My boss is advocating for us NEVER returning to the office. Our team is still killing it - profitable, productive, etc. - but we were pretty physically separated anyway, due to the regional nature of our sales team. One guy in Vegas, another in Georgia, a guy in ... umm... Cincinnati, I think?... and about 6 of us in our HQ office here in Seattle(ish), with three of those on the road most of the time.

And I've been hearing this from a lot of different people in different companies. My housemate works inside the Amazon buildings downtown, and has had to go in twice a week for the last month or so. He sees 5-7 people A DAY in the Amazon cafe he runs.

If the spike we are currently entering into here in the US continues without a Federal program to address it systematically (which will never happen), we won't even get to a second wave until next year. The first wave will continue through the end of the year. Approaching maybe half a million deaths by Christmas? (130k so far, 4 months into the pandemic stage, with 6 months to go, and people/businesses getting desperate to go out. So far we have been pretty well behaved. But that's ending pretty fast, and this weekend will surely spike the numbers like we haven't seen yet.)

So then companies have to cut costs dramatically if they want to stay in business. Furloughs. Reduce operational costs, like facilities. Offices.

Commercial real estate becomes cheap and plentiful.

But millions of people still need to work, and can't work 100% from home.

So WeWork-COVID opens up in all this cheap, new, accessible office space. Coworking at a social distance becomes common, and with the reduced costs of not having any kitchen facilities and coffee break room/supplies. Everyone is self-sufficient. Bathroom trips become longer as you sanitize before and after you use it.

I think there's a potential for "office work" to change a lot for many kinds of modern jobs.

But the meat packers? Production lines? Shipping departments? Still fucked.