Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Grouchos isn’t like it was in my day, laments Standard editor Dylan Jones. Why doesn’t Dylan commission some lifestyle features: ‘Thursday’s the new Friday among the capital’s smart set.’

Family friendly work policies that help people living outside the metropolis and the Tories still moan.

Dylan Jones: Remote working is killing London. Get back to the office

But there is still a bewildering lack of urgency among employers regarding full time in-office working. Many companies still only expect their staff to come to work three days a week — usually Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday — making a mockery of the working

“It’s ridiculous,” says the managing director of one of the many private members’ clubs in Soho. “Tuesdays to Thursdays are back to where they ought to be, with people cramming the bars and restaurants, but Fridays are still quieter than they ought to be, while Mondays are a real problem. People have got used to working from home and they don’t want to come back to work.”
https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comm ... 09227.html#

Cry me a fucking river

WFH has seen a boom for suburban small businesses, such as cafes and sandwich shops. Actual proper levelling up.

Lower pollution, lower stress, same productivity. There are no good arguments to return to 5 days a week commuting to work for the vast majority of white collar workers.

Surely they are back to work. They just don't want to be commuting to and from a place where they'd spend all day doing what they're currently doing sitting at a desk in the spare bedroom at home. And who can blame them?


<cross posted with Andy>

People who would benefit from a return to 5 day commuting/working:

Inner city property owners
Expensive sandwich shop employees
Micromanagers
Sad bastards

People who benefit from hybrid/WFH:

Everyone else

Andy McDandy wrote:People who would benefit from a return to 5 day commuting/working:

Inner city property owners

I am reminded by a previous comment on here how many private pension funds rely on this; take the massive Sky Studios Elstree setup. Not built by Sky - built by Legal and General.

https://group.legalandgeneral.com/en/ne ... at-elstree

Wasn’t Monday always a shit day, pubs often run offers on a Monday anywhere the one near me does.

Andy McDandy wrote: ↑Tue Sep 26, 2023 11:26 am People who would benefit from a return to 5 day commuting/working:

Inner city property owners
Expensive sandwich shop employees
Micromanagers
Sad bastards

People who benefit from hybrid/WFH:

Everyone else

I get this, I really do. I was making a roughly word-for-word point back in February 2020. The problem is that many of these "Inner city property owners" are also known as pension funds. It will take a good ten years to reinvent the towns and the villages of the cites, and to recreate the 21st century pull-factor of the parish pump. It seems to me that those property owners and municipal authorities are presently paralysed by fear.

Even once they listen to the wishes of the "Everyone else" and mitigate the unfolding disaster, it looks to be a financially difficult Gordian knot for anyone wedded to shopping malls and KF-fucking-C.

Provincial France would be a good place to look at liveable, loveable towns. Dijon, for example.


Edit. Dumb fingers and thumbs

Not yet knowable if WFH will lead to an ‘unfolding disaster.’ Online shopping is creating more upset for urban retail commerce. Which has always been in flux.

High streets started dying off in the 80s with the growth of out of town malls. For all people blather on about shopping "experiences", what people want is convenience. Free parking and a few places to eat/drink do much more than most other gimmicks.

I would be glad of whizz kid electrical retail assistants guiding me around the 2020s but the ones I’ve met were thick as shite. They may as well have been grandad buying a gramophone for all the help they were.

They weren't much better in the 1990s.

Boiler wrote: ↑Wed Sep 27, 2023 2:06 pm They weren't much better in the 1990s.

I reckon the problem is that those that would actually know their stuff ideally wouldn't be stuck in such an otherwise low-paid role, or if they did they'll be looking to either get promoted or look for something better ASAP.

The other thing that pushing people back to the office does is support chain brands. That local coffee shop may be thriving with more people popping out for a lunchtime stroll, but that’s fuck-all use to the bloke with a wad of Pret shares who’s all too aware that out of the 7 food options on his employee’s commute in, all 7 are Prets.

Genuine question - who owns Prêt? Is it a hedge fund/sovereign wealth fund job?

>edit<
I've answered my own question - it's JAB Holdings, a hedge fund/investment company.

So would I be utterly cynical to say that once again the Tories are pushing the financial interests of the big investors?

Somewhere I can say I've never bought anything from.

Boiler wrote: ↑Wed Sep 27, 2023 4:41 pm Somewhere I can say I've never bought anything from.

Well that solves all the problems, then.

Hot desk hubs may spring up in small towns where home workers can work in a social office atmosphere, there’s an established market for them in the City.

Already happening in pubs and libraries.

Malcolm Armsteen wrote: ↑Wed Sep 27, 2023 6:07 pm

Boiler wrote: ↑Wed Sep 27, 2023 4:41 pm Somewhere I can say I've never bought anything from.

Well that solves all the problems, then.

Thought I heard a coffin lid creaking.