Tech Deck Tricks: Office Workers Dont Hate The Office. They Hate The Commute.

Elon Musk says we should all just give up and go back to the office. People who want to work from home aren't just "calling in" from a "fake remote office," as he's said in the past. Now he says we are also immoral.

"The whole idea of working from home is like a bogus Marie Antoinette quote. 'Let them have the cake,'" Musk told CNBC this week. Factory workers, repairmen and construction workers can't work from home, so why do they think "laptops class" people should do? "It's not just performance," he said. "I think it's morally wrong."

A cynic might argue that factory workers can't fly private jets, but Musk's commitment to ownership didn't stop his plane from making 171 flights last year. Even a cynic might point out that a man who makes money selling cars has a vested interest in getting Americans back to work and back to work every day.

But I'm not that cynical. Musk is not among the company executives who see workers' reluctance to return to the office as a real economic problem. Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Disney's Bob Iger, Amazon's Andy Jassi, JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon and others have called for workers' compensation. Companies have tried to change their carrot - office transformation - and remote work policies while announcing mass layoffs. But the office was not sold on the labor market. The Wall Street Journal reported this week, citing data from Kastle Systems, that average office occupancy in 10 major cities has nearly reached 50 percent. Since the necessity of the epidemic, telecommuting is becoming a permanent feature of the American workplace.

Is this a big deal? This may cause some local economies to collapse, but I'll come back to that in a moment. First, let's look at why people don't come back, and why they probably won't if we don't address the main problem with office work that some executives cite: going to the office and coming home. Survey after survey proves it. If we want people to go to the office more often, we need to do something about the commute, a long, emotionally toxic, environmentally toxic, and expensive ritual in American life.

According to the Census Bureau, the average commute time in the United States in 2019 was a record 28 minutes. About 40 percent of Americans drove half an hour or more each way, and about 10 percent drove more than an hour each way.

For many, the shift to remote work during the pandemic has proven that all the distractions are unnecessary. They can't help but see that time is wasted, and questioning their morals won't change that. They do not take a moral stance. they just make a rational calculation. if their paths cross, they can do more in their work lives and in the rest of their lives.

The Liberty Street Economics blog, which publishes notes from analysts at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, reported last year that Americans as a whole spend 60 million fewer hours commuting to work each day. That means they can spend 60 million unpaid hours exercising, taking care of their children, getting a little more sleep, and starting work earlier or finishing later.

Employees are happy with the transition. According to the Conference Board survey, overall job satisfaction was above 62 percent in 2022, the highest level in decades, and people with mixed jobs that allowed them to work from home and work were happier. A working paper published last year by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the rise of telecommuting also "reduces pressure on wage growth and makes it (modestly) easier for monetary policymakers to reduce inflation without shutting down the economy."

But what about employee productivity? Has working from home made you lazy? cleaning An NBER working paper published last year found that among employees at a large technology company, hybrid work patterns had no significant effect on work productivity, even though people worked slightly less at home during the day and slightly more at the office on weekends. Hybrid work improved job satisfaction scores and reduced absenteeism by 33%, especially among those who took longer.

So what happens when you work remotely? It can damage cities. Many of America's largest and most prosperous metropolises depend on the daily rhythm of traffic—the constant craving for caffeine in the mornings, dull diners, and beer gardens—and the passion for downtown offices and parks.

The shift to remote work has seriously undermined this model, leading to the so-called office apocalypse and the death of public transport systems in some cities; . (I welcome the padded pants revolution as much as anyone, but imagine running a downtown dry cleaner for the past three years.)

But if the potential destruction of cities is a threat, CEOs shouldn't be solving the problem, at least not complaining about their lazy workers. Rather, it is a question of infrastructure and politics. This is a problem that local, state and national governments need to address with long-term planning and a more realistic approach to urban planning.

like what In theory, we know how to do it. If people hate going to work, we can make it less of a hassle. Ways to do this could be a combination of shortening the distance between people's homes and offices; the improvement of vehicles on these roads; and reducing other transportation costs, such as providing more accessible and affordable child care.

I use telecommuting as an opportunity to defend the dreams of the urban left: better public transport. Fewer cars and more bicycles. more compact development. Improve the social security system. - You are right. I

So what are the alternatives? Tunnel or hyperloop for underground highways? Autonomous taxis transport us so that we can work while we travel. Turn conference rooms into bedrooms so people can live in the office full time?

Here are some of Musk's thoughts on the future of work and life. Are they more realistic or desirable than building more livable cities and better ways to get to work? Or "let the robots do it?" Is that another way of saying it?

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