It's the only major reason to bring people back to Urban centers. Real estate, both commercial and residential, would take a hit in every high cost of living urban center. City centers, like Seattle, have been begging Amazon to bring workers back into the city.
This may be a bit bias on my part from what I've seen, but businesses are finding that remote workers just do their job - nothing more. No white-boarding sessions. No coffee chats on cool ideas. No being pressured into doing some weird prototype.
I work for a MAANG company and get nasty emails monthly about my "attendance". Yet, I have in my contract that I work a week in the office and a week out of the office.
I'm 40. I'm a single parent and divorced. I'm a Veteran.
I spent my 20s going to college, working for a porn company (not as a performer), and then joining the Navy. I paid off student debts, alimony, and child support. I have one successful and one failed startup under my belt. I've always, always, always, lived paycheck to paycheck until recently.
At 40. I was finally able to save up enough for a house in a HCOL city. I have roughly 6 months of savings and not a whole lot for retirement.
At 50 - I'd love to still be in tech, but I don't see it happening. I already see the writing on the wall that I need to start going the management route or I really need to find my niche as an individual contributor to be retained. I'm the old dude on my team.
In retrospect, I had a blast in my 20s and would not change it for the corporate grind that I'm currently in.
All of us have different stories and paths. There is no "right" or "wrong" path, it's all a journey.
Sure, if I had done things a more responsible way I may be in a completely different situation in life. Who knows? I don't.
It has gotten pretty bad. I drive a Subaru Crosstrek and I'm routinely blinded by larger SUVs and trucks headlights literally filling my cabin with light. I'll continue slowing down until they pass me.
Honestly, I started Amazon with some kick ass managers and a great leadership team. However, that changed after a year or two and I ended up with some of the shittiest leaders I've had in the industry. I couldn't bail quick enough.
I feel this has more to do with unrealistic expectations and improper management of engineers at these firms.
All of these major companies hired like crazy to meet the demand on their products as the pandemic hit.
Most large companies will have a manager that understands an entry-level and mid-level contributor will take six to twelve months to ramp up and actually be productive on a team.
Coupled the above with improper time management skills on remote teams, and you get a distributed work force that sometimes just doesn't produce as well as when they were forced to do the grind in the office.
The price point just doesn't make sense any more. The 15 inch model starts out at $2800. You can get a much better machine, hardware wise, from competitors at the same price.
In most cases, better technology is just as expensive, if not more expensive. You need better trained and better staffed crew on ships, regardless of the systems in place.
As an example: Deck division will have 5/6 people on watch for a smaller ship: Port & Starboard lookouts, an aft lookout, a phone talker, someone actually steering the ship, and then a boatswain mate of the watch that organizes those individuals, keeps the ships schedule, and other various tasks. None of these individuals will actually be looking at a screen, but instead scanning the water for other ships.
Another division down in CIC may have just as many people looking at all the radar and managing the various data streams coming into the ship.
So, if you have 12 to 15 people in your division, which does happen, you'll be on Port & Starboard watch ( 5 hours on then 5 hours off, with a 4 hour mid-shift ).
Now, take an individual that is trained on Ship A, then after 3 years goes to Ship B. Ship B is a completely different class and has new(ish) technology systems. That sailor is then going to have to be completely retrained on those systems. After another 3 years, that sailor can seriously be shipped to a completely new platform where they then have to repeat the cycle.
Adding new technology would just complicate the matter.
It's always like this, or worse. Active war-zones are a bit different if we are sailing through "hazardous" waters. Usually on top of work and normal watches, you'll man up some different watches since the crew will have to man extra guns.
Some divisions are different, but a majority of sailors have a pretty solid stream of work. Maintenance of a ship that is close to 20-30 years old is a constant battle. Hell, even a ship that is 5 years old requires meticulous care.
Deck division is responsible for maintaining a majority of the "skin" of the ship. So, a lot of painting and preservation. We are also responsible for all life-saving equipment on the ship: Life preservers, life-boats, any number of RHIB (Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats), life-lines, etc. A lot of this time is spent supervising extremely under-qualified and unmotivated individuals.
It's almost akin to teaching an unwilling 5 year old to read, and then every single day constantly monitoring his progress. As soon as your comfortable that he or she can read without supervision, they are transferred to another division, or are taken off the ship.
I served on both a FFGs and DDGs as a BM. This is pretty much a normal routine out at Sea. Doesn't matter if it's a week, month, or year. It's fairly similar sleep and work schedule. Combine it with other collateral duties, Flying Squad, SAR Swimmer, LSE, Boat Coxwain, etc and it just slowly erodes your time away.
It's not all doom and gloom though. If you properly communicate with your chain of command, and slowly train junior personnel into the proper qualifications, the problem starts to go away. Though, you're not looking at more than 5-6 hours of sleep straight on a good day.
Honestly, I would prefer that Seattle get their own transportation system in order for commuters. Support and focus on a "bullet train" to Vancouver is a rather moot point, especially at the price point.
It's the only major reason to bring people back to Urban centers. Real estate, both commercial and residential, would take a hit in every high cost of living urban center. City centers, like Seattle, have been begging Amazon to bring workers back into the city.
This may be a bit bias on my part from what I've seen, but businesses are finding that remote workers just do their job - nothing more. No white-boarding sessions. No coffee chats on cool ideas. No being pressured into doing some weird prototype.
I work for a MAANG company and get nasty emails monthly about my "attendance". Yet, I have in my contract that I work a week in the office and a week out of the office.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯