CHICAGO | General Discussions

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by twister244

Try out co-working spaces! Seriously..... Try out We-Work for a day and see if you like it. It's a great way to break that WFH routine without having to worry about a dedicated office.

For me, I want to be part of an actual team again.

At least some of the time.

A real team.

A real person team.

Not just the random anonymity of a co-working space and a virtual "meeting".

That's not at all what I'm seeking.

Two years into it, I've grown to fucking hate all things "remote".

I don't want "remote" shit anymore, I want to work right here, in Chicago, for real, with real people.

May God eternally damn the virtual meeting!

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Ding ding ding ding ding. We have a winner!

WFH is just about a bunch of aging farts who want to sit on their asses and still get paid because they “paid their dues” and rode the train for “all those years”

Yeah well, those relationships and trust were already built.

If I’m the boss of a company, there ain’t no way in hell that I’m trusting a 22 year old grad that I’ve hardly met and who works from his apartment (or his parent’s house) that I’m getting productive work out of him. And if I’m that 22 year old, I’m pretty suspicious that I will never built a lucrative career doing that for the rest of my life, especially since a dude in the Philippines can do the same work as me for 1/5 the pay!

This is just bad, wishful thinking. Hybrid makes sense, but permanent WFH ultimately will lead to instability.

Right, I mean the prepandemic state of things was that people who were full-time remote typically either had put in the hours beforehand or were somehow otherwise known to be extremely skilled, so their competence and performance was not questioned. Or they did some sort of contract work with clearly measurable output (e.g. freelance writing, photography, editing). I'm not sure it works as a general model all that well.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Right, I mean the prepandemic state of things was that people who were full-time remote typically either had put in the hours beforehand or were somehow otherwise known to be extremely skilled, so their competence and performance was not questioned. Or they did some sort of contract work with clearly measurable output (e.g. freelance writing, photography, editing). I'm not sure it works as a general model all that well.

Eh - former consultant here (IT/software development) .Even over a decade ago, many of my coworkers were fully remote and based in the Chicago area. They even had desks downtown but wouldn't come for even a day for literal years.. They ranged from just out of college to about to retire. Some did get on client travel projects but the majority were WFH and maybe travel once or twice a year.

Another division in that company, which was more business transformation (not IT), had so many fully remote workers that despite having enough workers for 4 full floors for them downtown, we had 1 tor their division. Nobody had assigned seats and the point was "in case you want to come and work downtown or have a meeting, you can reserve a seat or meeting room." ...this was before 2010. A lot of the people I went thru "intro to the company" training with were actually new college grads part of that division, not IT.

I just hired a former consultant who told me he had not been in his office at his former employer downtown since 2015. He'd been working from his suburban home remotely since 2015 on various client projects and traveled on business only a handful of times in those 6+ years. He was happy to be in an office again. Fully remote work has been going on for a very long time majorly in the consulting practice. The Loop has been missing thousands of them on a daily (weekday) basis for years.

I'm not for fully remote work at all, but I worked for a major company who had a few thousand fully remote workers in the Chicago area even before 2010. In all honesty that's pretty much the norm for a lot of this industry. You are either at a client site in god knows where or you are at home. Maybe every year or few years you come to the office for a holiday party. Office space is always greatly reduced versus how many local workers there are. It has absolutely zero to do with who put in their dues.

Not making excuses for the current state of things, but let's stop pretending like there wasn't an actual fair chunk of fully remote workers before COVID.

[Investing In Chicago]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Eh - former consultant here (IT/software development) .Even over a decade ago, many of my coworkers were fully remote and based in the Chicago area. They even had desks downtown but wouldn't come for even a day for literal years.. They ranged from just out of college to about to retire. Some did get on client travel projects but the majority were WFH and maybe travel once or twice a year.

Another division in that company, which was more business transformation (not IT), had so many fully remote workers that despite having enough workers for 4 full floors for them downtown, we had 1 tor their division. Nobody had assigned seats and the point was "in case you want to come and work downtown or have a meeting, you can reserve a seat or meeting room." ...this was before 2010. A lot of the people I went thru "intro to the company" training with were actually new college grads part of that division, not IT.

I just hired a former consultant who told me he had not been in his office at his former employer downtown since 2015. He'd been working from his suburban home remotely since 2015 on various client projects and traveled on business only a handful of times in those 6+ years. He was happy to be in an office again. Fully remote work has been going on for a very long time majorly in the consulting practice. The Loop has been missing thousands of them on a daily (weekday) basis for years.

I'm not for fully remote work at all, but I worked for a major company who had a few thousand fully remote workers in the Chicago area even before 2010. In all honesty that's pretty much the norm for a lot of this industry. You are either at a client site in god knows where or you are at home. Maybe every year or few years you come to the office for a holiday party. Office space is always greatly reduced versus how many local workers there are. It has absolutely zero to do with who put in their dues.

Not making excuses for the current state of things, but let's stop pretending like there wasn't an actual fair chunk of fully remote workers before COVID.

I haven't gone into an office consistently since like 2011 - I manage an org of about 25 people and they are all remote (and would be pre pandemic as well). I travel for customer facing meetings, meeting with large System Integrators, recruiting efforts, but I don't even have an office to go into if I wanted. I could never go back to 4/5 days in an office. Serves no purpose for me personally.

[jpIllInoIs]

I'm a Californian who visited Chicago for the first time. Here are 7 things that surprised me most.
Molly O'Brien

We always hear about the neg press about Chicago, Here is a nice bit from an LA travel journalist.

[Rizzo]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

For me, I want to be part of an actual team again.

At least some of the time.

A real team.

A real person team.

Not just the random anonymity of a co-working space and a virtual "meeting".

That's not at all what I'm seeking.

Two years into it, I've grown to fucking hate all things "remote".

I don't want "remote" shit anymore, I want to work right here, in Chicago, for real, with real people.

May God eternally damn the virtual meeting!

This sums up my feelings. I've been working from home 75% of the time the last 2 years. Some more complex issues are a pain to solve remotely, even with a really good setup we have. And while certain office distractions were solved, I do miss the social aspect of work, which according to some here, is a terrible thing. What I meant by that, is my coworkers would sometimes do happy hour or lunch, or I'd meet up with my friends for lunch or happy hour. With our varied WFH schedules, it's hard to coordinate after work stuff.'

I think employees need a choice. Hybrid is the way to go. If you have a family, days at home might work better coordinating schedules with kids. For someone just starting out, they would value time away from a small apartment in a modern office more focused on a hospitality work space vs a cube farm.

I'm just skeptical of FULL remote with no office. A few friends of mine work HR for some large companies and have paid close attention to industry trends and how it creates new unexpected problems. I don't think I need to expand on that. Simply googling "full remote work issues" will introduce some topics that they are dealing with. Again, when it comes to recruiting for office jobs, there should be a choice. Just like I think a mandatory 5 days a week is unattractive, so is no office at all.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by twister244

Do you have a source for this? That would be a big story in the news of "Permanent Remote Work", but I don't see anything in the headlines on that front.

Can't share my source, but it's someone close to me with literally zero incentive to lie or embellish. They are tied into Allstate's HR/hiring division.

[ChiMIchael]

Originally Posted by jpIllInoIs

I'm a Californian who visited Chicago for the first time. Here are 7 things that surprised me most.
Molly O'Brien

We always hear about the neg press about Chicago, Here is a nice bit from an LA travel journalist.

bad link

[jpIllInoIs]

Originally Posted by ChiMIchael

bad link

Try this:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/tri...cid=uxbndlbing

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by jpIllInoIs

I'm a Californian who visited Chicago for the first time. Here are 7 things that surprised me most.
Molly O'Brien

We always hear about the neg press about Chicago, Here is a nice bit from an LA travel journalist.

Link doesn’t work

[jpIllInoIs]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Link doesn’t work

Try this:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/tri...cid=uxbndlbing

Title for google search:
I'm a Californian who visited Chicago for the first time. Here are 7 things that surprised me most.
insider@insider.com (Molly O'Brien) - 11h ago

[ardecila]

^ I definitely read this exact article before, written by someone else ("I visited Chicago and I was surprised at these things, bullet pointed").

Not sure what kind of weird internet shenanigans are going on but my sense is that this is not authentic travel writing

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by west-town-brad

WFH will not kill cities

WFH will likely kill some but not all commercial real estate

People still want to live in cities and its not all about being close to an office

Downtowns and regions of cities that are mostly commercial office, will have to be reinvented - But that's what cities do all the time

my neighborhood used to be quite during the work day since most people were in the loop for the 9-5 job, now the loop is quite during the work day and my neighborhood is bustling all day every day

People keep saying this...

But what they aren't considering is that being walking distance or a quick transit ride to work was a major consideration in where one lives. Its one element in how we pick where to live, but its incredibly important.


I would bet a larger percentage of former urban residents will move away to the burbs or the region entirely if they go remote than a remote worker in Ohio or the suburbs moving to the city at this point.

[the urban politician]

^ When people say WFH won't kill cities, here is what is really happening psychologically:

1. They love working from home
2. At a deeper level, they know that ultimately it is bad for cities
3. They implement a subconscious psychological trick to reconcile their love for WFH with their love for cities by doing something called rationalization. Rationalization is one of the most commonly used psychological tools out there, people do it all day every day to justify their behavior and choices, and to reconcile these choices, which may sometimes be at odds with greater reality or their stated values. It's like shoving a square peg into a round hole. Somehow they get it done.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

People keep saying this...

But what they aren't considering is that being walking distance or a quick transit ride to work was a major consideration in where one lives. Its one element in how we pick where to live, but its incredibly important.


I would bet a larger percentage of former urban residents will move away to the burbs or the region entirely if they go remote than a remote worker in Ohio or the suburbs moving to the city at this point.

Counterpoint. I think school and jobs help determine which metropolitan area a person decides to live in, but peers and social activity determine the specific neighborhood.

A U.S. college graduate who decides to move to Chicago isn’t hankering after a Barrington dream house to begin with. The people my age who had to live in the suburbs because of work didn’t complain about transit to their work. They complained about boredom and not being able to hang out with friends without a long drive.


https://danielkayhertz.com/2019/05/1...-of-affluence/


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FI6jWsdW...g&name=900x900

[MayorOfChicago]

I work in finance and accounting. We deal with a lot of firms and there's definitely a push for the back office accounting administrators to just WFH 100% of the time. The company we work with went from five days in the office to two years now of no one stepping foot in the office and they said they aren't going back. It wasn't a huge BOOM announcement, they just kept dragging their feet and doing status quo and very quietly it was like....yeah we just aren't going back. What's the purpose.

We're real estate investment management and our firm has been pushing hard since 2020 to bring people back. Every time there's solid momentum a Delta or Omicron pops up and we flip back to basically 100% remote. Once again they're trying to pull us back in the office and they've finally relented to a permanent 3 days in 2 days WFH and people are still very reluctant.

My husband got a new job and his went from "we're all going back in January" to pushing that out and then suddenly being, well lets just do 1/2 days in the office going forward and we can worry about the rest sometime in the future.

I will say with two toddler in daycare and a decent sized house to manage my personal life is absolutely better working from home than coming in. I don't mind being in, I just cant get any of the little chores done during the day and then just the bottling in of commuting into the office and being here and then commuting home. I use to just pop on right away at 8am in the mornings, now I"m dropping kids off commuting and getting situated and it's eating up a few hours of my day.

To each their own, but I know of the 300 people in our office, we talk every day and what people seem to be ok with is 2/3 days in the office and 2/3 days working from home. So about 50% pre-covid capacity.

I have friends who are back 4 days a week and that's the most excessive I've seen. They're having a lot of retention and especially hiring issues and they're vocally frustrated at having to be in 4/5 days a week.

For sure now compared to mid-2020 this has drug on for a few years, people are far far less willing to come in a full week than they were back in 2020. It's not like we got a taste of it, this has been life for two years. We aren't going back. I'll do 2/3 days in the office but I don't think I would ever agree to more than that again. I would quit and find something new. Our company is vocally terrified to bring people in more because they know people will just quit.

[Handro]

It could ultimately make cities significantly better, because rural and suburban-minded people will no longer take up valuable urban housing while also trying to kill any progressive urban initiatives because of “parking” or “traffic”. Neighborhoods will no longer be exclusively residential (dead during the day) or exclusively commercial (dead at night) as office space gets converted to multi family and hotels.

Many millions of people truly enjoy living in a dense urban environment full of diversity of experience and people. Where someone needs to physically be for work is only one part of a life lived. It’s funny how obvious it is which members of this forum would assume everyone only reluctantly lives in cities..

Frankly, remote work makes city living more appealing, not less. I can’t imagine being in a big empty house in a sprawling quiet neighborhood day and night, with my only escape a 15 minute drive away to a Coopers Hawk or strip mall sushi joint.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Handro

It could ultimately make cities significantly better, because rural and suburban-minded people will no longer take up valuable urban housing while also trying to kill any progressive urban initiatives because of “parking” or “traffic”. Neighborhoods will no longer be exclusively residential (dead during the day) or exclusively commercial (dead at night) as office space gets converted to multi family and hotels.

Many millions of people truly enjoy living in a dense urban environment full of diversity of experience and people. Where someone needs to physically be for work is only one part of a life lived. It’s funny how obvious it is which members of this forum would assume everyone only reluctantly lives in cities..

Frankly, remote work makes city living more appealing, not less. I can’t imagine being in a big empty house in a sprawling quiet neighborhood day and night, with my only escape a 15 minute drive away to a Coopers Hawk or strip mall sushi joint.

^ This entire post is, literally, word for word, a textbook example of:

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ When people say WFH won't kill cities, here is what is really happening psychologically:

1. They love working from home
2. At a deeper level, they know that ultimately it is bad for cities
3. They implement a subconscious psychological trick to reconcile their love for WFH with their love for cities by doing something called rationalization. Rationalization is one of the most commonly used psychological tools out there, people do it all day every day to justify their behavior and choices, and to reconcile these choices, which may sometimes be at odds with greater reality or their stated values. It's like shoving a square peg into a round hole. Somehow they get it done.

You are taking a currently bad predicament and using reverse logic to make it sound like it was a good thing all along. People do it all of the time, as I said.

In 2019, you never would have viewed people staying in their homes all day and NOT commuting downtown for work as a good thing. Everybody here loved how much the CTA and Metra trains were full of people, and how the streets downtown were crowded with workers walking around and going to lunch, and then having drinks at happy hour. Many of you loved boasting about daytime population increases and comparing ridership stats between cities. Food trucks, Amazon HQ2, it was all the rage around here. Am I to believe that that magically all disappeared?

[marothisu]

^ With all due respect TUP you are doing the same thing in trying to convince yourself that no argument of any positives that could come out of this are worthy of consideration.

This is a complex situation and I don't think there will be all positives or all negatives. Realistically there will be a mixture of both.

It's not great, but this is the spot we are in. Workers have basically spoken and it is true. I've even had a few hires quit a week before their start date because we are requiring a few days in the office. Each of them told me this was the contributing reason and not because of $$. They all went to fully remote jobs. We've had many others turn down our request for interviews, after they applied, just because of this despite our job reqs saying it's not fully remote.

No matter how much I as an employer and hiring manager wants to be in the office, it will be a point to consider now that people have gotten a taste of it. Cultural fit is important and we'll obviously be OK but it's definitely way more of a thing now and there's more churn in trying to find people as a result.

That's just where the demand is these days in various industries and obviously its unfortunate. I also believe everyone has to evolve or die. Sitting here and pretending as if we can just force prospective people back in the office who dont want to be is just burying ones head on the sand and ultimately an underlying theme of why a bunch of people have quit their jobs and taken time off from working lately.

It doesn't matter what you or I think. This is where the demand is, and cities will have to adapt.


Oh, one more thing. Chicago actually has more people employed who live in the city in December 2021 than December 2019. NYC, LA, SF, DC, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami, Baltimore, etc cannot say that.

[the urban politician]

^ There is no doubt that the city will have to adapt.

Where I take issue is with this ill-conceived effort by some to take this predicament and try to convince everyone that it was a good thing all along.

No it wasn't.