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Comment by 3lit3krew | Hacker News Reader

Nobody wants to prop up the board's other investments in commercial real estate and nobody has to care that they're losing their shirts either. Make big cities safe and clean and affordable again, or they will just rot away and collapse in on themselves. I've been reading about the terrible situation in commercial real estate especially in large cities which are unaffordable and crime-ridden, it sounds like there's no escape for the people who have their wealth trapped inside the walls of buildings nobody wants to visit.

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It's easy to paint a conspiracy picture. Most boards are not in commercial real estate and certainly not enough to force CEOs to act against the interest of their company. They're doing this because they believe in it. Lots of people just believe wrong things despite evidence.

Employees are willing to give up serdipitous in-office collaboration while CEOs, who are struggling to navigate any of this, refuse to accept that this aspect of work life is going away.

I want the old in-office comraderie and collaboration but I'm not willing to give up WFH benefits.

My company went so far as to remodel huge new office for me. I thought it be great but then a four day onsite rule popped out of nowhere that applies to people with offices. I'm seriously considering leaving.

> I want the old in-office comraderie and collaboration but I'm not willing to give up WFH benefits.

there is such a thing as hybrid. Having an office available for use, and schedule meetups deliberately in the office, and do it regularly (but not all the time - for example, once a fortnight is a good cadence imho).

The days you do meet in the office, you will do an all day "workshop", rather than regularly scheduled work - bounce ideas, talk about stuff, etc. Face to face discussions can be done there, and it's more productive.

And in exchange, you remove things like "status meetings" etc, to make time. A project manager or really, anybody, will need to come into the office on those scheduled days in office and chat in person, if they want a status update!

Just tell them they can give the office to someone else!

It's easy and effective. What company or outfit do you work for, I can vet the board members or superior officers or agency supervisors for you. I have access to lots of data on lots of people.

EDIT: I'm completely serious, persona.

I did some digging on this where I work, because I thought I was starting to taste tinfoil.

Six out of eight of the board members are involved with companies located not just in the same state but clustered around the same area. Three of these companies have buildings in the same business park. All these companies have inflicted similar RTO mandates on their employees.

I went through our financial statements -- commercial leases were set to expire this year, they've renewed them for another thirteen (!) years and committed $100M to office space improvements. They've frozen hiring, they're cutting costs wherever they can, but they found it reasonable to dump $25M each quarter on leasing costs?

Whenever something like this is "difficult to comprehend" as the article obediently avoids scratching the surface, my first guess is that someone's making money off it. Is it board members with real-estate investments? Is it organized crime? Is it Blackrock and Vanguard (majority shareholders btw)? At this point, why not all three?

Yeah, I mean it's obvious - the fact that some CEOS have vested interests in commercial real estate doesn't mean that all do, it doesn't pass basic logic test. Most are doing what the rest are doing, whether it makes sense or not. What is clear, though, is that the moment you really try to enforce RTO, people start looking for new jobs, especially seniors.

Yeah, the whole commercial real estate thing is overblown. I think it's simpler: executive-level positions attract people who don't get very much fulfillment from their home lives.

They get paid enough to have double-shift coverage on children, or they don't have children at all. Since they don't have to be home as much, they aren't. They don't mind the commute because they get to drive a fancy car, park in a reserved spot, and are usually on the road before the traffic starts. They get all their jollies from being in an office, talking to other people with the same lifestyle, and they can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to be in an office (aside from malice or laziness). And they derive their energy from seeing all the activity -- people going to meetings, milling about, etc. They see that stuff and conclude that yes, problems are being solved, innovation is happening, and that gets them excited. It's all just vibes. No one actually doing the math on this stuff has seen a slam-dunk case for draconian in-office policies.

You do not need a formal conspiracy when interests converge.

George Carlin said it best

Pre-covid, the real estate conspiracy was that management was pushing for smaller and more crowded open offices so that they would spend less.

> Most boards are not in commercial real estate

Most institutional shareholders are.

When business interest align no conspiracy is required.

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