Clean

The Return to Office Lie: Why It’s Failing Companies

Published Jul 2, 2024, 10:00 AM

The pandemic thrust millions of us into remote work, and the consensus for most of us is – we love it! Reduced commutes, getting deliveries, our own bathrooms, and the ability to hang out with our pets!

So then why are major employers increasingly pushing back against remote work while bemoaning quiet quitting and the degradation of office culture? And their biggest corporate complaint…less productivity…seems to be a lie! Really, no really!

Jason and Peter were surprised by this revelation and needed more info, so they enlisted the help of Nick Bloom. He’s Co-Director of the Productivity, Innovation & Entrepreneurship Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and well equipped to explain not only the latest technological innovations created for at-home work but also the changing socio-economic realities that make working from home a critical part of our economy.

Professor Bloom is the William Eberle Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He is the co-founder of WFH Research. He’s also the recipient of the prestigious Frisch Medal in 2010. In 2022 he was granted a Guggenheim Fellowship and Bloomberg ranked him as one of its 50 Most Influential.

IN THIS EPISODE:

  • The Definitive Answer: Which environment is more productive home or office?
  • Toenail clipping, zero privacy…who’s the a-hole who invented open floor plans?
  • The most hated workplace related activity revealed!
  • The things we LIKE about working in an office.
  • The blackhole of mentorship when working from home.
  • Big Brother Surveillance: Monitoring keystrokes, productivity screen shots, face cameras & Mouse movers!
  • The future of massively empty skyscrapers is…?
  • The Great Migration from city-centers to the suburbs and its extortionary repercussions.
  • How our commutes have been changed by remote work.
  • Medicine, therapy, warfare, romance – Jason ponders in-person vs remote.
  • Googleheim: The worst places to work are…?

FOLLOW NICK BLOOM:

Website: WFHresearch.com

X: @I_Am_NickBloom

LinkedIN: Nick Bloom

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Now really, really really hello, and welcome to really know really with Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden, who remind you that not only can you work from home, you can subscribe to our show from the comfort of your home as well. The pandemic thrust millions of people into remote work, and the consensus.

For most of us is we love it.

The reduced commutes, our own bathrooms, muals, we enjoy a self determined schedule, and the ability to take a break when needed with our families and pets is wonderful. So then, why are employers increasingly pushing back against remote work, especially when their biggest corporate complaint, less productivity is a lie?

Really?

No, really, Today Jason and Peter.

Call upon Nick Bloom, co director of the Productivity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He'll discuss the latest technological innovations created for at homework and the changing realities that make working from home a critical part of our economy.

Now Here are.

Two guys whose families beg them not to work from home, Jason and Peter, Is it not kind.

Of historically amazing that at the moment this pandemic hit.

We actually had this technology.

I mean, zoom was around before the pandemic, but no one real video conferencing.

Nobody was using it.

Really to not to the extent that they are now.

And then came bang, this thing hits.

We're trapped in our homes and this lifeline of communication and business.

We're four years into this work from home phenomenal instance of COVID right, and they're starting to get feedback about whether it's successful or not where they should allow people to stay at home.

As far as productivity, I can I vote? Can I vote?

We're going to have one of the top economies for this job from Oh can I vote?

And by the way we do this job, can we can do remotely? We've been we have.

We did it very successfully.

Why why do I have to be goer to go to the valley?

You like it, You like it, you like being in the same room with me to do this. You said you liked item. But here's the deal. The US economy is now a work from home economy, with forty two percent of the labor force full time working for home. So yeah, and as I said, after four years now, they've gotten some intel that says, and here's the headline that got us to go really, no, really, return to the office is pointless, really no, really, And they've got stats and studies that say that. Meanwhile, I pulled this headlines from different important business publications why the golden age remote.

Work may be coming to an end.

Some companies even threaten the fireworkers who don't return to the office for a certain number of days. The Wall Street Journal bosses push back and work from home diehards. They will need to show up. Manager say, team productivity has taken a hit. Amazon and Apple joint return to the office pushback against remote work, and of course one of the most famous pushback is Elon Musk. Elon Musk has said, get off your work from home bulb practibles and get to work.

So what you're saying is that that productivity and sort of the joy of work has been proven to be much more advantageous when people work from home. But the businesses are saying, don't comment research, you're coming in there.

And we got on one of the top guys because part of the part of the report and the study that did is so so damning about why managers want these people back.

It's a control.

Things, manage it if somebody's not there.

But there's so many questions about this because it's really it's a bit complicated and where the future is heading, because it impacts how cities are built because people can move anywhere out they don't have to be an officer.

They're leaving there. About working from home life.

Balance, I mean, it's a whole different thing when you can work from home and answer they don't get your Amazon packed, or you don't have to hire a babysit if your dog or your kid, or spend three hours in the car driving from work.

Well, which takes into account also the cost of what it takes for most people to have to go to it.

Yes, but on the other hand, this is not in entitlement. It's a privilege because the company can say when did you, Hey, when did you employees decide, oh, I'm not coming in anymore, and I have no saying it because we feel and then some companies actually shove it up there. But this one made me laugh out loud. I'm almost positive to zoom it's making their employees come. Yeah, But then again that could be a tech thing rather than a they're not zooming there, making sure we can zoom, so I don't want to be so judgmental there. And I also saw that mentorship suffers, so I'm dying to ask our guests. Nick bloom is the William Everley Professor of Economics at Stanford. He's the co founder of Work from Home Research. Bloomberg ranked him is one that it's fifty monst in flunch on that. So that's when I go, I'm sure if you look at the ranking now ye for this appearance.

And after this he's going, hold on, I gotta go.

But did I go down to seventy five? If I was fifty before I did.

The By the way, he was gonna come.

In, but he opted to do it.

But this guy was stiffy and the prestigious fresh you got the fish metal, really, yes you did.

I was asking.

Who got the fish? He got the fresh, the current holder of the fresh. But but Professor Reckon give up?

Is it like Miss America? We have to give up the fish the next year?

A fresh song?

Here it is yah fresh, So we should ask her.

Professor Nicholas bloom heinick, how are you hey? Good? Good?

Good to be had?

I have to say I've hitten it I've hitting the medal, so they can't give it away next year.

Oh you just when people come you don't want it out, Like the oscars in the.

Bathroom doesn't mean anything to me.

Come on, hey, hey, hey, how did you know it's in the bosom?

There you go, you're that kind of guy. So you are.

But I saw that your expertise is from work from home. And because we are, as I said to the intro, years into this experiment, we're now starting to get some metrics about whether it works or not. So we're curious, where is it. Where are we right now with work from home? What do we know about it and how it's working and will it continue?

So yes, it's here to stay.

The other big thing is, look, you don't need to be in the office every day, but it does help to come in two or three.

So you know, the.

Pushback is basically against fully remote. Now, if you're week in, week out, never in the office, it is harder to mentor harder to innovate, to kind of connect with other people if you also don't need to be in Monday to Friday week and week out. So this is kind of cross wires, to be honest, what I see a lot of people is Elon Musk is talking about one thing and some remote advocate talking about another thing, and they're just talking across each other.

And how did they curiously, how did they measure it? Because I got to tell you the BS in all of this for me is open floor plan. Who is that good for? When did open floor plan become Oh, yeah, that's great for employees because you'll hang out. I don't think so. I think that already was an intrusion there is. I don't want that to be the starting point.

Yeah, you know, it's funny.

I had somebody tell me how they hated the open plan office. They said, look, the person next to me, she clips her toenails under the table. She thinks I don't notice, but I tell you I noticed. I definitely notice, and I can't work when I hear.

That clipping sound.

So yeah, look, that's one of the upsides of working from home. I mean, the big one people talk about is you don't have to commute. There's a fantastic study, one of my favorite research studies that came out in Science Leading Journal twenty years ago, published by Danny Cammermon Nobel Prize winner, Ask People evaluated what they like and least like doing per hour. Favorite activity per hour was called intimate relationships, which you.

Know, you can guess what that's about.

Sure.

Second most hated activity per hour is working where I have to pay people to do it.

People don't work for free.

Turns out, the most hated activity for Irish commuting. People absolutely hate commuting. They hate commuting, and so if you work from home, you save them a commute.

It's about an hour a day.

And secondly, it's peaceful and quiet, and that's why you know, people like it, but they don't want to do it every day. You know, it's not like mostly they're on it every day. They just want two.

Three days a week.

But well, that's interesting because you know, i have such a small window of references because I've been doing what I do since i was a teenager. So is that other than the commute and the cost of it. Do the workforce not the management for us? The workforce report that there is also a positive a side for them, a positive experience from being back in the office, being back physically with their colleagues.

Yes, I mean, look two things.

One is more than a half of Americans have to come in every day, so they do jobs that you just can't do remotely. So in fact, the majority of jobs and mostly they don't want to.

Go in every day.

But Jason, you're lucky that you're you know, you're happy and enjoy going in. We survey people, We serve a ten thousand Americans month and in fact in the last month to be asked them, how is you know, how many days a week going in? Is it best for your physical health and your mental health? Turns out about a third of people say they're best going in every day, about a third say hybrid some days, and a third say being fully remote. So you know, there is no one sized fits or some people find it. You know me personally, I want to go in maybe three four days a week. You want some quiet, you want some energy. Some people find it depressing being at home and some you know, like the piece and quiet. So in that way, we're all very different. Actually, so you thrive off energy, but there are definitely other folks that, you know, like the tranquility at home.

And is there is there a reliable measurement of actual productivity in one versus the other, not just what people prefer, but their actual productiveness.

Yeah, so there's a number of studies.

You know, I have a paper it's about to come out in Nature that looks at about one and a half thousand people working in a tech firm. So for them, for example, we have lines of code written and in the production, performance reviews, promotions and sales for that. For hybrid, which is when they work from home two days a week Monday Friday, they're about flat. So you know, basically going in five days a week or working from home Monday Friday is about the same. You could think, look, you know, you got more time at home, you save on commute, you're less tired, it's quieter. On the other hand, that's less face to FaceTime.

But it kind of it's a wash.

You see another data when you're fully remote, if you're working from home five days a week, productivity can be a bit lower. I mean there's you know, again some people thriveing to do well, but on average it's maybe five ten percent down.

How do you measure knowledge?

You got to sign hey, hell, you got to get your prodition productivity up and you got to solve this this virus problem by Thursday. How do you do a lot of work is mental work? Does that mess up to hot productivity thing? Is there no way to measure that?

You're right, It's hard to measure.

I mean, look, anyone that you know manages, anyone knows it's hard to measure it. Look, you guys are both in the creative industries. In a sense, I'm an academic. It's hard to measure this stuff.

So you have.

Reviews and you look at what people do, and you interview clients and customers, et cetera. Generally, it's particularly hard to come up with new ideas remotely because it's as much easier over lunch of kicking ideas around than it is over zoom. So that's why, for particularly for knowledge workers, you probably do want two three days a week interesting.

And mentorship is mentorship done in the in the crapper because of working from home.

Who's mentoring me?

And nobody's in my bathroom waiting for me to come in and say, you know what you should be doing?

Yes, you know, I don't know who's in your bathroom, but I can talk to mentorship more generally.

Yes, it's the big problem.

In the obvious point you point out is to be mentoring, you need someone being mentor and somebody doing the mentoring and to be there at the same time. And what you see is twenty somethings. You know, I teach tons of students in the early twenties. They all want to be in the office for typically days a week. They'll say, look, you know, it's so sure I can be mentored or some im and isn't great. I don't want, you know, I don't want to be at home every day with four of us sharing a smaller party. The problem is it's the thirty and forty year old managers that are mentoring them. They're the ones that don't want to come in as much.

Got it.

The other part of this, Nick, that I see and you have to tell us about the evolution of what's going on because I'm not up on this. The tech, all of the stuff to make your boss think you're working. They have mouse movers, automatic apps that move the mouse. I love if you don't have that.

So are you saying that there's a device at the office that is measuring how much your mouse moves? So are you saying that there's a device at the office that is measuring how much your mouse moves?

Okay, so Nick explained to Jason, because he doesn't know this that if you sign your doctor did you hear the it's condescension? Is that the most which means to talk. So the fact that once you sign that document they can want they're watching your keystrokes.

If you have any winder at the office, what about the one that you're oh no.

Owner, Oh no?

Nick Bill Jason in on how bosses and how many were like you calling him. That's why I think of okay, Nick professor, Nick professor makes Jason uncontrobed. Could you could you explain to Jason how much they can find out about you?

So yeah, so let's let's go back.

Let's go back to the dark days of twenty twenty. In the dark days of twenty twenty, everyone's thrown home. You're fully remote. It was chaos. A lot of companies had what will call surveillance software that they're watching keystrokes. Some of them they use the camera to take pictures of your face, are your eyeble I mean, or screenshots really really invasive things.

But it was a you know, it was also backfar totally.

Had a friend of mine, he said his sister worked for a big multinational and they were keystraight evaluating, And she said, whenever she went to take the doll for a walk, she got her mum just to press the space bar a few times. It was like ridiculous reworking it back out. So what has moved on by twenty twenty four?

That is basically gone.

It's much more evaluating output. So look, Jason, if you're managing me, it's not much use, you know, screenshot me. I'm just going to take a photo my face and to shove it in front of the camera.

Yes, said you want to say, Nick, have.

You done your sales targets, have you written your documents, have you met the clients, et cetera. So what I would call output managed rather than inputs, and once you move away from it, it works.

But yes, surveillance was a bad, bad period.

It's not. Come on, it's gone, companies, Not really, it.

Has mostly gone.

It has mostly because of the bad gas, because of the backlash of workers saying I hate.

Because it doesn't really work. Ellnessy doesn't really work.

I mean, look, if you're evaluating me on how many keys I pressed, you can go onto Amazon and get an automatic key keypress and machine that will go to twenty four You're like, Nick, my god, the guy's typing for twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

How's he doing it. You're like, that's.

Amazing, and we're getting nothing.

Exactly In nineteen ninety five, I bought it off Amazon.

You know, it's like, Wow, that's good to know because I really for me, it's just what the assumption is. You know, you're gonna you're gonna shot, you're gonna lie. You're working for this company, but you're gonna shoat and lie, so we're gonna monitor you all the time. That's pretty wild. That's pretty wild. It's good to know that that's diminished.

In New York on Sixth Avenue in the fifties, that was that was office building central, and as soon as the pandemic hit, those buildings were empty.

I go back.

I worked in New York all summer long. This summer, those buildings are still empty. What is the state of that infrastructure in a city as metropolitan as New York.

Sure, so you know it affects anyone that owns apartment buildings, you know, or your own house.

It affects this.

So offices are about half full compared to what they were pre pandemic, and that looks like that's permanent. I mean it's been that way since the end of twenty twenty two. New office building is almost totally ground to a hole. You do see a few cranes around, it's because those things broke round before the pandemic.

It's almost nothing starting. Now, what's the future.

You're right, there's a lot of empty offices around, particularly New York at San Francisco, Seattle, because that's where there's a lot of tech and finance. Yeah, those things, if they're old. So if they're built before about nineteen thirty, they'll probably be converted to residential. Why is that because if you look at buildings built before nineteen thirty, there is not much electoral there's no electricity. So these are tall and skinny buildings because any daylight. And they're easy to convert because you know, you just put four apartments.

In them and you have some central plumbing.

Sure, if they're built from their sixties onwards, you are basically screwed because they are massive floor plans, huge kind of bank based buildings. There's only typically one toilet. There's nowhere near enough windows to convert that to residential. You can't really do it. Wow, those things are going to lie empty for five ten years and I don't know what's going to happen to those buildings.

Yeah, so they didn't figure out They're not They're not racing like the Chrishman Wakefields and these big companies that own them. They're not racing to figure out how repurpose those I mean gyms, ceramics, studios, workout, workout studios. I mean that would that would beg that. But I'm thinking they're not going to sit for ten years and lose all that money and revenue they have.

They kind of hope, you know, they're hoping for a hail Mary. A lot of these buildings. To value them right now is the land minus the scrapping cost, which tells you, you know, how people read they are the industry is fascinating you that are doing really well a leisure So did you mention gyms?

Gyms?

I thought were absolutely screwed in you know, summer twenty twenty. I was like, who wants to go indoors to summer really sweaty in the middle of the pandemic. Turns out they're booming now why because of work from home to have Another study looking at golf turns out if you're looking golf playing in twenty nineteen, kind of quiet in the week, picks up on Saturday Sunday. You look at golf playing in twenty twenty three, it's jammed all week.

Why because of people working.

From home and slipping out they can do it morning, Hey golf, So golf golf rangers are absolutely minting cash. Same with gym's DamID pickleball, same with you know, leisure stuff. Maybe people around so maybe some of these office buildings get turned into you know, big gyms, indoor driving ranges. The promise there isn't enough of that to fill every office building in New York, so skinny ones go to apartments, the big ones kind of stay empty.

We may empty out city because when people are working from home, they don't want to drive the digges that so there may be the great migration happening.

I don't know.

Yeah, So another thing that we I call the donut effect, which is we're seeing about a million Americans of left city centers and moved.

Out to the suburbs. So it's kind of I only need.

To go in the office two days a week, so three days a week about one a bit of space at home in the backyard, so I move out. That has driven to house prices or property prices and rents in the suburst skyrocketing.

A two parter.

Is there new technology that's on the horizon for work from home? That's even it's going to help us even more than what we have now that they're foreseeing that we need that I can't even anticipate. And what are what's what is a trend that maybe we don't know?

So on new tech definitely.

So I had a dinner about you know, I live out in Silicon Valley, so you know you have lots of dinners, adventure capitalists, and you know, all these people come along and they're all excited or the tech firms. One of them about six months ago is pretty cool. So this guy was saying, we're basically making holograms, and he said, think of the Jedi counsel in Star Wars.

That is what we're designing.

And somebody had invested several million dollars into his companies, So I'm pretty sure it's going to happen. You go into the studio, they spend an hour very carefully taking hologram pictures. Yeah, all three sixty degree perfect of you. Next time you're in a meeting, they kind of have it. The camera takes much of you, but they can just fill in the blanks from the pre recording. Now when you have meetings, it's literally like the Jedi Council, there's you know, kind of holographic Jason, a holographic me and you and look, it's not as good as being in person, but you can't whether it's links spray on or not.

But uh, it's pretty good.

And it means that rather than going to the office two three days a week, we may be going in one.

There's a lot of other work.

Here's here's what I don't get with that though, with the Honestly, I'm having a fine conversation with you. If you were a hologram in front of me right now, I don't think our communication would.

Have been that much more enhanced or improved. Why are I don't get.

There is a different hit when you go because what they're doing is desktop holygram. At that point, it's so much preferred.

A foot and a half toll sitting on the stand, Picture it, picture, do it right now.

I wish you were like Jimminy Cricket, Jimmy Crickett. Would your voice go off to.

Like I am a lot of this world. He's a very excited man. This man's excited about being on our show. He's excited about anything you might I might even.

Show you my fresh medal.

We all know you're showing before. What are What are the paper? Every time we bring up something, you go, I have a paper, I have a paper going on. How many papers you got going?

Wow? A lot.

That's why the fisherward is staying here anywhere you are really busy. I tell you another one, tell another paper. Then it's pretty fascinating, which is I'm working with a company that has GPS data. So I don't know if you're aware, but every time you drive in your car, if you have GPS, which pretty much all cars do now, even if you are not using it, it's measuring it and it's transmitting back to the manufacturer and they collect the data and anonymous. So I have a BMW X five is whatever, six years old. I never use the GPS to use my cell phone, but I know they know they're anonymous and sell it. So we have millions and millions of journeys. One of the other fascinating things is we're seeing this rise of supercommuters, so that these folks that are moved out to the suburbs, they're now going into the office maybe once or twice a week, but they're driving like one hundred miles I mean, insane amounts of distance going in and out.

The other thing we see is because of.

Work from home, traffic volumes are down, and it's a gift from you know, the work from homemans to the rest of us that that are commuting. So speeds, for example, into New York are about ten percent faster in the morning commute than they were pre pandemic, just because you've cleared the road, aren't going in.

Elik Duddley, I'd like to push back on that and tell you, no, no, no, it's.

Still I don't know. Well, you're a joy to have. Thank you so much for coming on.

Thanks so much for having me on.

And I'm going to go move my Frish award to the hiding place because it sounds like hint, it's not buried in the garden anywhere, but that just sorry, what do you think.

It looks like?

What is that what you want?

I'm going to go for it. Just based on the name of the Fresh Award.

Right, it's got a lose I think it's very similar to the Tony Ward. It's got a loose sight base, a little plaque on it that you know, has a little announcement and who it's for, and then it's got I'm going to imagine like a sort of a rounded disc held in some sort of structure, like a gyroscopic that's a structure, and that it's about ya tall and uh and weighs about three and a half pounds.

You know what, I'm not going to tell anyone because the thousands of people listening to this podcast, they are now going to break into my house trying to find.

The family. Were your parents proud of the Fresher Ward?

At least they were?

You know.

The weirdest thing is I'm on the committee this year to award it because they get pasted in it.

This is a very same that.

That's great, So we will we will be.

You've got a calls when you give it away this year, but that's gonna you're gonna cry, You're gonna throw from when you have to hand it over.

I'd give you one hit. It's extremely heavy, so if I throw it.

You have to the I was like an Emmy, and that's why I didn't.

I had no records.

You never saw much.

Jason has a daytime Emmy, but the day to daytime talking about.

Also love that he thinks we have thousands of listeners to this podcast.

I think that was very you know something, Why do I why don't we get up and get I don't know why why do I do anything?

And they listen?

Thank you so much for coming on appreciating congrat seriously, congratulations on the work, Congratulations on the fifty most influential, and congratulations on being so prolific.

And for keeping an eye on this stuff, which I think is going to become even We're gonna need to know more and more about this because I think this revolution is far from done.

Hey, Jason Peter, thanks so much for having me on a.

Great presu.

Well what do you think we do it?

Remotely? From now right? Why not? Laarne spinning blood? I heard the laugh. I heard the laugh through the wall. Yeah, well, I booked a studio all the time. This is where we should do it. I need to stop talking about it. You just do a studio.

We don't need the equipment. We don't need to dies, we don't need it.

Like it? Wow, you like it?

You were like you like commuting and you like the commute from your fur f and hour takes me forty minutes?

Wow? Whoa what are starts to do? All these shows that we can whole episode. You get to see how we could see all these other.

We get to see how we.

Know we do.

You know we do, Lauria, what I say to Jason, see my friend, Here's what I do.

Is I say to Jason, we'll discuss it. So all right, and he's a major dude. Another major dude comes on, I'm doing this.

I'm doing that thousands of listeners. Of course, I'm shock. And Laurie calls in and go, yeah, okay, bye, here are things that now can be done remote.

You tell me better or worse?

Denis book of records better? Joey Chestnut from home?

This guy remote medicine happier with them.

It's happy. I have no choice at this point. Yes, yes, I.

Know many doctors that go I won't do remote. I just yes, is that a thing I should come in for?

That's the thing I want to Well, I can tell you that.

They won't go.

I just want to go. Just can you always? How about this?

How about this remote medicine where you could never see the specialist because he's in Cleveland and he's on with you. You send him your stuff and you get a consultation with a doctor to who you would never get to meet. Who's the primary guy in your area that you need to talk to?

So their plus is a minding. What was wrong with the phone?

I couldn't I couldn't call them on the phone.

You can see the guy, they can, Oh my gosh, you are.

How does that help me? That's like the hologram?

How does having the little hologram on my table as a book?

And the guy?

I am so glad that you you're a little acting thing and you're not a visionary same thing.

If I can say you don't impact my life.

Remote teaching and learning, Yes, because you have kids who can never get this great teacher.

You can get a horse from Harvard want to hard teacher, fantastic.

You know they did it all through the pandemic and test scores and because it went down dropped because.

It was new, it was it was it was new, it was untested, and he didn't know how to do it.

They still don't.

I think they're getting better and better at it. Think that's what do you think? Remote therapy?

Let me let me suggest you begin it.

Remote therapy. Wow, can I see whether they're sleeping or not? Oh?

It wasn't it to me because the guy is always asleep.

How about have you ever a theraph therapist that when you're done, you do this long this horse skiel and you've really opened up and they go all right, let's continue next time.

And you know he didn't. He was doing his bills.

That's never been my thing.

Remote warfare, tapping to drones and all it, and I think, frankly, there was a Star Trek episode.

Star Trek Okay, it was a Star Trek.

Episode where where a war that had been gone going on in generations was being conducted by computers. It was remote and the attacks were all computer simulations.

But if your city got destroyed.

By the computer, it was up to you to report to an annihilation center to be killed. And Enterprise shows up and goes, this is nuts. He pulled the plug on the computer because you know that.

No interference remote romance, yew, think about that.

There are people that are having long distance relationships and they're really being conducted.

You know, it used to be more money. So I consist I don't think they get out you give me. You know how many of those are which are really scary? Remote romance, You know, the weird thing is romance. You usually got to see the person on a date or whatever.

It's remote and they're that far away, just the obstacles you've.

Got to But for some people the romance is going better because it's only seeing romances fantasy romance. Yeah, interesting though, right, this is But I I believe, I believe our.

World is going to become more and more a remote experience.

As we don't leave our homes to go to work, we don't leave our homes to go for our entertainment, we don't leave our homes. If this hologram thing comes and goes, let's go to Grandma's for the weekend and you holographically put yourself in there. You know, it's I think it's a it's it's a trend that I worry about because what.

Do I do for a living? Bring people to where I am?

And yeah, and asked me, do you want to know what I believe? What do you believe. I believe for every job of brain falls. I believe that for every job I believe the children.

Listen, Grandma is never gonna it's never gonna be remote, Grandma. She's I can't get the hologram to the hologram.

I can see your body, I can see your test.

You're seeing through me. Yeah right, it's not working for me.

All right, doesn't look like you. By the way, did you have to wear those stairs in the hologram?

Go ahead? Not the cargo shorts.

Why do they never follow the prime it's the prime directive.

Yeah, that's the prime directors right. It's like the Kobe Maru. He you know he changed it.

He read the cheater. That's why I like him. That's why he's the best captain. All those other captainship like them.

Okay, this is a guy who's gonna say he's going to travel time and space to solve problems.

Meanwhile, the crew behind his back plotting every day. How do we kill them? And I get caught?

Yeah, I don't know if you want to hear it, but I got the top ten employers in the United States, which as rated by glassdoor dot com.

Okay, sore, we guess all right, I think you know any any two of them.

Got to be Apple, got to be Microsoft. It's going to be Amazon. It's got to be.

Walmart, Walmart. Yeah, yeah, I think so retail on the Google, yeah, Google.

All right, Well, I'm actually going to switch my list to the worst company.

Because that's the ones. That's the ones you're talking about.

Number one, and this one is as measured by.

I'm gonna switch it to the worst smelling companies.

I want to make you feel that your guesses are good. This is This one is compiled by resume dot io and it calculated. The worst place is by how quickly people left.

Okay, the average ten years of the employee.

Number one is Apple.

Really, they're in and out.

Number two is Amazon.

I think we probably could see that at the warehouse.

Number three is Meta.

Yeah sure, I'm sensing a theme.

Yeah.

The biggest they have the biggest because you have volume. You turned around.

Yeah that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's see.

Some of them are who knows what Tesla is number five, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Salesforce dot Com number eighth, Netflix number thirteen, PayPal is nineteen in alphabet. The parent company of Google is number twenty.

Wow.

So it seems like the high tech people can't and the get a better job because you get higher trained to get better.

You know, you're always looking for better gets. You know how to do that online and cheat while you're working on the other job.

Well, by the.

Way, working remote is great.

I don't know what anybody, Yeah, exactly right.

It worked out for us well nine finale.

I hit it well right, three companies, but I had them.

Why, David, you're the best. Thank you, Laurie, thank.

You, thank you everyone. Thank you Professor Bloom who was a lovely guy. That was very very And I'm sad to see that there's just empty buildings sitting on six seven in New York City and there's no let's break them coming back break the Let's see if you and I can figure out what pull me out.

Yeah, and he's one bathroom in a long quarter. All right. Obviously we're not the visionaries you're looking for. Yeah, so if you listen to the show, you kind of know that. To thank you among the oh you know what you.

Take it away announced with.

Noah, No really, that's another episode of really no really, it comes to a close. I know you're wondering what are some of the strangest jobs you can actually get paid to do from home? That list in a moment, but first let's thank our guest Nick. You can find him on LinkedIn where he is Nick Bloom, on x he is at im Nick Bloom, or you can visit his website Wfhresearch dot com. Find all pertinent links in our show notes, our little show hangs out on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and threads at Really No Really podcast, And of course you can share your thoughts and feedback with us online at reallynoreally dot com. If you have a really some amazing fact or story that boggles your mind, share it with us and if we use it, we will send you a little gift. Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's the thought that counts. Check out our full episodes on YouTube, hit that subscribe button and take that bell so you're updated when we release new videos and episodes, which we do each Tuesday. So listen and follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And now you ask, hey, can you hit me with that list of unusual jobs people can actually get paid to do from home? Well, since what I do is one of them, yes I can. How'd you like to be an online bounty hunter? You can work for bail bondsman and collection agencies, saluting out the whereabouts of deadbeats from the comfort of your living room. You can also be a fraud investigator from home as well. Many companies will hire you for this fancy title Chief Listening Officer. Clos are paid to listen to and analyze complaints from both customers and employees. So if you don't mind people complaining to you all day, this could be your gig. Or how'd you like to be a virtual juror? Lawyers in law schools pay people to sit online and hear practice legal arguments. And lastly, you can make some big bucks with my personal favorite video game tester. Seriously, okay, well, if you don't hear from me again.

I found a more lucrative gig.

No Man, Really, No Really is the production of iHeartRadio and Blase Entertainment.

Really? no, Really?

Every Tuesday best friends Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden are joined by experts, newsmakers and ce 
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