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Newsflash NYT, everyone knows that. We all talked about that years ago when the return to office shit kicked off en masse.
this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2026
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It's commercial real estate value
It’s part this and it’s also part taxes (but mostly narcissism). I work in commercial real estate. Our parent company was being leaned on by the city to get people back in the office.
Cities set up commercial areas and put various tax laws on those places. Suddenly, people are at home spending money close to their homes instead of the commercial districts. It messes up the balance.
Additionally, property owners can be punished if their tenant isn’t operating in the space, even if they are paying rent bc all the related tenants depends on that office. (If no one is in your office, the nearby chipotle doesn’t make money.).
When that happens property owners lose the ability to manage their own rent income and their lender manages their cash directly. Property owners/borrowers do not like this.
Personally, I think we should let those businesses fail and let new businesses form where people actually live. But then I’d be out of a job.
I’ll probably lose my job to AI soon anyway.
Pardon me for saying, but that's such a USA way of working. What a mess.
You’re not wrong. I hate my job.
folks make bullshit rules that are self-reinforcing
that is depressing
Letting those businesses fail means allowing commercial real estate values to bottom out, and that means all the securities that are backed by the value of those assets drop in value. It would be a massive financial destruction event.
Personally, I’m fine with that but that’s why I said I’d be out of a job. The USA designed its cities badly.
It's not about whether or not you'd be fine with it. It's an explanation for why bosses want everyone back in the office. Yes, there's an emotional narcissism to management across the US, but I don't think that's enough to explain the RTO phenomenon. It's more likely driven by the fact that a collapse of commercial real estate value would destroy so much value in the economy that every executive would lose millions, and some would lose billions.
I always assumed it was to keep everyone busier with commutes so we have less time and energy to organize against and criticize the ruling class.
When you finally get an office instead of a cubicle but now everyone is at home and has their own office so you don’t get to brag about it.
Also, shouting at an underling over Zoom isn't as satisfying.
It’s great to see this in ultra mainstream NYT.
In the years after the epidemic lockdown the RTO mandates started coming hard and fast, and it was evident for two clear reasons.
a) Upper management was feeling lonely and wanted its entourage back. They feel powerful when they see busy workers being busy for their benefit. See also BULLSHIT JOBS, and...
b) Companies were stuck in leases of expensive business space that was now empty, and that just felt too wasteful, so the vibes solution was RTO mandates.
My company forced everyone back saying things like “we will never go back to fully remote work”.
A year later, we went remote and they started downsizing our office.
I suspect our lease was up.
I think having people present is a crutch for bad managers too. Instead of checking in, setting goals, and reviewing goals reached they can just roll around the compound and see if everyone is fiddling with their doodads and looking stressed out.
Companies leased all this space in commercial office buildings. So they need to justify it. And if/when the commercial real estate market collapses it’ll cause another stock market collapse.