Mastodawn

Another Angry Woman

We are now three years into the shift from office working to hybrid/home-based and the only strategy commercial property developers have is paying for advertorials bleating about how everyone should work in offices rather than idk pivoting their model.

Capitalism is not a driver of innovation, or they'd have fucking innovated.

Another Angry Woman May 18, 2023

During the @vagina_museum property search, we saw the sheer *quantity* of developers who owned completely empty office buildings with no chance of it ever being an office choose to have no money rather than a cultural organisation, because they are holding out this wild hope that some day everyone will magically adopt primary office work again, which just isn't going to happen.

Another Angry Woman May 18, 2023

Anyway, the protracted premises search and dealing with landlords who don't understand that their empty building will never be an office took a hit to the museum's finances, but we found the perfect space (which was not and had never been an office)... but we need your help to make it happen because fuck landlords https://www.gofundme.com/f/9um7y

🍉May 18, 2023

@stavvers only about £3,500 away from£69,420

Another Angry Woman May 18, 2023

@mirahimage someone has the potential to do the funniest thing ever

dr2chase May 18, 2023

@stavvers @mirahimage there's steps along the way, wouldn't want to miss those:

Another Angry Woman May 18, 2023

@dr2chase THANK YOU for screenshotting this!

Eniko (moved ➡ gamedev.place)May 18, 2023

@stavvers @vagina_museum ah so they've chosen bankruptcy? Idk I feel like that's the best outcome for landlords

Amo Bishop Rodent May 18, 2023

@eniko @stavvers @vagina_museum I mean, it's the best outcome that doesn't involve guillotines

Eniko (moved ➡ gamedev.place)May 18, 2023

@pikesley @stavvers @vagina_museum 🤔 fair

TerryB May 18, 2023

@stavvers @eniko @vagina_museum In the crazy world of corporate finance, as I understand it, book value is more important than real value if they tried to realise it. Schrodinger's Investment. It's value only collapses when you measure it.

wb x64 Jun 13, 2023

@terryb @stavvers @eniko @vagina_museum this is precisely what happened to many downtowns during the '08 crash. They'll write off your entire city for a decade if they have to, it's better than taking an actual loss, they're a multinational firm with lobbyists they don't care.

The way to combat this is with a vacancy tax. Vacancy is blight. Even if it's a pittance, city taxes are so annoying that they become incentivized to rent it out for less.

HighlandLawyer May 18, 2023

@stavvers @vagina_museum And that is why we need a "use it or lose it" law: any property left unused for X years is subject to compulsory sale by the local authority at auction; they get a cut of the net as an agency fee & the original owner gets the balance.

Sivation May 18, 2023

@stavvers why spend all that effort innovating - with its associated risk - to do something different when you can take the cheaper & easier route of lobbying - either the public via adverts or directly to politicans?

Kate Watson May 18, 2023

@stavvers I mean imagine if they invested in making their commercial properties somewhere great, somewhere people really *wanted* to be, at least some of the time, for a change, even if it meant an annoying and expensive commute?

Ailbhe May 18, 2023

@antinomy @stavvers Google offices used to do that -- playrooms and napping rooms and food and whathaveyou. It kind of worked.

Kate Watson May 18, 2023

@ailbhe @stavvers It seems amazing that almost no one who wants people to spend more time at the office by choice has tried making the office a nicer, easier, and more enjoyable place to work than home, by enough to offset the ball-ache cost and wasted time of commuting.

Kate Watson May 18, 2023

@ailbhe @stavvers It shouldn't actually be difficult to make an environment custom-designed to be good to work in somewhere better than a random corner of our homes!

Kate Watson May 18, 2023

@ailbhe @stavvers But no, everyone is supposed to be just delighted with the idea of going back to buildings with nylon tiles on the floor, polystyrene ones on the ceiling, nasty *nasty* lighting and no escape from Stacey who has no inside voice apparently.

Auntie Mame May 18, 2023

@antinomy @ailbhe @stavvers Give me a private office, with a door, where I can control the lights, volume, and temp, and maybe I’ll show up at the office. But nope, no innovation or changes while the CEOs work from Martha’s Vineyard.

The Actual Brian May 18, 2023

@ailbhe @antinomy @stavvers office buildings are empty.

Real estate isn't trying to find something else to do with it. They're just trying to get people back into the office.

Saying cities are innovating and turning empty office buildings into affordable housing.
You can even put services, restaurants, entertainment, and child care on some of the floors.

They just have to try something different.

Chris Broome May 20, 2023

@TheActualBrian @ailbhe @antinomy @stavvers cities aren’t in the worst position to recontextualize old office buildings. Suburban office parks though, those single-use monstrosities that are purposefully far away from housing and retail, they’re in for a rough slog

The Actual Brian May 20, 2023

@cbroome @ailbhe @antinomy @stavvers
I'm not sure what those are like.
Do they have surrounding land? If so, housing can attract business.

Ruby Jones May 18, 2023

@stavvers That, and pressurising those employed by their other investments into returning to the office, whether it's safe or not.

A Tattered Scrapbook May 18, 2023

@stavvers I remember classes on climate change in my junior high school in the 70s. Some innovators, huh?

valsombra May 18, 2023

@stavvers 🔥🔥

#1️⃣May 18, 2023

@stavvers I wouldn't say that capitalism isn't a "driver of innovation", I'd say that innovation doesn't happen "because of capitalism" . They're orthogonal concepts; you can have innovation among strong competition between capitalist entities, and you can have innovation because of social issues pushing for that change (a la pandemic).

Plenty of "capitalist" companies have innovated during covid and thrived as a result.

Note: I'm not supporting capitalism as a whole. Eff that.

Swamp May 18, 2023

@stavvers capitalism is about staying stuck in the same shitty system of doing things until you milk it dry of what value it has left

altreus™May 18, 2023

@stavvers Capitalism *did* innovate - we now have Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, and a bunch of other prioprietary software that sucks because it's proprietary.

Capitalism is bifurcated between innovators and controllers, and the controlling form of capitalism is just the innovative form after it made money and got complacent.

Annietime May 18, 2023

@stavvers ah what an opportunity to convert these office buildings into housing for the homeless! Oh right, they wouldn’t make money on it. Silly me.

Heidiidy May 18, 2023

@stavvers I can’t figure out why some of those office spaces can’t be renovated into affordable housing. Many cities are experiencing housing issues.

David Mankins May 18, 2023

@stavvers
As Boston is a center for biotech, all the office buildings nearby have been madly remodeling into lab space, something that stays occupied and busy even through a pandemic. For the building across the street, this has meant building an external addition to house a freight elevator.

hikewithrichard May 18, 2023

@stavvers We should also consider the carbon footprint of having everyone drive to work in the morning, and drive back from work in the evening. Roads are quiet when people have a day off, like today. We need more remote work.

Luny May 18, 2023

@stavvers totally agree. Our company is being a bit bullish about us coming in as I said before. And around the same time Jeremy Hunt is spouting crap about lack of innovation and water cooler moments. All they care about is revinue.

Author Sharon E. Cathcart ✅May 18, 2023

@stavvers I think at least some of the problem (although I agree with your point) is managers who aren't ready to pivot. Mine is great, and I have a lot of flexibility ... but my best gal-pal isn't in the same boat. She works for an international charity and her manager is an older gentleman who "doesn't believe in" remote work (despite his entire department doing it for 2.5 years) because "people at home have no accountability." Really? Is the work getting done? Then kindly take a seat.

I can't speak for anyone else, but on the days I work from home? I put in longer hours because I start earlier in order to accommodate European colleagues whom I'm unable to work with directly on commute days. Even still, my morale is improved because I can grab a quick break when I need it and maybe put some laundry in. It's nice to have a wee locus of control.

And maybe *that* is the real problem.

MikeZilla Minus One May 18, 2023

i give them this one - this is how they make money

not many ways to pivot to alternative strategy for empty floors in office buildings

Kristen Stafford Howe May 18, 2023

Haelwenn /элвэн/

@stavvers 3 years? My dad at Sun Microsystems almost always worked from home for basically as long as I can remember (so let's say 2003) when he didn't need to go meet clients or colleagues.

M. Fioretti May 18, 2023

yes, you cannot telecommute, otherwise poor Jeffy Bezos will cry. See the links in the "office bubble" paragraph here: https://mfioretti.substack.com/p/the-city-reboot-for-2070-that-we

The city reboot for 2070 that we should start TODAY, part 1: WHY do it

as a relative of mine would say, things can and must only get better from here...

Just an invitation...

Brianna May 18, 2023

@stavvers Capitalism drives innovation insofar as it can make more money. Capitalism gives us some good innovations, but it has also given us crap like planned obsolescence. It’s a flawed system if left unchecked.

birdpoof May 18, 2023

Our execs whining about COMMUNITY BUILDING! NETWORKING! COLLABORATION! have zero idea how the sausage gets made in our product departments. Only middle-managers and higher have time to waste for "networking."

Not to mention whatever new property the company is buying will be open office plan, another horrifically FAILED concept in office productivity.

E.T.Smith May 18, 2023

@stavvers Capitalism only fosters innovation until it develops entrenched syndicates, upon which innovation becomes "instability."

The Duality of Xan May 18, 2023

@stavvers Wild that whenever there’s a chance for lasting systemic change to improve quality of life, all the rich people desperately try to stop it. The only thing capitalism drives is the status quo, and it does not have its eyes on the road.

Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud May 18, 2023

@stavvers From the same people who say repeatedly, "You must embrace change."

Army Girl May 18, 2023

@stavvers how about they turn those empty offices into desperately needed housing?

@stavvers Capitalism seems to prolong the use of old technology be cause MoNeY.

Saskboy K.May 19, 2023

@stavvers I have to work in an office again, being exposed to maskless sick people randomly, because they want me to park (I don't park), and buy food at shops at work (I don't, and don't eat indoors in public when I can avoid it).