Remote work crushing office economy, dads promoted over moms and is loneliness leveling out?

Welcome back, or if you're just finding this newsletter, I hope there's something in here that will resonate with you and help you make sense of these weird and challenging times we continue to find ourselves in.

Last week it was vaccine security, Covid-19 reinfection, testing and travel. For this edition, lets dig into some of the more ancillary impacts of the pandemic.

Also, we just hit September, so at the end I'll of course talk about Christmas.

?? Remote work is killing the office economy

Remote working is a popular subject on LinkedIn, for obvious reasons. Many, many people's work lives have changed from the office to the home, or some mix between the two. Those of us who have made this shift don't venture downtown anymore. All of our needs are basically met by our local area or elsewhere. The business and financial center holds no purpose for me to visit other than to do business.

So I'd ask you, if you're working remotely now when you previously worked in a downtown core or business center, how many times have you visited your old working hood?

Right. Not much. Keeping this in mind, it isn't shocking to discover remote work is crushing the trillion-dollar office economy. To very generally summarize Steve Levine's piece, from the office equipment suppliers, to the local restaurants or coffee shops frequented by workers, to a corner shoe shiner or dry cleaner, businesses in these areas or those which support these work forces are battered or worse yet gone, and will continue to be gone until these workers/customers return, if they return.

Those work shirts or dresses you would buy? Now your closet looks like this:

That happens to be my closet.

Companies like J.Crew have gone bankrupt because you're not going to work anymore.

If office workers don't return? Those warnings of skyscraper populated ghost towns start to become a long term reality rather than a short term one.

...and yet

One might wonder about the trade offs of losing a downtown core versus gaining the ability to potentially work remotely from anywhere in the world as countries like Barbados offer foreign remote workers to stay in the country tax-free for up to a year. For those who're able to work remotely, opportunities like those can be life changing and sound pretty appealing.

?? Peace out plebes!

A compelling piece by Douglass Rushkoff titled The Privileged Have Entered Their Escape Pods, points out the real promise of digital technology is that we can escape into a cocoon and block out the chaos of the world around us. He's not saying that's a good thing, but just the reality. Rushkoff notes that in the case of prepper billionaires, they're not aspiring to live in a Walking Dead-like word because they're bad people, but instead because "They’re simply succumbing to one of the dominant ethos of the digital age, which is to design one’s personal reality so meticulously that existential threats are simply removed from the equation."

Interesting.

It begs the question of how much of it boils down to having the means to escape as opposed to the desire to escape. You don't have to be a million or billionaire to want to cocoon yourself or escape chaos, but you do have to have the means to do it in the real world versus a digital one. This is why the rise of video games has been so very sharp during the pandemic, digital entertainment is the means of escape for the majority. I agree it doesn't make billionaires horrible people for bailing, but it does speak to what the responsibility of those with billions of dollars should be when it comes to contributing to the success of society and the world around them.

? Has loneliness leveled out?

Speaking of cocooning up in the digital world, there are signs that some of us are starting to break out of being lonely because of isolation, lockdowns, working from home and what have you. Kasley Killam writes in Scientific American that loneliness has started to level out.

Citing numerous surveys pointing to people shaking off loneliness in the midst of the pandemic, Killam says, "In the past few months, we’ve made a point to prioritize connection. The pandemic has made people more aware and appreciative of their relationships. Researchers have long known that social connection reduces your risk for illness, disease and early death. But only recently has the rest of society caught up. Whether we do so in person or virtually, spending time with friends, family and neighbors can bolster our social health—the dimension of well-being that comes from connection."

So hey, there's some relatively good news at least! We're getting better at not being alone even when we're forced to be apart. Still, if you're struggling with loneliness or your mental health, there's absolutely no shame in seeking out some help.

????? Where's the (promotion) love for mom?

First off, I'm a man so I'm never going to have the perspective of what its like to live through the pandemic as a woman. Though what I can understand and grasp is that women have disproportionately suffered when it comes to aspects of career stability and advancement because of coronavirus. Women have been hit harder than men when it comes to sacrificing jobs to care for families.

Turns out moms are also getting shorted when it comes to (not) receiving promotions as compared to dads when working from home during the coronavirus pandemic. Audrey Goodson Kingo writes in Working Mothers that according to a new survey from theBoardlist and Qualtrics, dads are actually three times as likely to get a promotion than moms.

Kingo postulates that "...this most recent survey seems to confirm what economists have feared: that the pandemic could have a long-lasting negative impact on women's advancement in the workforce, and working from home might not be a panacea for our problems, after all."

So to any leaders, managers or bosses out there reading this, remember the moms. Promote the moms along with the dads. Moms already have the toughest job at home, and they're doing work for you on top of it all.

?? It's September, so it's practically Christmas

On a final note, I'd like to personally bump the elbow of Phil Hazlewood or whoever it was that wrote the headline, Co-ho-ho-vid! Socially distanced Santas gear up to save Christmas.

Alright, that's a little close there Santa.

The foresight to be talking about socially distanced Santas as we hit the first week of September is admirable, and I'm only slightly jealous I hadn't thought of it first. I'm more impressed than anything else. I'd bet the author is the type of person who leaves their Christmas tree well up into January. Prove me wrong, Phil.

As always, thanks for reading, leave a comment to be featured, stay safe and... mask up.

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