Railroad Forums 

  • Will They Ever Return?

  • General discussion of passenger rail systems not otherwise covered in the specific forums in this category, including high speed rail.
It is currently Fri Sep 20, 2024 1:39 am

Will They Ever Return?

General discussion of passenger rail systems not otherwise covered in the specific forums in this category, including high speed rail.

Moderators: mtuandrew, gprimr1

Re: Will They Ever Return?

  by ExCon90
 
Amidst all the discussion about home vs. office I have seen no mention of what appears to be in some areas a demand for weekend service exceeding pre-pandemic levels; any thoughts?

Re: Will They Ever Return?

  by RandallW
 
ExCon90 wrote: ↑Sat May 18, 2024 8:18 pm Amidst all the discussion about home vs. office I have seen no mention of what appears to be in some areas a demand for weekend service exceeding pre-pandemic levels; any thoughts?
When your home is your office, not being in the office on weekends also means not being at home on weekends, but that means getting out of the home/office on day trips or mini vacations / weekend getaways, not just running errands.

Re: Will They Ever Return?

  by eolesen
 
I supposed that's true -- if you can get laundry, cleaning, etc. done during the pauses in your workday, then you have that much more free time on the weekends.

Re: Will They Ever Return?

  by ElectricTraction
 
dowlingm wrote: ↑Sat May 18, 2024 11:40 amconsider also that remote work has improved the employment prospects of those with disabilities. It also provides another option other than “risk your life/vehicle and come in” or “lose a day’s production” for services employers during inclement weather.

In April 2020 I said “a bell is about to be rung that a lot of people are going to pretend was never sounded” and I was right.
That's a good point. Like in many things, COVID did not invent remote work. COVID did not make remote work feasible. But COVID did speed up the remote work trend by probably a decade or more. Now we're in a period of reactionary backlash, but that, too will eventually subside as the realities of hiring workers and as office leases come up.

Like many things, Americans will probably overshoot one way or the other a few times before everything finds some equilibrium.

Re: Will They Ever Return?

  by STrRedWolf
 
ElectricTraction wrote: ↑Mon May 20, 2024 6:50 pm That's a good point. Like in many things, COVID did not invent remote work. COVID did not make remote work feasible. But COVID did speed up the remote work trend by probably a decade or more. Now we're in a period of reactionary backlash, but that, too will eventually subside as the realities of hiring workers and as office leases come up.

Like many things, Americans will probably overshoot one way or the other a few times before everything finds some equilibrium.
I will say, the pressure to pay for office space is great. My company closed out it's office space in Baltimore last year, moved local operations back to the leased data center, and is posed to move out of Baltimore completely down to owned data centers. Economics at play.

Re: Will They Ever Return?

  by Ken W2KB
 
STrRedWolf wrote: ↑Sun May 26, 2024 7:32 am
ElectricTraction wrote: ↑Mon May 20, 2024 6:50 pm That's a good point. Like in many things, COVID did not invent remote work. COVID did not make remote work feasible. But COVID did speed up the remote work trend by probably a decade or more. Now we're in a period of reactionary backlash, but that, too will eventually subside as the realities of hiring workers and as office leases come up.

Like many things, Americans will probably overshoot one way or the other a few times before everything finds some equilibrium.
"In New York, office space per employee costs on average $14,800 annually" https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres ... 2015-05-27

I will say, the pressure to pay for office space is great. My company closed out it's office space in Baltimore last year, moved local operations back to the leased data center, and is posed to move out of Baltimore completely down to owned data centers. Economics at play.

Re: Will They Ever Return?

  by eolesen
 
Ken W2KB wrote: ↑Mon May 27, 2024 2:19 pm "In New York, office space per employee costs on average $14,800 annually" https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres ... 2015-05-27
That link is a 9 year old data point. Hard to say if that's gone up because of inflation or is flat/down because rent renewals are becoming distressed due to high vacancy rates.

I also have to wonder how many multi-state employers got smart and moved remote employees "work address" to something outside the reach of the NYC city income tax or even outside NY altogether. I know my employer allowed remote employees to correct their taxation address according to where they spend their work-week.

Re: Will They Ever Return?

  by ExCon90
 
The Delaware River Port Authority has announced that traffic over its four highway bridges across the Delaware (Betsy Ross, Benjamin Franklin, Walt Whitman, and Commodore Barry) is now at 94% of its pre-pandemic level.

Re: Will They Ever Return?

  by eolesen
 
50% of Dell employees say "or else" when company says "return to office or else"

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/06 ... he-office/

I think I would gladly agree to no longer get any more promotions in exchange for being 100% remote. Then again, I'm 6 months away from retirement eligibility, so that's a much different proposition for me than somebody in their 20s or 30s.

Sent from my SM-S911U using Tapatalk

Re: Will They Ever Return?

  by lensovet
 
I do wonder what % of workers at Dell are, say, within a decade of retirement anyway. Let’s say that’s 40%. Then these numbers aren’t that impressive, because the odds of someone getting promoted (and wanting the increased responsibility and workload) when they are that close to retirement is probably pretty slim anyway.

Re: Will They Ever Return?

  by eolesen
 
If Zippia is to be believed, only 17% of Dell's employees are over 40.
Under 18 years <2%
18-20 years 10%
20-30 years 48%
30-40 years 20%
40+ years 17%
Payscale.com breaks it down a little differently, and gets closer to that 40% if you consider "late career" and "experienced" as being close to retirement age....
Entry Level 7.1%
Early Career 30.4%
Mid Career 22.0%
Late Career 13.2%
Experienced 27.3%
If I had to guess, entry level is early 20's, early career is 25-30, mid-career is 30-40, late career is 40-50, and "experienced" is 50+, which is still up to a decade prior to retirement.

I'd say 50% of the employees calling the company's bluff is impressive enough without having to try and spin it.

As for your "old people don't want promotions" argument.... the reality in tech is that "companies don't want to promote old people" ....
  • 1
  • 25
  • 26
  • 27
  • 28
  • 29
 Return to “General Discussion - Passenger Rail: High Speed and Heavy and Light Rail Systems”
 - All times are UTC-05:00 -