I can see where you and your family would resent giving up space for your work. But does the advantage of not having to commute compensate for that? And if you’re working from home anyhow, why not just move upstate or to Connecticut, where you can get more space for the money?
Not having to commute is not adequate compensation. I didn’t mind commuting, and I very much prefer having my home and workplace be separate environments.
And I don’t want to live upstate or in Connecticut. I want to live in New York City. I want my children to grow up in New York City, not in the suburbs.
But eventually I suppose we’ll be forced to do it.
It will be a windfall for employers. Not so much for at least some employees.
In theory, your employer would offer compensation sufficient to allow you to afford an apartment large enough for a separate office space. That doesn’t seem to be how it’s working though; the employers are saving money while the employees are giving up space at home and the ability to enjoy their home as they wish. (For example, your kids having to be quiet while you’re on a work call isn’t fair to them, because if you were at the office, they could be making noise without disturbing you.)
They’re not going to offer anything. They will generously provide the hardware necessary to do the job. But enough to get an apartment with another room to use as an office? In New York City? Never, ever going to happen.
And yes, it’s unfair to the kids. It’s actually impossible with the kids, since I work well into their dinner and after-dinner time.
I’m getting screwed if they do this. Which they probably will, from what I hear. And quitting and looking for another job, in a depressed economy? I can’t. We need the money. My kids need the health insurance.
My wife works for one of the Big 4 accounting firms. This year they have “saved” millions and millions of dollars on travel costs. My wife used to be a real road warrior; I predict that even when things go back to something like “normal,” the firm will not go back to previous levels of travel. Clients and employees alike will have become accustomed to virtual meetings, and the money savings will be too great to ignore.
Their entire operation in Bangalore has gone virtual, which is quite a culture shift for India. Her firm is paying for high-speed internet for employees so that they can work more effectively. After all this, I’m sure a lot of people will go back to the office; I doubt the work culture will change that much. It would not surprise me at all, though, to see them encourage more work-from-home. The savings to the firm in real estate could be significant.
I wonder if there will be a noticeable change in how often people go out to eat, even if we get to a point where the virus is not a front-and-center concern. Have enough people been forced to cook more for themselves that they will be conscious of the cost savings and just keep making their own meals?
I would like to think that the pandemic would make us re-think a whole lot of things. Minimum wage, for starters - “essential” employees ought to be able to support themselves with their “essential” jobs. Access to quality, affordable healthcare needs to be decoupled from employment. Competence in government should become a larger factor in who wins elections.
I’ll stop now. 
[quote=“BippityBoppityBoo, post:8, topic:916333, full:true”]In addition, I think post high school technical/vocational and college online education will be more accepted and available as well. I have high hopes that essential workers will continue to be acknowledged, respected and rewarded as they should be.
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I agree with this. Even before the pandemic, I was thinking we might be moving to more online education because of the spiraling costs of higher learning. My kids are going to be doing virtual school this fall and my HS senior is looking at it as good practice for what he’s envisioning as a method of learning he’ll need to use in college, no matter how COVID pans out.
Regarding online college education, it does throw the whole economics of college into question. Right now, many colleges in America have tuition of $50,000 or so and total cost of attendance of $70-75,000. Part of that is to pay for those beautiful campuses with grassy quads, nice dorms and academic buildings full of lecture halls. But if I’m going online, the cost should be much less. And then there is no need to limit attendance; 10,000 people can attend a lecture just as easily as 100.
Sticking my oar in here. As long as colleges don’t try to economize to make up the revenue by paying professors and instructor less. Teaching well online takes much more time and talent, well at least different talent, than in person. I’ve been watching a brother and SIL do it and they are now working harder and longer than before to do the quality of teaching that they feel learning deserves.
10,000 people can attend a lecture just as easily as 100, but they can’t participate in one.
You get what you pay for. Probably some of the in-person mid range schools will get shaken out. Too much money for mediocrity.
So the Harvards will continue to be able to charge for exclusivity. And you’ll get the cheapo on-line version. Which might help you learn, but will be less useful in proving you’ve learned it, because it’ll be easy to fake the degree on-line. Not something that is going to open any doors for you. More like an on-line certification that you’d take once you already had a job.
Same here. I live alone so I don’t have to worry about kids or roommates, but I loath the idea of having my living space double as workspace. I don’t want a larger apartment; if anything I want a studio in a better location downtown. I grew up in a rural area; I have no desire to ever live in one again. I want to move to an even larger city, one with decent public transit so I can ditch my car. I like being around people; I like the crowds. I tried working from home when the pandemic started; between all the tech problems and the isolation I was completely non functional. I kept having panic attacks. I’m now one of less than two dozen people working in a building designed for over 500, but it’s still better than working from home.
A possible lasting change is Panic/Safe rooms in home construction. Wife is in the mortgage biz and she’s seeing a lot of new construction, and a large percentage of these have a safe room as part of the original plans. Not sure of exact numbers, but she says it’s common now and was almost never seen before this year.
I realize recent civil unrest could be a factor, but using increased gun sales as a marker, the general unease about security began in March – which seems to make it due to Covid rather than the riots.
The obsessive paranoia of Texans never ceases to amaze me. IMO It’s a form of mass hysteria.
Among all Americans, they’re far from alone in it, but Texans, and the DFW area in particular, seem to have raised it to a fever pitch.
I’m with you in that I think that restaurants and retail will rebound very quickly. They’re like the “r” strategy businesses (to use r/K reproductive strategy analogies). Hell, 28 noteworthy restaurants OPENED in Dallas this month. Four months into the pandemic. There are insanely low barriers to entry in both industries, and neither are particularly capital intensive either. And it seems like everyone thinks they can run a restaurant, a bar or a shop.
I also think that the work-from-home stuff isn’t going to entirely stick the way others do. I think it’s a little bit over-optimistic to think that the majority of employers are just going to throw their hands up and let everyone work from home whenever they want, as much as they want, etc… But I DO think that a whole lot of employers will have learned that work-from-home isn’t nearly the license to loaf on the couch that so many have long believed it to be, and that as a result, WFH policies will be a lot more liberal in times to come than they had been. My employer for example, was struggling with the control aspects of WFH, and has basically been forced into accepting it. I suspect going forward we’ll have a formal WFH policy where we didn’t have one beforehand. Same thing with my previous one- once the Amish (what we called the backward-ass company from Mechanicsburg, PA that bought us) took us over, they revoked all the WFH policies that had previously been in place. I suspect they’ve been forced to reevaluate those policies as well.
I don’t think it’ll really make much of a difference in terms of how much people eat in restaurants, or cut their own hair, or any of that stuff. Those are services people have others do for them because they’re a PITA or that it really takes a professional to perform. I’m willing to be that as soon as it’s practicable, people are going to go back to paying others to do all that stuff.
What I see happening is a extension of our personal space bubbles. In other words, people are going to get antsy and nervous if people get too close after this. I don’t know that it’ll take the form of a real 6 foot social distance, but I’d bet the bubbles are quite a bit larger than beforehand. And I also bet people will consciously try to avoid big crowds as much as they can as well. General disease awareness will be something that will stick with a lot of adults for the rest of their lives, I’m thinking.
@bump I generally agree with your points.
As to restaurants there’s a key factor not everyone is considering. If indeed physical distancing & therefore reduced seating capacity become permanent features, either by law or by social convention, then we have a problem.
Restaurants make their most of their money during peak times when they are packed. If those peaks must be only “half-packed”, the weekly revenue doesn’t cover the weekly expenses. Unless prices go up dramatically.
The same thing applies to my business: airlining. Technologically, we can remove all the middle seats and spread each row out so even when the plane is fully occupied everybody is still 6 feet apart. But in so doing an airplane that used to carry 180 people can now carry WAG 90.
Our costs to move that one airplane from A to B are the same, but now we have 1/2 the revenue generating capacity. If we double fares to achieve the same roughly break-even revenue we’re used to, demand will collapse even farther than it already is due to the rest of the COVID+economy concerns.
Bottom line: IMO a LOT of restaurants (and some other businesses) cannot be profitable unless they are able to pack customers more tightly in time and space than will be practical going forward. Those industries will suffer a mighty shake-out as they get into a death spiral of increasing prices driving down already-faltering demand.
I think a lot of us are starved for the social aspects of dining, so we will welcome going back to eat in restaurants when it’s safe to do so. Perhaps more than ate out previously?
The business school guy in me has been idly wondering for a while now if we’ll start seeing new takeout/delivery only places that are more high-end than janky Asian(Chinese/Thai) food and pizza.
Right now around here, there are lots of takeout-only places, but few of them have much of a delivery footprint, and the third-party delivery services have much to be desired IMO.
Seems to me like it’s maybe the time for some takeout/delivery only places to pop up in places that might not otherwise support a full-time restaurant, but could support takeout/delivery.
That trend was already happening pre-COVID in very high cost areas like NYC Manhattan and inner San Francisco.
It’s certainly one way to square the circle of high real estate costs and a low-margin business with peaky demand.
Yes. “Ghost kitchens” were becoming a very real thing here in New York.
https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/02/07/new-york-city-ghost-kitchens/
https://nypost.com/2019/10/06/nyc-restaurateurs-setting-up-ghost-kitchens/
Restaurants were already getting killed by real estate costs. Setting up a kitchen pretty much anywhere, without having to pay rent on top-dollar location, and operating as a takeout-only restaurant is, or was before C19, a viable business model.
Back in March, the Texas governor waived some alcohol regulations allowing both take-out and drive-thru drinks (wine, beer, and mixed, IIRC). This gave a lot breathing room to struggling restaurants, since many depend on alcohol sales for a large portion of profits. A few places changed to just drive-thru drinks. The car lines here locally were longer than Starbucks in some cases.
Now that we’ve gotten used to drive-thru Margaritas and home delivery of dinner and drinks, I wonder if they’ll make this permanent. I guess the drive-thru part would depend on how DUI rates are affected.
Airlines, I am wondering whats the model going forward. Two money spinners, business travel and holidays are not going to be the same as pre Covid due to the economic downturn. Covid may well be the end of the budget airline.
Compounding the woes is the new travel restrictions which have come up (the US is currently one of the worst passports to have) and the byzantine regulations which accompany them. If history is any guide these will linger long after the crises has abated, especially if we see a second and third wave and most of 2021 is also a write off.
Maybe air travel returns to 1960’s and 70’s era of being if not an elite, an upper class thing.