupsud and arbitrary but for context my work is also 9 months into not negotiating with our union. Yey corrupt local government.
treaten them
So much noise and fud about remote work going on.
Meanwhile most of the job postings I see are saying “remote” if it can be. Seems like common sense budgets are winning this battle.
There’s a trend of companies requiring workers to show up at the office for two or three days a week. It’s a real thing; my office requires three days for people that live in the area. Several friends of mine are seeing similar policies at their offices.
Some people just aren’t productive at home. That’s why our office set the new policy. We didn’t want to lose good talent. Fortunately for me I live 100 miles away and work fine from home.
The ads for remote work are generally trying to hire experts that would otherwise be unwilling to move.
