Coronavirus The New Office

It's official, companies are allowing workers to work from home permanently. Square and Twitter made the announcement this week. Facebook and Google said most employees will work from home until 2021.

My wife's company as well as my friend's had both planned to have workers return May 15. That date came and went. What happened instead were some employees were laid off, others furloughed, and the return to the physical office for the rest of the employees was moved. June 1st is now the tentative date for one and the other has no date.

This means my kitchen table will continue to be by wife's new workspace for the foreseeable future.

And my wife does not mind. She likes not having to commute an hour a day each way to work. She likes saving money on making lunch at home, I mean me preparing lunch for her. She likes taking our afternoon walks during her daily lunch hour. As she says, it is like we are dating again.

Before the coronavirus hit, we rarely saw each other for more than an hour a day. At one point, I hadn't seen her awake for four days straight as we both worked long hours away from home.

An article from CNBC stated that over 25% of the tech sector wants to permanently work from home. My wife said she is going to advocate to work at least three days a week from home once we return to "normal."

What are parents going to do if their children can't go to school or childcare? That will add even more pressure for employers to allow people to work from home.

Let's think about the ramifications of 5, 10, 25, or even 50% of workers who can work from home begin doing so. We are talking about millions of people. Less commercial space will need to be rented/leased.  Fewer parking spots will be needed. There will be fewer business lunches - catering to the office. Less gas will be used. Longer lasting cars. Workers will have more free time.  VPNs, distance networking software/equipment, and webcam sales will increase. Is this the final nail in the coffin for PC towers? Long live laptops? People can now work from a beach in California or Mallorca. The changes are mind-blowing and endless. Fascinating to watch how this unfolds.

Is your company making the switch?

Take care and be safe.

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