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Peak "Office Space"
With the unprecedented surge in unicorns and incessant faith in the ever-increasing productivity of a globalization-crushed American worker, it is perhaps a surprise that the "office space" provided to the intellectual capital-providing, wage-stagnating middle-American, has never been smaller...
It seems since The Fed unleahes its 'temporary emergency policy', the need for "office space" has collapsed... because, in the new normal, all that matters for shareholder wealth creation is 'buybacks' not productivity.
Source: Goldman Sachs
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Bring on the next mothball fleet of Aeron Chairs.
Americans no longer need office space. They telecommute to their jobs in Mumbai.
I telecommute and I am happy with no office space. It also means almost no office politics and a better life outside of work. And I get to spend more time in my local community. And I don't have to commute...
LET THEM EAT CAKE!!
Oh man I love Herman Miller Aerons
Herman MIller MIRRA is even more cmfortable (wider shoulder space) - they cost about the same
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-29/oil-s-plunge-hurts-hou...
Office space? That would require paying people a living wage and investing in human beings instead of stock buybacks and C-Suite salaries!
The Kleptoligarchy demands more computers, foreign visa workers, and the bleeding out of the middle class!
All hail the New Rome! Get back to work plebeians!
The only office space I see are a few guys running their on-line businesses using wifi at Starbucks.
Miffed
The workspace is directly linked to the mental wellness of an employee so it might be an influencer to the burnout syndrome.
Many office buildings i know are half vacant. The asking prices for rents have to come down. They are still at 2007 prices. It's insane!
2000 is pretty recent history. Let's see numbers from earlier decades please.
There's been an explosion in telecommuting since 2008, as businesses tranfer office space costs to their employees. I suspect a lot of this is companies downsizing and converting to flexible space as they rotate employees into telecommuting.
Ahhh, yes... The commercial real estate-argument.
Higher lending standards, and reduced exposure to loss based on tennant occupancy, along with triple net.
That's why property managers burn out in 12-24 months, and are really pretty, but have an IQ of the common "fruit fly".
No filing cabinets, whooo-hooo.
Almost all meetings done online.
The cube farm trend is bizarre. I had the misfortune of being in a Toilette and Douche cube farm a few years back for a 'visit', and the cubes were literally less than 6 feet wide. Not sure how any human being can actually get things done under such conditions.
It used to be that all professionals, even newly graduated ones, would get offices. And here we are, even managers are being asked nowadays to take inhumane spots in cube farms. A lot of otherwise good people don't function well in them, especially if they need peace and quiet to get their work done.
Cubes are obsolete, that is, we now use hypercubes that extend into higher dimensions, I guess, the higher dimensions being Starbucks and home. "Open plan" is the thang. You get maybe an arm span of space on a bench, no storage, no privacy. If you're lucky you get a second monitor. If you're unlucky you get a third and fourth monitor. If you're a market trader you get a fifth and sixth monitor.
My office is moving in a few weeks, and I expect to have less (no) room in the new place, and to work from home almost exclusively like everyone else on the team.
The digital revolution has eliminated the need for so much office space.
I have a pissant trash hauling business. Mrs. Tippy does the books. We've had it for over three decades. Mrs. Tippy used to have at least ten big metal filing cabinets stuffed with hanging folders, shelves of cardboard document storage boxes, an IBM Selectric typewriter, and a Xerox copier. We bought envelopes and tri-form carbon papers by the case.
Now she does everything with a PC, business software, a printer, and a scanner. The wall of metal filing cabinets is gone, as are the shelves of document storage boxes. They're replaced by a cat tree, an aquarium, a TV, and an array of sentimental knicknacks.
Back in the day a large business needed thousands of square feet of filing cabinets and typing stations. They were staffed by "oceans of tits". Gone now.
Let's see a chart of gigabytes of storage capacity in The Cloud per American office worker. It'll be a mirror image of physical office space capacity per worker.
I really miss those "oceans of tits"...
Standard Disclaimer: And another snippet of the American dream lies dead on the digital cutting room floor.
Perfect. Yeah back in the day (as an old school draughtsman) the office was awash with drawing boards, like a full harbour full of sails......acres of flat filing cabs for drawings, quite a sight! Now my total creative output of 25 years resides on a single 3.5" IDE drive with about another 25 years of space left.
Keep in mind those average numbers include common areas (lke corridors and conferene rooms), as well as larger executive offices. Over the past 20 years, the average cubicle size, the space an average office worker actually works in, has shrunk from 90 sf to 75 sf.
You have a cube? They have 7 of us jammed into the janitor's closet at the moment...so much for the ocean of tits...
Standard Disclaimer: Now quit your complaining... http://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/jokes/monty-python-four-yorkshiremen.html
Who needs an office?
For the last ten years, especially the last five, I have been working for clients out of my home.
A few weeks at the beginning of a project onsite, mostly in conference rooms or hoteling, and then work from home the rest of the duration....
Bean counters love it, they have offloaded their office needs on to their contractors or employees....
If you work on a computer or at a desk, there is no reason to have paper, or an office.
All you need is a laptop and a cup of coffee and you could do 99% of your work in your bath robe at home.
There really is no good reason to have employees at large firms commuting to work, it just takes time and wastes gas... if your workers didnt have to drive / take the train for 2 hours everyday thats atleast 1 more hour of productive time they have , or at the very least an hour of extra sleep which reduces work-stress and allows your employees to be more productive.
As long as work is clocked online and you have good analytic to make sure your employers are producing there is no real net-benefit to office space.
No Office space has the following benefits:
-Lower Electrical costs (No Offices means No light bulbs, no computers, no air-conditioning)
-Lower Heating costs (No Office means no need to heat a giant building)
-Lower Real-Estate Taxes or Rent
-More remote locations / Urban locations , less travel times to work when you need to go
-Less parking tickets/parking fees
-Cheaper Employees, because you have access to a larger labor pool in and out of state.
So many benefits to closing the office completely if you can.
But ask yourself this
How long before a computer can perform all the data entry and computations you are being payed to do?
Eventually you wont have anyone doing anything, just one guy quickly scanning through the computers work looking for errors.
Eventually the only job left will be analytics and engineering and software/hardware developement.
Part of this is a function of the fact that you no longer keep all of your data in file cabinets. When I started my business in the late 80's, I kept a no shit 600 square feet just for file storage, I filled it in about 8 years. At $12 a square foot, I had to do a fair amount of humping just to pay for my record storage.
Now I'd need maybe two big sectionals ... maybe.
It's all about the beef curtains!!!
If people took the time to listen, Donald Trump, is well aware of the current economic cycle.
I watched his interview on FOX with Chris Wallace... Trumph, understands the current economic conditions and clearly states that he hopes the meltdown happens before he's inaugurated as POTUS.
He's [Trumph] willing to pick up the pieces of an FAILED corrupt Government, and build something better.
I commend ANY Woman or Man that's willing to acknowledge failure!
It would be foolish for Trumph or any of his advisers to to share their ideas, this early in the election cycle.
Trumph is hitting on "key" issues, and has surrounded himself with good advisors... Donald Trump is vetted.
The Hipocrats have three loons, on Saturday before Christmas?
Then I do gather that Trump has heard of the Wanta Plan ..
I mean, at least everyone else has. They certainly have been informed ..
http://wantarevelations.com/2014/01/wanta-plan-macro-financial-economic-...
From: Ambassador Lee Emil Wanta
Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2014 4:07 PM
To: Frau Judith Dueringer
Cc: POTUS_U.S. President Barack H. Obama ; U.S. President Barack H. Obama ; POTUS_Office of the President ; OVP_Vice President Joe Biden ; OVP_Alan L Hoffman ; OVP_Chief of Staff Bruce Reed ; Chief Justice_John G Roberts ; US Supreme Court_Chief Justice John G Roberts ; United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon ; FedResSystem Inspector General ; FBI_Houston ; FBI_Peter Carr ; FBI_Director James Comey ; US Department of Justice ; US Department of the Treasury ; FBI_WSH_Assistant Director_Shawn Henry ; WH_Chief of Staff_Denis McDonough ; Governor Scott Walker ; IMF_Christine Lagarde_M.D. ; W.H. Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler ; IMF_Public Affairs ; IMF_Media Relations ; Wolf Richter ; U.S. SECY TREASURY_JACK LEW ; First Lady_Michelle Obama ; OMB_President Barack Obama ; FRB_President Janet L Yellen ; WI_Governor Scott Walker
Subject: Austrian Inland Tax Resident_New Republic/USA Financial Group, Ltd. Gesellschaft, Wien, Austria_A-1010
Word is, Trump is the choice of the American-Firsters / Patriots-Constitutionalists faction vying for power presently in the Pentagon ..
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/11/10/divided-loyalties-inside-the-pen...
So, if in fact Trump is the choice of these intel cowboys et al, then YES he is quite informed of the matter at hand ..
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/05/11/the-intel-cowboys/
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/12/20/very-very-bad-things/
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/07/30/the-coming-return-of-the-real-us...
https://app.box.com/s/hfgvcqg7gqh7i27at6sv53ywu87lwarp (Read Me First)
I have witnessed the vacant office space! Vacant office parks all over the place where I am!
1 Grande Latte gets you all the space you need at SBUX
Bet thier growth chart is the inverse of occupancies
I live in Phoenix, i havent seen this many commercial properties for lease or sale since 2009. Theyre everywhere.
The thing is, most people are not even trained on what to *do* with space if they are given it. Pearls before swine.
Back in the day when I worked for Whosit and Watercloset in a big downtown class A building, just about every day I did the calculation of what those f'ing offices were costing, and it kept coming out to higher than the salaries of the people who sat in them - only they didn't even sit in them more than about 10% of the time. I guess the loss of that inefficient model can't be too bad a thing, except for commercial landlords.
...and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire...