Quote:
Originally Posted by Spocket
Okay, so you have a problem with reality if you think the bottom line and a focus on it are being narrow minded. These guys didn't get rich or build economic empires by caring about how fancy their buildings looked.
It's actually really simple : Businesses don't need to nor do they generally care one iota about how pretty a building looks.
You drone on about "the good old days" as though they ever really existed. Do we really need to get into a discussion about the working conditions when they were building the ESB ? Not to mention that most of the improvements were brought about through unionization which, as we all know, is an industry that's always been run by candidates for sainthood.
You talk about these guys as though there's no reality they deal with either. Well, call this economics 101 : You lay people off because you're paying too many people who have nothing to do. People who run companies and don't lay people off when the need arises go out of business. Who benefits then ? Seems like things are worse off in that case, don't you think ?
If you want me to agree with you that some CEOs make far more than they should in a moral world then sure, I agree. I also think that any individual who plays a game as their career should be earning next to nothing rather than millions per season. The question is what anybody is going to do about it. Nothing. Nothing, ever.
If you want to build fancy monuments just so they can look pretty on a skyline then I submit to you that if you ever had any hopes of becoming a CEO then they've gone straight out the window. At most, these guys want buildings that leave the public thinking nice things about their companies. Just look at government buildings for proof. The government is answerable to voters, not customers. As such, people want to see utilitarian buildings because they cost the least and people like to think that a responsible government isn't wasting billions etching reliefs along two blocks of concrete because it looks pretty. It's a different image they're trying to project. With
corporations, they want to look like responsible corporate neighbors who give a shit about you and the world we all live in together. Of course they don't really care but it's all about what will help them project that image. A company that moves its headquarters to an ornate palace that was built atop the last standing patch of the Western Oblong Tomato Orchid Belcher flower doesn't look very good in the public's eyes. So the company opts for whatever it can find that suits its needs and keeps it in the public's good books.
And by the way, those guys building those monuments in the Middle East and Asia aren't doing it because their projects make much economic sense. "Face" counts for a lot more in the rest of the world than it does in the developed part. In the Middle East it's all about "I have the biggest and best !". In East Asia it's all about "We've caught up and gone past you. How do you like them apples !?"
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I don't know how to respond.
I was referring to work spaces and working conditions and how they related to architecture. That's very different from demanding pretty buildings. ESB is also several generations before the 1970s and early 1980s where you still rise up through the ranks to a senior executive position. Today it's entirely outsourced to people that aren't necessarily the smartest at business. It's about who's in your inner circle and that's is often inherited. Their salaries have increase well over a thousand fold compared to actual employees during that time. If you're fine with their ever increasing salaries and the swapping out of employees for no purpose but to pay themselves more well. If you want to believe all layoffs are because there's not enough work and your content with an increasing workload with no reward, that's fine with me. I no longer work from them .I just drink with them.