MBTA in a state of disrepair. (Boston, Worcester: real estate, apartment, lease)

[simplexsimon]

Originally Posted by lrfox

I know of several employers who have implemented 2-3 mandatory in-office days per week which which is pretty close to "forcing" people back. Though in most cases, it seems there's some flexibility (one friend is a new mom and her company has made an exception for her). What I'm seeing more of recently is some level implicit pressure. My company distributed an email a few weeks ago saying that they "strongly encouraged" employees to come in 2 days perk week starting the week after Labor Day. Not forced, but certainly strong pressure. Even before that, I've had a couple of remote employees talk to me about feeling anxious about missing out or falling behind employees that were reporting to the office.

It's true. "Out of sight out of mind" is real and just human nature.

[msRB311]

People here are clearly very strong proponents of being in the office and having all offices set up shop in Boston/Cambridge. Interesting.

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by simplexsimon

Back to topic: I'm very glad to be on the PVD/Stoughton line and don't need to step onto one of the subways to get to work, but am curious to see if and how the shutdowns affect commuter rail use.

In some cases (like with segments of the Orange Line), the CR is being touted as an alternative to the shuttles. It seems like it could go both ways - increased ridership on lines like the Haverhill Line (between Malden Center and North Station), Needham Line (between Forest Hills and Back Bay/South Station) as people avoid the buses. But for people who normally transfer from CR to OL and have the option, I imagine they'll probably seek alternate travel arrangements (or just work from home if they can) for the month.

Thankfully, I don't use the OL every day, so avoiding it for a month shouldn't be too challenging. But I'm sort of floored by the simultaneous GLX and OL shutdown. Sullivan Square is only about a mile from Union Square. Lots of people who live between the two would have had the option to take one or the other if just one at a time was shut down. Instead, it's buses for everyone.

[mdovell]

Sort of getting back to topic. As long as the MBTA is viewed as another covid like situation I don't' think we're going to see as many go back. A fair amount of people take the MBTA because they cannot drive financially or physically. More importantly if there was a bigger shutdown that pretty much forced people to drive in more I don't think we have as much cars on the market to accommodate it. Car pooling might help but it might hurt as you'd have to drop more people off.

If Covid was just a two week emergency ok I get it telecommutting would have been temporary but we had about 18 months. It's really hard to get people to go back to do anything after months (see the book Power of Habit). I also work with people that are 100% fully remote some of which are in other parts of the country (it's a governmental job). There's no laws against hiring out of state (in mass there is). but we never forced these others to come back even under hybrid. Unless you have a real written agreement on some of these terms it's likely to get into arbitration otherwise. Where I am pre covid we already were talking about a four day week with one day at home so this really wasn't that much of a difference. I know of towns that are making it a four day week (still at 40 hours).

If the MBTA service isn't 100% of what it was back in the day it's going to make a return to the office harder. Here's a few other things to consider. If someone gets into a car accident and there's no public transit...then what? If you don't at least have a backup plan for working at home you are going to lose productivity.

Way back when one of the last things that governor Patrick authorized was online schools. He gave a few criteria

1) Being bullied
2) Bulling
3) too sick to come in
4) work/sports getting in the way of classwork. sometimes child acting falls in this or farm workers

So from the legwork it wasn't that hard to establish online education. It's not like everything stopped. K12 inc has been around for years. It's not like assignments are hand written notes in high school.

We can talk about it being a small part of the workforce but the impact is huge given the trickled down effect. My brother works for concessions with offices on the cape. Guess what..many offices aren't ordering as much because people simply aren't in the office. Heck I was at an employer that opened up and I had to make calls to get new food in because the vending machine food was at least six months expired! I found instant coffee at my employers office that was dated from 2011, non stick spray from 1998. Not everyone goes into the office. Don't even get me started about the dead plants.

The value of zoom has declined significantly but the share price is where it was back when the pandemic started. Microsoft that makes teams has a value of twice as much as the downturn. If everyone was really going back to the office we would have seen both plunge well below 2020 levels.

The MBTA used to work well back in the day. I had no issues taking it on a constant basis in the late 90's. 20 years later not much has been fixed.

[msRB311]

Boston has exploded with new companies, more people moving here, more college students staying here after college and starting families here, immigration...and the mbta hasn't kept up. Here we are.

[simplexsimon]

Originally Posted by mdovell

We can talk about it being a small part of the workforce but the impact is huge given the trickled down effect. My brother works for concessions with offices on the cape. Guess what..many offices aren't ordering as much because people simply aren't in the office. Heck I was at an employer that opened up and I had to make calls to get new food in because the vending machine food was at least six months expired! I found instant coffee at my employers office that was dated from 2011, non stick spray from 1998. Not everyone goes into the office. Don't even get me started about the dead plants.

Yes, corporate expenditures like this are way down and instead the dollars are going to companies like Zoom, Microsoft, and shareholders.

[ben young]

I remember as a kid in very early 1950s ,getting on a train in the front car the front door between the cars being open ,with just a tall open gate and all thewindows open .and riding standing in the open beside the driver.
Was a nice way to keep cool before AC on the trains... I never remember the trains breaking down like the .5.000,000,00 cars of now.
Those cars were no doubt built in the 130s before WW2.

[ben young]

Before I get hammered too badly. I have rode local trains throught Europe and Scandinavia .and Bostons is near the bottom of the barrel.

[AtkinsonDan]

Originally Posted by lrfox

I know of several employers who have implemented 2-3 mandatory in-office days per week which which is pretty close to "forcing" people back. Though in most cases, it seems there's some flexibility (one friend is a new mom and her company has made an exception for her). What I'm seeing more of recently is some level implicit pressure. My company distributed an email a few weeks ago saying that they "strongly encouraged" employees to come in 2 days perk week starting the week after Labor Day. Not forced, but certainly strong pressure. Even before that, I've had a couple of remote employees talk to me about feeling anxious about missing out or falling behind employees that were reporting to the office.

It's pretty clear that some places are pretty comfortable with having a large, fully-remote workforce. And it's clear that others want people in the office at least part of the time. We'll probably have a shakeout over the next several years with people moving to jobs that are a better fit for their lifestyle. It's not going to be 100% one way or the other. If someone wants to be fully remote, they'll be able to find a job where they can do that. If someone wants to be in a physical location, those opportunities will continue to exist too.

Timberline asserted things are going to return to the way things were 2019. The standard work arrangements for office workers as of 2019 was mandatory 4 to 5 days a week in the office. We are not seeing any return to that, as you said we are seeing mandatory 2-3 days in the office. A cultural shift has taken place for people whose jobs are primarily done on computers. Office workers received a prolonged taste of remote work. Having been granted that priviledge for a couple of years, the office workers are not willing to give it up entirely. With hybrid schedules, a balance is being set between remote work and in-office time that is palatable to the majority of office workers and employers. This is a true cultural shift away from the pre-pandemic work arrangements. I don't see the needle moving much on 100% remote work but I do see hybrid schedules replacing 100% in office over time for those jobs where it is functionally possible. We are not going back to 2019, the future will be somewhere in the middle of the pre-pandemic and pandemic work arrangements.

[id77]

Originally Posted by lrfox

In some cases (like with segments of the Orange Line), the CR is being touted as an alternative to the shuttles. It seems like it could go both ways - increased ridership on lines like the Haverhill Line (between Malden Center and North Station), Needham Line (between Forest Hills and Back Bay/South Station) as people avoid the buses. But for people who normally transfer from CR to OL and have the option, I imagine they'll probably seek alternate travel arrangements (or just work from home if they can) for the month.

Thankfully, I don't use the OL every day, so avoiding it for a month shouldn't be too challenging. But I'm sort of floored by the simultaneous GLX and OL shutdown. Sullivan Square is only about a mile from Union Square. Lots of people who live between the two would have had the option to take one or the other if just one at a time was shut down. Instead, it's buses for everyone.

Is the MBTA going to price the CR at the same level as the OL? I think some daily commuters would give a little more consideration to this option if they did.

Originally Posted by AtkinsonDan

Timberline asserted things are going to return to the way things were 2019. The standard work arrangements for office workers as of 2019 was mandatory 4 to 5 days a week in the office. We are not seeing any return to that, as you said we are seeing mandatory 2-3 days in the office. A cultural shift has taken place for people whose jobs are primarily done on computers. Office workers received a prolonged taste of remote work. Having been granted that priviledge for a couple of years, the office workers are not willing to give it up entirely. With hybrid schedules, a balance is being set between remote work and in-office time that is palatable to the majority of office workers and employers. This is a true cultural shift away from the pre-pandemic work arrangements. I don't see the needle moving much on 100% remote work but I do see hybrid schedules replacing 100% in office over time for those jobs where it is functionally possible. We are not going back to 2019, the future will be somewhere in the middle of the pre-pandemic and pandemic work arrangements.

Not quickly, but I wouldn't call it mission accomplished on a permanent shift just yet. The shareholders have been mentioned in passing a few times this thread, and they are an insatiable lot. Doing your job remotely 95% as well as you do it in the office may seem like a win-win, but that's 5% more productivity being left on the table and that's money not going into dividends and buybacks.

As you put, remote work was a privilege granted to employees. Privileges can be revoked. This was not a power-to-the-people moment, and what is and isn't palatable to the rank and file keyboard jockeys is not important.