Coronavirus spreads. But don't panic! (topical thread)

[Deesse23]

@Tres Leches , me too.
I think corporate America has seen the light on working from home. They are getting your office space and net connection for free, don't have any janitorial costs, lighting, heating. No parking, no transit costs.
A very small subset of folks at her work were given an allowance to set up the home office, but that is the exception.
What I see is them doubling down and trimming office spaces like you are saying, and almost forcing it.
Granted, the office layouts were designed pre-pandemic, but the net effects of shoving people that close together has never been good.

I think my employer is starting to see the benefits as well. At our location we have a very special situation, for decades now. We are seated in the "cloverleaf" of a highway crossing, in the outskirts of Frankfurt. There is simply no space to expand into. Opening a new location is a major feat and on top of that its very expensive. Some offices in a nearby town disctrict have been rented, but thats only a stopgap measure and only teporal.
On top of that is the legal trouble we got in. Its legally allowed to cramp only so much people into a given office area. Anything beyond is illegal because of working safety rules (fire mostly). Needless to say the situation with parking lot, or the lack of it is also critical, for over a decade now. Additional parking was rented from the supermarket across the street, but not enough, so people kept paring on the not rented spaces. The supermarket finally threated to cancel the contract.

What did they do? Finally took a few millions and built a large multifloor parking lot. 7 floors with 1700 slots total. One floor for management, one floor for e-vehicles. It was finished just before Corona. Last week they just rented 2 floors to the nearby car dealer.

This was part of a 20something million plan to completely rebuild the facility (we have a plant too and a track for test driving, looks like fucken Indianapolis, including steep curve ) and turn it into a campus. The plan is now posponed indefinitely, since most people are at home, and happy with it. And the efficiency is rather better than worse compared to last year. Meetings turned virtual, and *surprise* work almost better than before, saving even more meeting-room(s). When i go into office/electronics lab, its actually better too, since its not (over) crowded anymore and one can work more focused and less stressed.

The key is to have the flexibility to do everyday administrative stuff form home, and be able to do the tech stuff in office when needed. We have been separated into groups "A" and "B", so only half of staff is in office at a time. But exceptions are possible. I am, for example, using my lab slot and keep my office slot empty so my (software oriented) colleagues there dont have to worry about my presence. So i can come to the lab whenever i want. Win/win. They could give my office slot to someone else to be honest.

Its a fucking win/win/win/win situation, from whatever perspective you look at it. The cost savings to my employer (and sparing themselves headaches for planning) will be signoficant imo, and they may help to increase efficiency and save needed money for the recession we are already in.