A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
Our Goals
I work for the Canadian government. During an all-staff meeting for my department, our Deputy Minister said in front of God and everyone that he figured the carbon emissions were about the same between working from home and commuting to government offices. A couple months later he got promoted to be the Deputy Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada.
The Earth is doomed.
The guy has only studied political science... Imagine if they put people with a background actually related to their ministry in place instead...
Fucking hell, he's been the DM of six different ministries since 2015... No wonder we keep receiving emails telling us a new DM is in charge, it's a game of musical chair!
Ah fuck.
It’s not that fucker Steven Guilbeault is it? FFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Not who I was referring to, but he isn't much better.
I doubt the people that care about people working from home are the same that care about emissions
Are you implying people who dont want to sit in 2 hours of traffic and would prefer to spend that time with their family are somehow unconcerned about polluting the environment for future generations?
I've said the exact opposite of that. Profit driven business owners aren't concerned about emissions, is what I said.
You did, I misread. I’ll take my downvotes.
Maybe it's because I'm on Kbin instead of Lemmy, but I've seen a delightful lack of downvoting people who say something incorrect, then acknowledge it and recant. Definitely a positive difference from the other place.
They love to pretend/say they do though! You know, part of the "culture" after all.
I work for a city that constantly preaches sustainability, sends the mayor and council people to climate conferences, and is even buying fleets of electric vehicles for city use.
But we office workers (engineers, attorneys, accountants, HR, etc) have to work in office 5 days a week. Why? Because the city wants to encourage in office work because they decided to raise most of their revenue through local income taxes, which mostly hits commuters from the suburbs.
Of course, most companies don’t care about the example the city sets. If anything, the 2.5% tax is a massive incentive to keep working from home.
Sounds just like my city (Calgary, Canada). Exact same culture and tax problem too, but here it's mostly oil and gas companies, so they don't give a shit about the environment, they just want to justify their real estate holdings downtown. Which in itself is just a big circlejerk between a bunch of oil drenched executive. Definitely goes against the mayor and council, who declared a climate emergency and there's a bunch of ESG initiatives underway.
I found myself a remote job, and thankfully it's still remote. I make way more than I did downtown too, with none of the overhead (parking, food, years off my life spent commuting).
New office buildings will be like new malls or new nuclear power plants. No one will want to build them, since businesses know WFH is cheaper. Just right now, they have a lease and they have to keep up the act but as soon as they can, they will cash out. After a generation, population growth will be enough to get the reduced office use back up to full, and then the people of this generation will swoop in with a office downsizing buzzword trend that will make "de-office-ing" the rad new thing once the leases terms are up and the company stands to SAVE money.
We won't be seeing population growth, partially why the economy is going to be getting progressively worse over the next few years
These companies are paying (now even more) out the ass for leases and property maintenance. It also harms adjacent businesses (like restaurants) placed specifically in complexes with other businesses. I’ve seen it in person, a mom and pop dumpling restaurant was booming pre-pandemic and now only does sustainable levels of revenue on the days that the nextdoor offices require people to come in.
On a micro/personal level I love wfh. If everyone was 80-100% wfh that might solve the insane housing cost crisis we’re in. Buy a home in montana and work for a company in northern virginia for example.
On a macro level I can see the concerns. WFH is the future but these businesses needed a period of time to phase into it. This particular economic climate is NOT conducive to a harmless transition in many cases.
Damn I guess I'm not supporting the ma-and-pa places next to my apartment when I eat there literally 7 days a week. Time to go back into the office for this bullshit argument
I’m just talking about what I have seen personally.. the only argument I made is FOR wfh or did you not read that part
We should already have mixed used spaces instead of the nightmare of "homes over there, fun over there, work over there"
We did. If you look at aerial photos of American cities, they were built mixed use until the early 1900s. Between 1900 and 1970 you can watch as those mixed use buildings got demolished, and 75% of our city spaces got paved into parking lots. The song was serious. They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot.
The oil and auto companies enslaved the entire country.
Hence the movement of converting business zoning to residential homes is required in the transition. Its one of the best ways to avoid nimbys stopping the construction (as the building already exists) and increase practical housing, and reintroduce people back into its local economy.
Montana's COL is absolutely buttfucked right now, sadly. Most of the natives are being priced out of their own towns. If you ask them they'll blame rich californians/people buying summer homes up here alongside a sprinkle of bonus hostility. Like, rent here is insane. Like east coast city insane. In my field at least, remote positions are slim to none. Gonna have to be in-office. If you do move out here and snag a good remote job, though, bring a good coat and hit me up, lol
Looked into moving there close to after everything opened up. Yeah...those prices are astronomical.
Is this a manga I have to read from right to left?