Seattle council president on getting workers back to the office: ‘We have to build those numbers up’
Seattle council president on getting workers back to the office: ‘We have to build those numbers up’
Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson speaks at the "State of Downtown" event hosted by the Downtown Seattle Association at the Seattle Convention
These are her reasons:
“The vibe is totally different. We can be more productive. People are getting to know each other. It’s just a lot more fun.”
Weigh that against individual autonomy of schedule, commuting cost/hassle, environmental impact and it’s a no brainer— the downtown office model is dead.
Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities Loans are fucked and her bosses know it— and they sent this lady out with a dixie cup to bail out a sinking supertanker.
You can write those bad bets to zero boys, that money is <poof> gone.
The fuck? How is that a rationale for forcibly fighting a natural change in work culture? We're going to force people to relocate, force people to spend a ton of time and money commuting, force people to unnecessarily damage the environment, force people to spend time away from their families, because she prefers a different vibe?
Translation: “I can’t get my rocks off unless I’m bossing people around and making them miserable in person.”
Translation: "I don't have any stats on lowered productivity so I'm going to make meaningless 'vibe' statements to justify my anti work from home bias."
“The vibe is totally different. We can be more productive. People are getting to know each other. It’s just a lot more fun.”
I'm an extrovert, so even though there are far more introverts than extroverts, I demand that everyone be extroverted.
Being fun has nothing to do with being productive. Do you know what's not fun for everyone who lives on the Eastside? Sitting in dead stop traffic on the 520 for 2 hours every day, just so they can sit alone at a desk in an office in Seattle and telecommute with their team in other parts of the country. This lady can fuck right off with her bullshit lies that pander to the city's sales tax, tolls, and parking revenue. She doesn't give a fuck about vibe, she cares about the city income, and the profitability of the commercial real estate tycoons that pad her pockets.
No the fuck you do not. WFH (with logical exceptions6 needs to be norm.
Feck off
No. You don't. You just want the world to exist the way it used to so you can coast along "solving" problems in standards ways, instead of having to actually come up with new ideas and methods.
Fuck off, unnecessary RTO needs to be banned
she sucks
Our whole council sucks. This city government cares only about the almighty dollar.
Make coming into the office worth it. Period, end of sentence.
Here, I have my own quiet, private office, a ginormous monitor, a comfortable chair, and zero commute. I can make my own lattes, eat on the cheap, and take care of what I need to take care of while listening to a meeting.
My experience coming into the office is an open, noisy floorplan, a monitor designed for ants, a nice-enough but ancient chair, and 75 minutes each way gone from my life—to say nothing of the $20 gone from my wallet for the privilege. The free coffee is dogshit, the food is expensive, and I can barely get a bathroom break as I’m locked into so many meetings.
I’d happily work from the office if it had literally anything to recommend it over WFH.
Fuck you, Sara Nelson.
Councillor Nelson, the solution is simple. Get employers to pay enough for the time people spend commuting and the commuters will come back. That's what the "market" is saying, businesses whining about it to you isn't going to change that. Transit oriented development can also improve commuting and get more jobs downtown.
At least it makes sense why a city council who plans budgets and tax revenue based on existing models makes sense.
They’d feel the pain of having to maintain infrastructure for less occupied offices with lower tax revenue.
I don’t agree. I think cities should work on taking the shifts into consideration but it makes more sense for them than some employers who get no benefit and seem to be doing it out of habit or for power dynamics.
How many people die on those roads who would live if they didn't have to commute? How many pounds of tire end up in the sound killing salmon and orcas? How many pedestrians are those commuters going to kill? How many cyclists? How many kids get asthma from the exhaust? How much could we delay the most catastrophic impacts of climate change if we didn't try to force people artificially in to the office?
If you want tax dollars you don't need to force people in to cars. You need to make your city more accessible by bikes and mass transit. Those numbers are never coming back, and they absolutely shouldn't. Adapt or die.
No.