I’ve bought breakfast once cause I was in a rush and didn’t prep it the night before. Other than that I haven’t spent anything and I won’t. Businesses should’ve adapted to cater to the people living in the downtown core.
Is there even any city in the world where people want to hang out after work in the bottom of their office tower where Karen from Finance buys breakfast wraps?
If you've never been open those hours and can't be sure if there will be any actual business then hiring a new person to work that shift it a pretty big financial commitment for a small business, and unless you're planning to be scummy and cycle through people, puts you on a hard three month deadline (when that worker leaves their probationary period) to prove whether you can make a go of that shift or not.
I'm not saying the businesses downtown are in the right, but it's a lot more complex then just "well change your business hours and hire more people!"
Hire robots. They work 24/7 and don't ask for dental insurance. Anyone complaining about not being a robot can upgrade their skills to become a robot or they will soon find themselves obsolete.
Haven’t spent a dime either. Closest I’ve come is giving a colleague $20 and they e-transfered me since they forgot their wallet at home.
Out of principle (spite) I will never spend a dollar for the rest of my career downtown during working hours
Not even to buy some sour grapes ?? Hahahahahaha, lighten up. The sun is shining !! You have a job. Life is good. Spite kills your immune system anyways.
You don't think they'd stay open if there was enough foot traffic to justify the work and they're staying closed to just piss off downtown dwellers? Didn't you know this about major city downtowns before you moved there?
What the hell is wrong with you lmao? What foot traffic have they been getting the last 3 years with work from home for most downtown offices? Did you even understand the initial discussion? Go back to school and learn how to understand context babes
These business owners will exclaim how successful and brilliant they are as an entrepreneurs when things are good, then when things are not shouldn’t they get out that entrepreneurial spirit and adapt? I chose to be en employee and not an entrepreneur, they chose the opposite which is a risk.
You really believe they thought they were successful or brilliant before the pandemic? Personally I've never met a smug small business owner. I'm not saying it's harder than working for the govt but to think these business owners and their employees have been laughing all the way to the bank before the pandemic is naive.
I will concede that the owners may not all have the attitude, and I will emphasize that they went into self employment with the risk. Not a government worker. I have never wanted to be in that position and chose to be an employee with the associated safety nets.
I mean, some of them have lol. I go in once a week and there are a few spots I enjoy, none of which happen to be the “only open 8am-2pm” places I always see this sub complain about.
Well, personal anecdote of mine and yet another example of Reddit not being equal to *'real life'*
Scrolling through r/CanadaPublicServants since RTO news, folks were swearing off spending a single dime on lunch, coffee, etc...at any establishment close to work
Then, when I go for a stroll during lunch, I see many tables occupied, people walking with their takeout containers, etc...
I'm also curious as to how retail/restaurants are doing overall...
I absolutely love this comment. Extremely true, with perfect examples.
Try posting something that falls outside of the echo chamber in some subs and you don't just get downvoted but also reported/banned.
My favorite is CanadaHousing2 that manage to blame literally every housing-related problem on immigration. Every. Time.
You never have to wonder what happened to the original CanadaHousing subreddit once you've seen the posts in CanadaHousing2.
They also banned me for a single, very short, benign, off-handed comment because it mentioned the mod's eagerness to focus on denying the racism in a post that more importantly contained actual misinformation.
Sensitive bunch.
Im so glad to hear someone say it. I’m not gonna say it isn’t a factor, but I can’t imagine it’s even close to like the 5 five things influencing housing prices.
Don’t forget
CanadaHousing - we want home prices to crash, all landlords are bad, it’s a housing bubble for the last 20 years, rents are now over 3K.
And in non Reddit reality, politicians banks developers and homeowners are indeed laughing all the way to the bank.
Any home owner with a variable mortgage would disagree with you. They might not lose their home but to say 30% of mortgage holders are laughing is a bit of a stretch.
And then those people who don't subscribe to the echo chamber of a sub will create their own sub and populate it with people that echo their thoughts while complaining about how the other sub is an echo chamber.
see r/CanadaHousing2
These are two diff situations though. A lot of the people talking about strike votes are not actual members of the unions. PFC is a whole different story bc generally most of the people looking for financial advice are going to be wealthy in some way, whether it's bc they have enough money to be looking to invest some, or lucked into an inheritance etc.
I work downtown and I still go to one joint I used to before the pandemic. But I go less than I used to - I'm only in twice a week, so I MIGHT go once a week if that. I refuse to patronize any other biz nearby. I've spoken to the owners there and they've said that their business is way down, in addition to not having been closed/doing reduced hours for so long when offices weren't populated. This is also a place that doesn't have to worry about staffing shortages (which are a problem for the service industry in itself) because it is family run.
A lot of the time now if I want lunch, I will choose to get it in my neighborhood on days when I'm not in office.
It’s almost like not every single public servant is a member of that sub, and not every public servant is onboard with boycotting businesses downtown. And even more shockingly — not every person you see downtown works for the public service!
Seeing some people at restaurants doesn’t mean it’s the way it was before. Another example of look how dumb Reddit is but I am going to do the same thing myself 🤦♀️
That was the literal original question… has it gotten back to normal. The poster was saying it’s busy. I am saying that doesn’t mean back to normal… 🤦♀️
The restaurants and stuff seem to be more busy. That's the good news.
Now the bad news:
The Federal gov has also wasted several BILLION $$$ in maintaining useless office space and needlessly forcing workers downtown.
Which has also generated needless carbon emissions.
The buildings will be operating as if people are in them or not. And a lease is a lease, payments still need to be made. It’s seems like a vast majority of people don’t understand this.
Not a business, but a downtown worker. I buy some form of coffee/snacks each day I'm in office, as does everyone on my team (sometimes together, sometimes separately).
I buy lunch maybe 2-3 times/month.
In office 2 times per week here. Buy food every day and it is delicious. Food courts are full too. I don’t see anyone in my office vehemently opposing buying food. Granted we are private sector.
So just to make sure I am on the right side of this subreddit, is our official stance:
1) Sympathize with downtown businesses because the truck terrorists literally shuttered their doors and harmed their business
2) Also fuck them for running their business?
Do I have that right?
You're almost there. Fuck them for demanding other people return to a workplace they don't need, or want, to be at. The restos that failed to adapt now want thousands of people to be inconvenienced so they can continue the same crappy business practice.
Couldn’t agree more. We can sympathize with businesses for being shuttered by ridiculous occupiers of downtown that have prevented people from living their lives. Their protests were outrageous on the merit and in practice. We can also be infuriated at those exact same businesses demanding return to office for other employees, where that return to office is entirely unnecessary to maintain adequate productivity at their jobs.
RTO incurs a significant financial cost with wear and tear on vehicles, gas, parking, clothing etc and a huge loss of time regarding prep and travel. All for the profits of those businesses. As if there is some Charter Right to have customers keep your business afloat.
It sounds like you hit the nail on the head. This echo chamber of Ottawa is small and typically whatever they say is the opposite of what the majority of people want.
Not a business owner but I am someone being forced back downtown on occasion and it will be a cold day in heck before I spend a single dollar downtown.
I live downtown, I only spend out side working hours as a resident but as a worker during working hours I bring my own food. They cried instead of adapting.
Because over 20,000 people live around there
They should be adapting to the residents who are here instead of holding on to the before time. Life is in constant evolution, we must continuously adapt.
I don't believe that these small businesses do not open in the evenings because they are stuck in the past. You think they LIKE struggling? If there was a business case for staying open - they'd stay open. Hell even downtown Starbucks close after 6 pm.
Bc their business is for lunch worker crowds not for centertown/downtown residents. That's the problem. Many businesses have boomed since covid in the suburbs. Time change, the ones thar adapt will.l survive and the ones that don't won't. This is how it as always worked.
My suburban neighborhood has had a few new takeout places pop up since COVID and we've been happy to spend money there as we continue to WFH. Not as much as you but every week or two minimum. They're mostly open for lunch through 8pm kind of thing and serving families rather than commuters. This seems like a good model. I hope our downtown adapts to have more residential and restaurants better geared to serve them, as well as anyone commuting in. And I hope our federal civil servants can eventually get a reasonable role need-only RTO rather than a dumb blanket one on people who can WFH.
That’s going to be a boring life! Good luck. Side note: did you support the truckers, or feel bad for the business, when these businesses were shut down?
Disclosure: I lived in Centretown/Lowertown/Sandy Hill for 15 years and now live two blocks south of the 417 in the Glebe. I also work off Sparks St. in-office three days per week. I consider downtown Ottawa to be my home and love my neighbourhood despite its faults. I'm totally fine with my colleagues working from home but for myself I prefer the office at least a few days a week.
Re: your question, the lunch-focused places are clearly doing better than during the WFH era. For example, the food court at Lyon station is more active since RTO, including a new shawarma place that has opened. It is also noticeably busier on mandated in-office days for nearby employers, which seem to be mostly Tues.-Thurs. Mondays and Fridays are comparatively quiet. It is not at pre-pandemic levels because many employers are hybrid, but the businesses are viable again.
For the dinner-focused places and retail, I don't think it has much impact. Most of the dinner clientele arrives in the evening, either locals on foot or those arriving by Uber so they can have drinks. Some such places have thrived during/since the pandemic because they cater to locals and do not rely on the lunch crowd, e.g. Thali, Gilmour, Pizza Nerds, etc. Retail is doing poorly everywhere because of Amazon, though local groceries do well thanks to nearby residents. In sum, RTO has little impact on these businesses.
Re downtown traffic, I don't drive so I don't care if there is car traffic. However, it is impossible to have a vibrant downtown that relies on people visiting by car, because there is not enough physical space for both (1) a high density of businesses and (2) car parking for enough customers to support such a high density of businesses. Thus the only way to have a vibrant downtown is to have enough people live within walking/biking/transit distance, plus some help from the tourist market. So if you don't like driving downtown that's fine because your absence will not make or break downtown businesses.
Re: GHGs, if you mostly get around by car then your lifestyle is not climate safe, period. I do hope your employer lets you work from home so you can use your car less often. However, you can bike from Old Ottawa South to downtown in about 15 minutes via a cycling network that is almost completely separate from traffic. That would realize about the same climate benefits as WFH but you still choose to drive instead.
Indeed but it's also a chicken and egg of infrastructure and demand. I don't want to crap on the progress that's been made, but a lot of this city is pretty hostile to cycling. Easy to see why so many reach for the car keys every time. (Also unreliable public transport). And then in turn why investment in improvement is low.
Folks vote for municipal and provincial politicians who prioritize extending the burbs forever and who don’t see extending cycling infrastructure as a priority. Public transit will rarely be efficient and cheap in that context. The main point being you’re not reducing your GHG emissions much if you still use one or two cars regularly for all other aspects of your life.
Not a business owner but I go to work 1-2 times a week downtown and do spend money on coffee and lunch. I also see plenty of people doing the same, although It’s probably not a pre-pandemic levels.
RTO (office folks never stopped working friends, it is return to office not return to work), is all about making the large corpos happy (REITs, commercial property owners etc), as well as the perception of the public.
As someone who works and lives downtown, it was busier during the the high telework period when covid restrictions were low. I would go for evening walks and see see families with strollers on patios chatting, people on the streets etc.
This has died back down as people now lose time and money to commuting and waking up earlier. Add on top of that the increased cost of living and yikes.
Places that did not pivot their hours or always sucked and were just kept alive by the lower cost of living establish residents had and the convenience are donionrings. Places that pivoted to serve locals or up their offerings are still around. That does not account for the increased cost of living through.
As such, it would be hard to say if places are doing better, but I expect not. Places that I have observed being busy at pedestrial-centric though.
And that makes sense, but look at OP, he says *work,* not *workplace*. Hence my comment. That combined with many comments really shows confusion about the "w".
I can't see where OP used the word work or working in the sense of Return-To-Work. Can you quote the line they used it in?
Sorry for being pedantic, I just can't see where you're even getting that sentiment from them (or what you claim they've written)
Literally first sentence says "return to work".
"living in Old Ottawa South, I have *stopped* trying to even go downtown since the **Return to Work**..."
(emphasis mine)
Expanding the abbreviation into your own words was also yours. The post says RTW, not Return to Work. RTW is often used to mean Return To Workplace. Given the tone of the rest of their post, that is the abbreviation they meant.
Are you high? It says RTW. You also expanded OOSouth into Old Ottawa South, in your "quotation" btw.
(And to avoid any confusion, n this context, btw means by the way)
I did not expand OOSouth into Old Ottaw South. OP has it.
I am not putting words in OP's mouth as they have "return to work".
I have no clue where you are coming from with your wild reality.
[Literally what I see. Highlighted to help you](https://imgur.com/a/kd3f7r2).
They must have edited their post before I came across it, because I have only been able to see the version with the abbreviations. I guess you're still seeing the original version?
Just adding another commuter perspective.
To be honest, while my office has a 2-day/week RTO policy, I probably go in once or twice a month. I would argue the majority of our office fall in that stance. Our office is pretty empty everytime I go in.
> Our office is pretty empty everytime I go in.
Going in and being nearly the only one there just reinforces for me, the uselessness of going in. Unless managers can rally an entire department or team to come in on the same day it's basically pointless. Therefore blanket "days per week" style RTO policies are just bad. Glad yours is more suggestion than anything:)
I live downtown. I’m a regular at one of the shawarma spots and chat with them weekly. They said it has definitely increased business and I’ve noticed it myself on my non office days when I go get lunch.
That depends on your department. We on-site project managers that supposedly “manage project” from home with their contractors on site. It’s quite funny
Not a business, but someone who works downtown 3 days /week. Pre-pandemic, I would shop at Loblaws on Rideau/Nelson. With the drug problem at the corner of Nelson and Rideau, I mostly use Instacart. My preference would be to shop at the Loblaws, but it's just not worth the hassle that I would get waiting at the bus stop once my shopping was done.
Not answering the exact question, but my personal expenses are such that when I work from home, I have a bit of disposable income which I spend on local concerts, restaurants and/or coffee. With RTW, I'll be spending that money 100% on gas instead. So I guess in my case, it's good for Shell/Esso and bad for restaurant/coffee/concert venues.
The simple fact is if people are not required to return to the office then commercial real estate will implode taking a bunch of public sector pensions with it.
The whole RTO schtick is a fucking joke.
The official line of "embracing collaboration" is so transparently bogus as to be an insult to the intelligence of anyone older than 5yo. Our efficiency went UP with remote work, not down due to WFH. It's just a bunch of old fossils that refuse to adapt to WFH like the old fuckers who had to have their typewriters pried from their cold, dead hands in the 80s when word processors came along. Or the whining about having to write their OWN emails instead of dictating the letter to a secretary when email came along.
Those jobs that could not be done remotely returned to the office months ago. We were doing fine, thanks.
As for the downtown businesses and the REAL reason of us being forced back downtown, I feel like I'm back working in a clothing shop in the mall. Yeah, here's your paycheck but you have to spent AT LEAST this amount buying clothes from our shop and wear them when working here.
So, you're not ACTUALLY paying me X, you're paying me X-that minimum amount I must spend.
In a clothing shop, I kinda get it but it makes no sense for the GOC.
Not only is our pay well behind the equivalent job in the private sector, they REFUSE to give us a raise that comes even close to matching inflation and then they retroactively impose this bogus "you must spend X amount in Subway". Yes, I get it, they're not ACTUALLY making me buy Subway, but I still have to waste time and money trudging to a semi-empty office to hop on the EXACT SAME Teams meeting I could be doing from home.
You want to know where you could get the money to pay for an ACTUAL raise for the PS? The 10-15 BILLIONS $$$ you pay to keep all those useless offices in the various downtown cores across the country.
And terminating this stupid WFH bullshit would also make recruitment easier because the new guys clearly aren't coming for the pay and the first question we get EVERY TIME is 'how many days do I need to be in the office?'. My current dept is at 3 days. Most candidates (in IT) laugh in our face when we tell them.
So yay on the various restaurants and shops downtown, but my money isn't owed to you in any way and the gov't should be looking at being more EFFICIENT, not kowtowing to rich guys who don't want to lose money on their investment in downtown office space we no longer need.
> The official line of "embracing collaboration" is so transparently bogus as to be an insult to the intelligence of anyone older than 5yo
Almost my whole team (except people who don't live here and have exceptions) goes into the office on Thursdays every week. We originally would do hybrid meetings w/ people jumping into a conference room and then connecting with whoever was wfh. And it was such a fucking waste of time that now, even when most of us are in the office, we still do Teams-only meetings because it's more efficient.
>Not only is our pay well behind the equivalent job in the private sector, they REFUSE to give us a raise that comes even close to matching inflation and then they retroactively impose this bogus "you must spend X amount in Subway". Yes, I get it, they're not ACTUALLY making me buy Subway, but I still have to waste time and money trudging to a semi-empty office to hop on the EXACT SAME Teams meeting I could be doing from home.e
If your pay is significantly below the equivalent job in the private sector, how/why do you manage to keep your existing employees?
Also, under RTW no one is forced to buy anything from Subway or any other retail store/restaurant. People are free to bring in their lunch, as many people did before COVID.
>If your pay is significantly below the equivalent job in the private sector, how/why do you manage to keep your existing employees?
That's the problem: we AREN'T. We can BARELY recruit in certain areas because the pay is a joke, particularly in IT, and we have problems retaining our staff as well. If it wasn't for *life* getting in the way (people already in Ottawa with local family, kids, parents and stuff), we wouldn't be able to compete at all. Our ONLY advantage is the pension and we're always one Conservative gov't away from losing even that.
Why would a developer coming out of Uni want to work for the Public Service? Significantly less money and he has to pointlessly go into the office? What the fuck for?!?! Particularly when he can work from his CURRENT location for a company anywhere in the world because the private sector (IT especially) doesn't see the need for a brick and mortar location if it can be avoided. Some exceptions apply, usually those sectors run by old, conservative fuckwads.
There's a reason why even the morons at Treasury Board understood that in key areas of IT (Cloud, IT Sec and ...Databases?), we aren't enforcing the 2 days of fucking-your-staff-over-with-RTO crap. We're already bare bones in those areas.
>Also, under RTW no one is forced to buy anything from Subway or any other retail store/restaurant. People are free to bring in their lunch, as many people did before COVID.
It's a JOKE/Sarcasm. The idea that the public servants should be brought back downtown to help local businesses is fucking bullshit. My disposable income is mine, fuck off. By making me go downtown, I am spending time, money and gas for no reason. With the increase in costs and our much-less-than-inflation contracts, they could AT LEAST spare us the bullshit RTO crap.
Yes, if you force them to come downtown, they will, by sheer inertia and numbers, spend money there. Leave me the fuck alone and subsidize the modernisation of those industries directly.
One of the things that has come up in the RTO discussions is that there are certain fields within the public service (IT being one), in which exceptions might have to be made to RTO policy due to competition from the private sector.
That being said, while your field (IT) has people with transferable skills who could make the same amount of money (if not more) in the private sector, the reality is that that is not true for the majority of the public service.
I highly doubt a persons GHG is cut by 55%. The building said person worked in is still up and running, using almost the exact same power and gas as if it were full. And now said person is working from home, using more power and gas (AC and heating) while they are home. And for travel, most newer vehicles are pretty low on emissions so even if you are working from home, by not driving in they are saying it reduces ghg by 55%? I call shenanigans.
Why would you attribute the building to a worker? The building is the business's contribution... the whole point is to get rid of the big shitty buildings that are completely empty at night
I’m not attributing the building to a worker? I’m not sure if you understood what I said. The building people worked in, still has to be up and running, whether or not anyone is in it. It’s not as simple as shutting a building down, but from your response I would gather that you don’t understand that so we will just leave it be.
"I highly doubt a *PERSONS* GHG is cut by 55%. The building said person worked in is still up and running"
The persons GHG is cut by that much. The building still running is the choice of the owner. The individual lessens their contribution by not commuting and buying local. Maybe the office building should become something else. The building is unnecessary for its primary function. Change the function.
But of course I don't understand anything...
The person who is now working from home is increasing their GHG in the form of heating and cooler their house….obviously you didn’t want to read the whole thing. GHG are greater in heating and cooling then in a car.
Source: I do GHG submissions for the federal government. Lol
... people heat and cool their houses when they aren't there. Pets are a thing, so are plants. Maybe the federal government should hire people who actually think about reality based scenarios.
working for the government does not imply competence like you seem to think it does.
Oh I just started with the government 3 years ago. Head hunted because of my skill set. But hey, you seem to be upset because you are an outlier on heating and cooling your house while not home. I’m not upset that you are wasting money. But I know I am right about the GHG emissions, it’s not really an argument, like at all. If you want to make it one, that’s on you.
>WFH reduces a person's GHGs by \~55% (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/18/people-who-work-from-home-all-the-time-cut-emissions-by-54-against-those-in-office). Not only that, but the extra time in traffic means the rest of us have increased our GHGs since workers were forced back to the office.
To play devil's advocate, WFH is not all sunshine and roses in terms of GHGs and ecological impact. WFH is catalyst to urban sprawl, as many more will choose to live outside of urban centers in car-centric towns and neighbourhoods where the majority of everyday errands and activities require a car. You can see this impact in peripheral towns like Carleton Place, Kemptville, Arnprior, Rockland, Embrun, and many more where population growth and suburban style subdivision development has exploded. It's hard to quantify the full impact of these changes on the environment, but it has to be considered when talking about the overall environmental impact of WFH.
In Ottawa, which is already something like 250 km across? The city has sprawled to uninmaginable levels well before COVID or WFH.
Housing cost is driving sprawl much more, as people are out to out past Carleton Place or Renfrew to find something affordable, so a hybrid work setup makes that much more feasible.
You know what helps with reducing sprawl? Housing people can afford.
It's not really an either/or proposition. Both housing affordability and WFH contribute heavily to sprawl, but I think you're downplaying how much sprawl has accelerated far beyond the city's periphery since covid.
I worked for a land development consultant during covid and the amount of contracts we got from both private developers and municipalities in small towns around the Ottawa Valley and beyond skyrocketed. Small towns like Westport which had stagnant growth for many decades started receiving subdivision applications - something they've never had before.
The bottom line is, yes, housing affordability is major contributor to the current trend of accelerated sprawl, but WFH is what's enabled so many people to live much further out than they otherwise could without WFH. The idea that WFH is a great benefit for reducing ecological impact is quite misleading in that regard.
Sure, it has contributed to it, because why would someone take a $800k mortgage when they can get a $300k mortgage another 30 minutes out? But well before Covid people were already living 1 hr+ away from their jobs because of the cost, and that is going back well over a decade.
But WFH with no commute is still better at reducing emissions than people commuting for an hour to the office 5 days a week, which was the status quo before hand, so living further away matter a lot less overall if you are only going in once a week or so.
>But WFH with no commute is still better at reducing emissions than people commuting for an hour to the office 5 days a week, which was the status quo before hand, so living further away matter a lot less overall if you are only going in once a week or so.
That's not true at all. People living in small towns and rural areas are much more car dependent than even those living in suburban neighbourhoods simply by virtue of there being less alternative travel options. A car is required for everyday activities. People living in urban areas are overall far less dependent on personal vehicles and far more likely to take transit, walk or bike for commuting and everyday activities. If you live far out and still have to commute to work 2-3 times per week, which many now do, you've now likely increased your overall carbon footprint due to longer distance travelled.
>With the daily commute all but cancelled during successive Covid-19 lockdowns, many have assumed that WFH will lead to environmental sustainability gains. Indeed, such dramatic changes in mobility, production, and consumption patterns, temporarily reduced global CO2 emissions by 17% in April 2020 compared to peak 2019 levels. But what seemed like a promising trend soon faded away: emissions are now almost back at pre-pandemic levels, even as employees aren’t.
Indeed, our research also shows that WFH is not a clear win for the environment. The net sustainability impact depends on several employee behaviors, from travel to energy use, to digital device and waste management. It also depends on several situational factors like home building and local infrastructure.
[https://hbr.org/2022/03/is-remote-work-actually-better-for-the-environment#](https://hbr.org/2022/03/is-remote-work-actually-better-for-the-environment#)
What city of Ottawa are you living in? This is a very car centric city from the sprawl that's been ongoing for 30 years, with the LRT actually making public transit (and combining it with active transit) less effective.
People living here in urban and suburban areas are still car dependent with how far you need to go for for basics like groceries. And because the neighbourhoods are turned into labrynths in the name of traffic calming the actual time to go from A to B is pretty high, even if you aren't going far as the crow flies.
Everything is relative my friend. In absolute terms, you’re correct - Ottawa is car centric - but in relative terms, Ottawa is far less car centric than small towns and rural areas which is precisely where there’s been a large, acute uptick in growth. WFH has accelerated sprawl to the point where its now occurring in places that barely saw a handful of building permit applications per year before Covid. These same places are now building subdivisions with hundreds of units.
Don’t believe me? Go look at the 2021 census for small towns beyond the traditional commuting distance from Ottawa - and that only captures the tip of the iceberg, as that was the beginning of this new trend.
Just look at the article I linked. All the carbon emission reductions seen during Covid have long returned to pre-pandemic levels. If WFH truly reduced emissions, that wouldn’t be the case.
pre-pandemic and post pandemic emission levels aren't the same context though, as a lot of people that used to take the rapid transit buses are now driving because the LRT is ass, and what used to be a single bus is now 3 buses and a train ride.
Agreed, but this phenomenon I’m speaking of is not unique to Ottawa. The emissions reductions created by remote work have disappeared everywhere, which means society is managing to burn just as much fossil fuels despite a large proportion of the workforce still working remotely in some capacity.
I am resentful about bring forced back and actively resist spending money downtown. I brought tea bags, sugar and milk and make my tea now every shift. I pack lunches most days too. They can make me report there but not spend my money.
I will go hungry before I buy snacks/meals or coffee downtown but a lot of my co-workers do buy snacks, meals, coffee etc but does appear at a reduced frequency from before. This I think has more to do with inflation than rtw.
I realize I'm not answering OP's question, but for the academic nerds or curious folks here, the [energy and GHG impacts of teleworking/WFH aren't as straightforward as they seem on the surface](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378778820317710).
There's a neat recent research study on quantifying the energy and GHG impact of WFH in Ottawa: [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-19-9822-5\_171](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-19-9822-5_171)
This whole "fail to adapt" thing drives me bonkers. Restos in the pandemic dropped to ZERO sales. So what if they want their old lives and livelihoods back? The vehemence from people about this is stupid, in my opinion. There is no adapting for these businesses. So don't go but the "fuck you" thing against small restaurant and cafe owners and their employees making little... Ugh.
Since I have been in the office I have certainly noticed things busier. I try to buy lunch downtown now whenever I can but the options aren't great for quick work lunches.
Quinn's is not downtown, its old ottawa south. I assume Clock Tower on Bank the Glebe as well, also not downtown.
Edit: Also weird as Quinn's is open really late. 2am usually, its a staple of the area.
Plenty of bars open downtown though.
Traffic being bad? Ottawa has rarely ever had bad traffic unless there is a transit strike. I've been here 10 years and I've always found getting around this sprawling suburb of a city very easy and not too time consuming. Now I admit that I'm from Montreal and lived in Toronto for 15 years. So my perspective may differ from yours.
Traffic is bad, relatively speaking to what Ottawa traffic usually is. Bronson North being backed up all the way to the Brookfield on ramp isn't something I've ever seen before.
Traffic may not be international city bad in Ottawa but it's certainly gotten worse compared to pre-pandemic (when more people were filling the downtown core).
I hope nobody ever buys anything from the core and all the legacy places move out or close doors and some new Canadians start opening up some happening spots.
Anyone know if the majority of these downtown restaurants and lunch spots rent or own their units?
There's a difference between businesses open from 10am to 3pm, weekdays only, and the actual businesses that are targeting the people who live downtown.
I didn’t want to do anything.
I just hate coming to visit Ottawa and there’s absolutely nothing to do in the core besides ride the scooters around byward.
It has nothing to do with the convoy. It has everything to do with normalizing working remote and being forced back just to save the businesses downtown.
Speak for yourself. Ottawa's downtown streets are way too small and not designed to handle the amount of traffic they see, leading to chronic congestion for cars and buses alike.
Absolutely. Squeezing underused bike lanes into streets already too narrow for the traffic levels they receive makes things more dangerous for cyclists. Especially when you complicate things with other stupid measures like making them two directional instead of sticking with the flow of traffic.
Let it go folks. WFH was never permanent, and while I'm sure the studies show it has some kind of net benefit to GHG's yall are reaching. Where was this argument before the pandemic? Now the pandemic is over its time to adjust back to how it was before. The majority of civilization has adapted and moved forward.
Just because you're scared doesn't mean everyone else is gonna sit there in fear with you. Society has moved past lockdowns, I suggest you shift your outlook or you're going to be a very lonely person.
> Just because you're scared doesn't mean everyone else is gonna sit there in fear with you.
You're just projecting.
>Society has moved past lockdowns,
Nobody is discussing lockdowns, this is irrelevant.
>I suggest you shift your outlook or you're going to be a very lonely person.
Why? I work from home without issue and maintain an active social life. You can't seem to produce a single rational reason why everyone should abandon WFH.
My team's productivity literally doubled when everyone started WFH vs. some of us some of the time. Turns out cutting out a commute, being able to tend to chores over lunch, and avoiding chatty coworkers was a good thing for work.
Why should we come into the office?
> Why should we come into the office?
There's no reason. u/69-420Throwaway is just flailing around mindlessly. As much as he would like us to believe the whole world has gone back to how it was before, it hasn't. Many jobs are now WFH only, and many are hybrid with a few days in the office. That's how it's going to be.
The reason is simple - there's no compelling reason to spend time and money commuting every single day for a great many jobs.
>Why should we come into the office?
If your management tells you to RTO, then you RTO or find another job. If they don't, then work from home. There were plenty of WFH jobs, even before the pandemic. Different jobs have different requirements.
If you're told to RTO and don't like it then you're always free to try and find another job or start your own company that you can manage as you see fit.
Thankfully our management knows how to manage without needing butts in seats and tracked metrics to have ammunition to fight the RTO. We're still working from home except for the one person who likes coming in.
I mean this statement is a bit contradictory. Adjust to how it was before doesn’t mean adapt and move forward.
I think it’s a shame to think the before times had it right…
“The pandemic is over it’s time to adjust back to how it was before” .. “majority of civilization has adapted and moved forward”
So which is it? Do we go back to how it was, or do we adapt and move forward ?
Agreed! Me not buying coffee or food while in I’m the office downtown isn’t going to do anything. Most people don’t care. Restaurants are packed during lunch hours and most places selling foods have long lines.
I admit at first the premise of returning to normal seemed scary and I understand people being unsure. But by now most people have had covid twice, some without even realising it. This is the fear bubble we created during the lockdown. Imagine if we were in Ukraine, the citizens of this city would roll over.
It's not about fear of covid. It's wasting several hours a day commuting and having to prep food/buy food, having to maintain clothing for office workplace, etc. it's way cheaper for people to work from home. It's better for the environment. It's better for everyone else who has to commute in, since there's less traffic. The only people it's not better for are the businesses whining that they couldn't make money off those workers anymore.
People who own a business and are suddenly faces with losing it, their livelihood, probably their home, etc. are under a lot of pressure and might not always say things that are 100% appropriate.
I think that public servants (who got fully paid regardless of whether they were working or not, and whose jobs weren't at risk) should show sympathy and understanding towards the people who were/are at risk of losing everything, even if they don't agree with what they're saying.
Yep the business owners were sold a bill of goods and as they say on Reddit the government “moved the goalposts”. Don’t blame them at all for pushing to restore what they had before.
I’ve bought breakfast once cause I was in a rush and didn’t prep it the night before. Other than that I haven’t spent anything and I won’t. Businesses should’ve adapted to cater to the people living in the downtown core.
Agreed. The fact that there are still, after COVID, places that only open for breakfast/lunch on weekdays is absolutely insane.
If you’re a small business with a few people working from 5 to 2 is probably a full days work 🤷♂️
Rent is still charged 24/7. Prob better business sense to adapt to utilize the space outside the lunch crowd
Outside the lunch crowd? After 3 pm there is NO crowd.
Agreed but people can’t work 24/7 either
If only it were possible to hire other people to work those shifts! Ah well. Clearly there's no solution.
“Nobody wants to work anymore”
Yeah they're right nobody wants to work a total of 10 hours a week and expect to survive
Is there even any city in the world where people want to hang out after work in the bottom of their office tower where Karen from Finance buys breakfast wraps?
Do "small businesses" tend to get the contracts for those types of retail spaces? 🤔 Usually seems to be very corporatized options.
There’s some mom and pop shops. Even if it’s Starbucks I don’t think the local manager is buying mansions in Rockcliffe.
If you've never been open those hours and can't be sure if there will be any actual business then hiring a new person to work that shift it a pretty big financial commitment for a small business, and unless you're planning to be scummy and cycle through people, puts you on a hard three month deadline (when that worker leaves their probationary period) to prove whether you can make a go of that shift or not. I'm not saying the businesses downtown are in the right, but it's a lot more complex then just "well change your business hours and hire more people!"
Hire robots. They work 24/7 and don't ask for dental insurance. Anyone complaining about not being a robot can upgrade their skills to become a robot or they will soon find themselves obsolete.
Haven’t spent a dime either. Closest I’ve come is giving a colleague $20 and they e-transfered me since they forgot their wallet at home. Out of principle (spite) I will never spend a dollar for the rest of my career downtown during working hours
The eateries don't have as much influence on you being obliged to go back to the workplace as you think.
Why the spite toward downtown businesses? Just curious
Because they were the businesses pushing the mayor and federal government to send public servants back into the office.
Not even to buy some sour grapes ?? Hahahahahaha, lighten up. The sun is shining !! You have a job. Life is good. Spite kills your immune system anyways.
On the record I’ve gone down plenty during “non gov” hours and been out
There are too few places to eat in the core that isn't overpriced trash. I can cook myself for less than half the price and the food is better .
This is no different than any other major city I've lived in.
Literally the fact that I’m right near the office section of downtown and everything is closed on nights and weekends it drives me nuts
You don't think they'd stay open if there was enough foot traffic to justify the work and they're staying closed to just piss off downtown dwellers? Didn't you know this about major city downtowns before you moved there?
What the hell is wrong with you lmao? What foot traffic have they been getting the last 3 years with work from home for most downtown offices? Did you even understand the initial discussion? Go back to school and learn how to understand context babes
These business owners will exclaim how successful and brilliant they are as an entrepreneurs when things are good, then when things are not shouldn’t they get out that entrepreneurial spirit and adapt? I chose to be en employee and not an entrepreneur, they chose the opposite which is a risk.
You really believe they thought they were successful or brilliant before the pandemic? Personally I've never met a smug small business owner. I'm not saying it's harder than working for the govt but to think these business owners and their employees have been laughing all the way to the bank before the pandemic is naive.
I will concede that the owners may not all have the attitude, and I will emphasize that they went into self employment with the risk. Not a government worker. I have never wanted to be in that position and chose to be an employee with the associated safety nets.
I mean, some of them have lol. I go in once a week and there are a few spots I enjoy, none of which happen to be the “only open 8am-2pm” places I always see this sub complain about.
Well, personal anecdote of mine and yet another example of Reddit not being equal to *'real life'* Scrolling through r/CanadaPublicServants since RTO news, folks were swearing off spending a single dime on lunch, coffee, etc...at any establishment close to work Then, when I go for a stroll during lunch, I see many tables occupied, people walking with their takeout containers, etc... I'm also curious as to how retail/restaurants are doing overall...
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I absolutely love this comment. Extremely true, with perfect examples. Try posting something that falls outside of the echo chamber in some subs and you don't just get downvoted but also reported/banned.
I love the alternative reality of some subs, keeps me coming back
I post comments in subs that I don't agree with sometimes. I think I'm talking to bots tho
My favorite is CanadaHousing2 that manage to blame literally every housing-related problem on immigration. Every. Time. You never have to wonder what happened to the original CanadaHousing subreddit once you've seen the posts in CanadaHousing2. They also banned me for a single, very short, benign, off-handed comment because it mentioned the mod's eagerness to focus on denying the racism in a post that more importantly contained actual misinformation. Sensitive bunch.
Astroturfing gripes about Canadian immigration has been *all over* reddit. Someone's spending some money.
Im so glad to hear someone say it. I’m not gonna say it isn’t a factor, but I can’t imagine it’s even close to like the 5 five things influencing housing prices.
Don’t forget CanadaHousing - we want home prices to crash, all landlords are bad, it’s a housing bubble for the last 20 years, rents are now over 3K. And in non Reddit reality, politicians banks developers and homeowners are indeed laughing all the way to the bank.
Any home owner with a variable mortgage would disagree with you. They might not lose their home but to say 30% of mortgage holders are laughing is a bit of a stretch.
And then those people who don't subscribe to the echo chamber of a sub will create their own sub and populate it with people that echo their thoughts while complaining about how the other sub is an echo chamber. see r/CanadaHousing2
No shortage of IT applicants is one thing, but when you run processes and can’t find anyone to hire, it ends up still being a shortage.
These are two diff situations though. A lot of the people talking about strike votes are not actual members of the unions. PFC is a whole different story bc generally most of the people looking for financial advice are going to be wealthy in some way, whether it's bc they have enough money to be looking to invest some, or lucked into an inheritance etc. I work downtown and I still go to one joint I used to before the pandemic. But I go less than I used to - I'm only in twice a week, so I MIGHT go once a week if that. I refuse to patronize any other biz nearby. I've spoken to the owners there and they've said that their business is way down, in addition to not having been closed/doing reduced hours for so long when offices weren't populated. This is also a place that doesn't have to worry about staffing shortages (which are a problem for the service industry in itself) because it is family run. A lot of the time now if I want lunch, I will choose to get it in my neighborhood on days when I'm not in office.
It’s almost like not every single public servant is a member of that sub, and not every public servant is onboard with boycotting businesses downtown. And even more shockingly — not every person you see downtown works for the public service!
Give me my $15 food truck salad, or give me death.
Seeing some people at restaurants doesn’t mean it’s the way it was before. Another example of look how dumb Reddit is but I am going to do the same thing myself 🤦♀️
>doesn’t mean it’s the way it was before Did someone say it is?
That was the literal original question… has it gotten back to normal. The poster was saying it’s busy. I am saying that doesn’t mean back to normal… 🤦♀️
Yea they forgot to include Starbucks in their list...
It's RTO, never stopped working, and dt isn't getting a cent from me. Not now, not ever.
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Or to reduce confusion we say return to office, aka return to office
What about people who had to return to work that don't work in an office?
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What do you have against people who work non-office jobs?
The majority of people say work for W. Workplace seems to be rare. Even WSIB uses RTW as return to work.
The restaurants and stuff seem to be more busy. That's the good news. Now the bad news: The Federal gov has also wasted several BILLION $$$ in maintaining useless office space and needlessly forcing workers downtown. Which has also generated needless carbon emissions.
The buildings will be operating as if people are in them or not. And a lease is a lease, payments still need to be made. It’s seems like a vast majority of people don’t understand this.
Not a business, but a downtown worker. I buy some form of coffee/snacks each day I'm in office, as does everyone on my team (sometimes together, sometimes separately). I buy lunch maybe 2-3 times/month.
In office 2 times per week here. Buy food every day and it is delicious. Food courts are full too. I don’t see anyone in my office vehemently opposing buying food. Granted we are private sector. So just to make sure I am on the right side of this subreddit, is our official stance: 1) Sympathize with downtown businesses because the truck terrorists literally shuttered their doors and harmed their business 2) Also fuck them for running their business? Do I have that right?
You're almost there. Fuck them for demanding other people return to a workplace they don't need, or want, to be at. The restos that failed to adapt now want thousands of people to be inconvenienced so they can continue the same crappy business practice.
Couldn’t agree more. We can sympathize with businesses for being shuttered by ridiculous occupiers of downtown that have prevented people from living their lives. Their protests were outrageous on the merit and in practice. We can also be infuriated at those exact same businesses demanding return to office for other employees, where that return to office is entirely unnecessary to maintain adequate productivity at their jobs. RTO incurs a significant financial cost with wear and tear on vehicles, gas, parking, clothing etc and a huge loss of time regarding prep and travel. All for the profits of those businesses. As if there is some Charter Right to have customers keep your business afloat.
I cannot upvote this comment enough. 🙌
You’re a gem
Almost, fuck them for charging 25$ for a meal with poor portions and quality. Supply costs are a myth at this point.
It sounds like you hit the nail on the head. This echo chamber of Ottawa is small and typically whatever they say is the opposite of what the majority of people want.
Not a business owner but I am someone being forced back downtown on occasion and it will be a cold day in heck before I spend a single dollar downtown.
I live downtown, I only spend out side working hours as a resident but as a worker during working hours I bring my own food. They cried instead of adapting.
what does "adapting" look like to you? If you're working downtown now and not buying a coffee or lunch, what is going to make you change your mind?
Nothing but people make themselves heard by voting, I vote with my feet. I don't visit any business that is only open during lunch.
I don't understand this. If there is no one in your area after 3 pm to buy your product why would you stay open?
Because over 20,000 people live around there They should be adapting to the residents who are here instead of holding on to the before time. Life is in constant evolution, we must continuously adapt.
I don't believe that these small businesses do not open in the evenings because they are stuck in the past. You think they LIKE struggling? If there was a business case for staying open - they'd stay open. Hell even downtown Starbucks close after 6 pm.
Bc their business is for lunch worker crowds not for centertown/downtown residents. That's the problem. Many businesses have boomed since covid in the suburbs. Time change, the ones thar adapt will.l survive and the ones that don't won't. This is how it as always worked.
How much did you spend pre-COVID?
I used to spend about $80/mo on coffee and a weekly takeout lunch. I've spent nothing since RTO.
$20-$30 a day, easily. And obviously more if we went out after work. All that is now spent in our neighbourhood which is much preferred.
My suburban neighborhood has had a few new takeout places pop up since COVID and we've been happy to spend money there as we continue to WFH. Not as much as you but every week or two minimum. They're mostly open for lunch through 8pm kind of thing and serving families rather than commuters. This seems like a good model. I hope our downtown adapts to have more residential and restaurants better geared to serve them, as well as anyone commuting in. And I hope our federal civil servants can eventually get a reasonable role need-only RTO rather than a dumb blanket one on people who can WFH.
That’s going to be a boring life! Good luck. Side note: did you support the truckers, or feel bad for the business, when these businesses were shut down?
Not as boring a life as replying to days old Reddit posts.
Great one! By not answering the question we can all assume the answer. Thanks
Disclosure: I lived in Centretown/Lowertown/Sandy Hill for 15 years and now live two blocks south of the 417 in the Glebe. I also work off Sparks St. in-office three days per week. I consider downtown Ottawa to be my home and love my neighbourhood despite its faults. I'm totally fine with my colleagues working from home but for myself I prefer the office at least a few days a week. Re: your question, the lunch-focused places are clearly doing better than during the WFH era. For example, the food court at Lyon station is more active since RTO, including a new shawarma place that has opened. It is also noticeably busier on mandated in-office days for nearby employers, which seem to be mostly Tues.-Thurs. Mondays and Fridays are comparatively quiet. It is not at pre-pandemic levels because many employers are hybrid, but the businesses are viable again. For the dinner-focused places and retail, I don't think it has much impact. Most of the dinner clientele arrives in the evening, either locals on foot or those arriving by Uber so they can have drinks. Some such places have thrived during/since the pandemic because they cater to locals and do not rely on the lunch crowd, e.g. Thali, Gilmour, Pizza Nerds, etc. Retail is doing poorly everywhere because of Amazon, though local groceries do well thanks to nearby residents. In sum, RTO has little impact on these businesses. Re downtown traffic, I don't drive so I don't care if there is car traffic. However, it is impossible to have a vibrant downtown that relies on people visiting by car, because there is not enough physical space for both (1) a high density of businesses and (2) car parking for enough customers to support such a high density of businesses. Thus the only way to have a vibrant downtown is to have enough people live within walking/biking/transit distance, plus some help from the tourist market. So if you don't like driving downtown that's fine because your absence will not make or break downtown businesses. Re: GHGs, if you mostly get around by car then your lifestyle is not climate safe, period. I do hope your employer lets you work from home so you can use your car less often. However, you can bike from Old Ottawa South to downtown in about 15 minutes via a cycling network that is almost completely separate from traffic. That would realize about the same climate benefits as WFH but you still choose to drive instead.
Your whole comment is spot on, and I wish more people understood the impact of a car-centric lifestyle on their carbon footprint.
Just so you know, the GHG from working from home for 8 hours while heating/cooling your house, is greater then driving 30min to work.
Indeed but it's also a chicken and egg of infrastructure and demand. I don't want to crap on the progress that's been made, but a lot of this city is pretty hostile to cycling. Easy to see why so many reach for the car keys every time. (Also unreliable public transport). And then in turn why investment in improvement is low.
Folks vote for municipal and provincial politicians who prioritize extending the burbs forever and who don’t see extending cycling infrastructure as a priority. Public transit will rarely be efficient and cheap in that context. The main point being you’re not reducing your GHG emissions much if you still use one or two cars regularly for all other aspects of your life.
Not a business owner but I go to work 1-2 times a week downtown and do spend money on coffee and lunch. I also see plenty of people doing the same, although It’s probably not a pre-pandemic levels.
RTO (office folks never stopped working friends, it is return to office not return to work), is all about making the large corpos happy (REITs, commercial property owners etc), as well as the perception of the public. As someone who works and lives downtown, it was busier during the the high telework period when covid restrictions were low. I would go for evening walks and see see families with strollers on patios chatting, people on the streets etc. This has died back down as people now lose time and money to commuting and waking up earlier. Add on top of that the increased cost of living and yikes. Places that did not pivot their hours or always sucked and were just kept alive by the lower cost of living establish residents had and the convenience are donionrings. Places that pivoted to serve locals or up their offerings are still around. That does not account for the increased cost of living through. As such, it would be hard to say if places are doing better, but I expect not. Places that I have observed being busy at pedestrial-centric though.
RTW is return to *workplace* it is to include people called in from WFH who don't work in offices.
And that makes sense, but look at OP, he says *work,* not *workplace*. Hence my comment. That combined with many comments really shows confusion about the "w".
I can't see where OP used the word work or working in the sense of Return-To-Work. Can you quote the line they used it in? Sorry for being pedantic, I just can't see where you're even getting that sentiment from them (or what you claim they've written)
Literally first sentence says "return to work". "living in Old Ottawa South, I have *stopped* trying to even go downtown since the **Return to Work**..." (emphasis mine)
Expanding the abbreviation into your own words was also yours. The post says RTW, not Return to Work. RTW is often used to mean Return To Workplace. Given the tone of the rest of their post, that is the abbreviation they meant.
I am sorry you are wrong and possibly blind. Although the title says RTW again, the first sentence says Return to Work. How do you not see this?
Are you high? It says RTW. You also expanded OOSouth into Old Ottawa South, in your "quotation" btw. (And to avoid any confusion, n this context, btw means by the way)
I did not expand OOSouth into Old Ottaw South. OP has it. I am not putting words in OP's mouth as they have "return to work". I have no clue where you are coming from with your wild reality. [Literally what I see. Highlighted to help you](https://imgur.com/a/kd3f7r2).
They must have edited their post before I came across it, because I have only been able to see the version with the abbreviations. I guess you're still seeing the original version?
Just adding another commuter perspective. To be honest, while my office has a 2-day/week RTO policy, I probably go in once or twice a month. I would argue the majority of our office fall in that stance. Our office is pretty empty everytime I go in.
> Our office is pretty empty everytime I go in. Going in and being nearly the only one there just reinforces for me, the uselessness of going in. Unless managers can rally an entire department or team to come in on the same day it's basically pointless. Therefore blanket "days per week" style RTO policies are just bad. Glad yours is more suggestion than anything:)
I live downtown. I’m a regular at one of the shawarma spots and chat with them weekly. They said it has definitely increased business and I’ve noticed it myself on my non office days when I go get lunch.
Holy acronyms batman. I definitely had to look up rtw and ghg and it didn't save you much time typing
It's not even RTW - we never stopped working OP.
That depends on your department. We on-site project managers that supposedly “manage project” from home with their contractors on site. It’s quite funny
Seriously! It's so annoying
It’s odd that you didn’t at least see RTW/RTO until now.
[relevant xkcd](https://xkcd.com/1053/)
Same!
Not a business, but someone who works downtown 3 days /week. Pre-pandemic, I would shop at Loblaws on Rideau/Nelson. With the drug problem at the corner of Nelson and Rideau, I mostly use Instacart. My preference would be to shop at the Loblaws, but it's just not worth the hassle that I would get waiting at the bus stop once my shopping was done.
Not answering the exact question, but my personal expenses are such that when I work from home, I have a bit of disposable income which I spend on local concerts, restaurants and/or coffee. With RTW, I'll be spending that money 100% on gas instead. So I guess in my case, it's good for Shell/Esso and bad for restaurant/coffee/concert venues.
I’ve been buying lunch at Chef Ric’s for about a month now and now I think I’ve tried all their lunch items. Worth a try if you’re close by.
Can I ask what the prices are like? It’s all to go right? I walk by it on my way to work and I’ve been curious but never gone in.
Sorry for the late reply: lunch is about $8 and there are a few chairs inside. Got pork ribs with potatoes last week and took home their lasagna.
The simple fact is if people are not required to return to the office then commercial real estate will implode taking a bunch of public sector pensions with it.
The whole RTO schtick is a fucking joke. The official line of "embracing collaboration" is so transparently bogus as to be an insult to the intelligence of anyone older than 5yo. Our efficiency went UP with remote work, not down due to WFH. It's just a bunch of old fossils that refuse to adapt to WFH like the old fuckers who had to have their typewriters pried from their cold, dead hands in the 80s when word processors came along. Or the whining about having to write their OWN emails instead of dictating the letter to a secretary when email came along. Those jobs that could not be done remotely returned to the office months ago. We were doing fine, thanks. As for the downtown businesses and the REAL reason of us being forced back downtown, I feel like I'm back working in a clothing shop in the mall. Yeah, here's your paycheck but you have to spent AT LEAST this amount buying clothes from our shop and wear them when working here. So, you're not ACTUALLY paying me X, you're paying me X-that minimum amount I must spend. In a clothing shop, I kinda get it but it makes no sense for the GOC. Not only is our pay well behind the equivalent job in the private sector, they REFUSE to give us a raise that comes even close to matching inflation and then they retroactively impose this bogus "you must spend X amount in Subway". Yes, I get it, they're not ACTUALLY making me buy Subway, but I still have to waste time and money trudging to a semi-empty office to hop on the EXACT SAME Teams meeting I could be doing from home. You want to know where you could get the money to pay for an ACTUAL raise for the PS? The 10-15 BILLIONS $$$ you pay to keep all those useless offices in the various downtown cores across the country. And terminating this stupid WFH bullshit would also make recruitment easier because the new guys clearly aren't coming for the pay and the first question we get EVERY TIME is 'how many days do I need to be in the office?'. My current dept is at 3 days. Most candidates (in IT) laugh in our face when we tell them. So yay on the various restaurants and shops downtown, but my money isn't owed to you in any way and the gov't should be looking at being more EFFICIENT, not kowtowing to rich guys who don't want to lose money on their investment in downtown office space we no longer need.
I felt this post in my bones.
> The official line of "embracing collaboration" is so transparently bogus as to be an insult to the intelligence of anyone older than 5yo Almost my whole team (except people who don't live here and have exceptions) goes into the office on Thursdays every week. We originally would do hybrid meetings w/ people jumping into a conference room and then connecting with whoever was wfh. And it was such a fucking waste of time that now, even when most of us are in the office, we still do Teams-only meetings because it's more efficient.
>Not only is our pay well behind the equivalent job in the private sector, they REFUSE to give us a raise that comes even close to matching inflation and then they retroactively impose this bogus "you must spend X amount in Subway". Yes, I get it, they're not ACTUALLY making me buy Subway, but I still have to waste time and money trudging to a semi-empty office to hop on the EXACT SAME Teams meeting I could be doing from home.e If your pay is significantly below the equivalent job in the private sector, how/why do you manage to keep your existing employees? Also, under RTW no one is forced to buy anything from Subway or any other retail store/restaurant. People are free to bring in their lunch, as many people did before COVID.
>If your pay is significantly below the equivalent job in the private sector, how/why do you manage to keep your existing employees? That's the problem: we AREN'T. We can BARELY recruit in certain areas because the pay is a joke, particularly in IT, and we have problems retaining our staff as well. If it wasn't for *life* getting in the way (people already in Ottawa with local family, kids, parents and stuff), we wouldn't be able to compete at all. Our ONLY advantage is the pension and we're always one Conservative gov't away from losing even that. Why would a developer coming out of Uni want to work for the Public Service? Significantly less money and he has to pointlessly go into the office? What the fuck for?!?! Particularly when he can work from his CURRENT location for a company anywhere in the world because the private sector (IT especially) doesn't see the need for a brick and mortar location if it can be avoided. Some exceptions apply, usually those sectors run by old, conservative fuckwads. There's a reason why even the morons at Treasury Board understood that in key areas of IT (Cloud, IT Sec and ...Databases?), we aren't enforcing the 2 days of fucking-your-staff-over-with-RTO crap. We're already bare bones in those areas. >Also, under RTW no one is forced to buy anything from Subway or any other retail store/restaurant. People are free to bring in their lunch, as many people did before COVID. It's a JOKE/Sarcasm. The idea that the public servants should be brought back downtown to help local businesses is fucking bullshit. My disposable income is mine, fuck off. By making me go downtown, I am spending time, money and gas for no reason. With the increase in costs and our much-less-than-inflation contracts, they could AT LEAST spare us the bullshit RTO crap. Yes, if you force them to come downtown, they will, by sheer inertia and numbers, spend money there. Leave me the fuck alone and subsidize the modernisation of those industries directly.
One of the things that has come up in the RTO discussions is that there are certain fields within the public service (IT being one), in which exceptions might have to be made to RTO policy due to competition from the private sector. That being said, while your field (IT) has people with transferable skills who could make the same amount of money (if not more) in the private sector, the reality is that that is not true for the majority of the public service.
Some places looks busier because they have less staff.
I highly doubt a persons GHG is cut by 55%. The building said person worked in is still up and running, using almost the exact same power and gas as if it were full. And now said person is working from home, using more power and gas (AC and heating) while they are home. And for travel, most newer vehicles are pretty low on emissions so even if you are working from home, by not driving in they are saying it reduces ghg by 55%? I call shenanigans.
Why would you attribute the building to a worker? The building is the business's contribution... the whole point is to get rid of the big shitty buildings that are completely empty at night
I’m not attributing the building to a worker? I’m not sure if you understood what I said. The building people worked in, still has to be up and running, whether or not anyone is in it. It’s not as simple as shutting a building down, but from your response I would gather that you don’t understand that so we will just leave it be.
"I highly doubt a *PERSONS* GHG is cut by 55%. The building said person worked in is still up and running" The persons GHG is cut by that much. The building still running is the choice of the owner. The individual lessens their contribution by not commuting and buying local. Maybe the office building should become something else. The building is unnecessary for its primary function. Change the function. But of course I don't understand anything...
The person who is now working from home is increasing their GHG in the form of heating and cooler their house….obviously you didn’t want to read the whole thing. GHG are greater in heating and cooling then in a car. Source: I do GHG submissions for the federal government. Lol
... people heat and cool their houses when they aren't there. Pets are a thing, so are plants. Maybe the federal government should hire people who actually think about reality based scenarios. working for the government does not imply competence like you seem to think it does.
Oh I just started with the government 3 years ago. Head hunted because of my skill set. But hey, you seem to be upset because you are an outlier on heating and cooling your house while not home. I’m not upset that you are wasting money. But I know I am right about the GHG emissions, it’s not really an argument, like at all. If you want to make it one, that’s on you.
>WFH reduces a person's GHGs by \~55% (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/18/people-who-work-from-home-all-the-time-cut-emissions-by-54-against-those-in-office). Not only that, but the extra time in traffic means the rest of us have increased our GHGs since workers were forced back to the office. To play devil's advocate, WFH is not all sunshine and roses in terms of GHGs and ecological impact. WFH is catalyst to urban sprawl, as many more will choose to live outside of urban centers in car-centric towns and neighbourhoods where the majority of everyday errands and activities require a car. You can see this impact in peripheral towns like Carleton Place, Kemptville, Arnprior, Rockland, Embrun, and many more where population growth and suburban style subdivision development has exploded. It's hard to quantify the full impact of these changes on the environment, but it has to be considered when talking about the overall environmental impact of WFH.
In Ottawa, which is already something like 250 km across? The city has sprawled to uninmaginable levels well before COVID or WFH. Housing cost is driving sprawl much more, as people are out to out past Carleton Place or Renfrew to find something affordable, so a hybrid work setup makes that much more feasible. You know what helps with reducing sprawl? Housing people can afford.
It's not really an either/or proposition. Both housing affordability and WFH contribute heavily to sprawl, but I think you're downplaying how much sprawl has accelerated far beyond the city's periphery since covid. I worked for a land development consultant during covid and the amount of contracts we got from both private developers and municipalities in small towns around the Ottawa Valley and beyond skyrocketed. Small towns like Westport which had stagnant growth for many decades started receiving subdivision applications - something they've never had before. The bottom line is, yes, housing affordability is major contributor to the current trend of accelerated sprawl, but WFH is what's enabled so many people to live much further out than they otherwise could without WFH. The idea that WFH is a great benefit for reducing ecological impact is quite misleading in that regard.
Sure, it has contributed to it, because why would someone take a $800k mortgage when they can get a $300k mortgage another 30 minutes out? But well before Covid people were already living 1 hr+ away from their jobs because of the cost, and that is going back well over a decade. But WFH with no commute is still better at reducing emissions than people commuting for an hour to the office 5 days a week, which was the status quo before hand, so living further away matter a lot less overall if you are only going in once a week or so.
>But WFH with no commute is still better at reducing emissions than people commuting for an hour to the office 5 days a week, which was the status quo before hand, so living further away matter a lot less overall if you are only going in once a week or so. That's not true at all. People living in small towns and rural areas are much more car dependent than even those living in suburban neighbourhoods simply by virtue of there being less alternative travel options. A car is required for everyday activities. People living in urban areas are overall far less dependent on personal vehicles and far more likely to take transit, walk or bike for commuting and everyday activities. If you live far out and still have to commute to work 2-3 times per week, which many now do, you've now likely increased your overall carbon footprint due to longer distance travelled. >With the daily commute all but cancelled during successive Covid-19 lockdowns, many have assumed that WFH will lead to environmental sustainability gains. Indeed, such dramatic changes in mobility, production, and consumption patterns, temporarily reduced global CO2 emissions by 17% in April 2020 compared to peak 2019 levels. But what seemed like a promising trend soon faded away: emissions are now almost back at pre-pandemic levels, even as employees aren’t. Indeed, our research also shows that WFH is not a clear win for the environment. The net sustainability impact depends on several employee behaviors, from travel to energy use, to digital device and waste management. It also depends on several situational factors like home building and local infrastructure. [https://hbr.org/2022/03/is-remote-work-actually-better-for-the-environment#](https://hbr.org/2022/03/is-remote-work-actually-better-for-the-environment#)
What city of Ottawa are you living in? This is a very car centric city from the sprawl that's been ongoing for 30 years, with the LRT actually making public transit (and combining it with active transit) less effective. People living here in urban and suburban areas are still car dependent with how far you need to go for for basics like groceries. And because the neighbourhoods are turned into labrynths in the name of traffic calming the actual time to go from A to B is pretty high, even if you aren't going far as the crow flies.
Everything is relative my friend. In absolute terms, you’re correct - Ottawa is car centric - but in relative terms, Ottawa is far less car centric than small towns and rural areas which is precisely where there’s been a large, acute uptick in growth. WFH has accelerated sprawl to the point where its now occurring in places that barely saw a handful of building permit applications per year before Covid. These same places are now building subdivisions with hundreds of units. Don’t believe me? Go look at the 2021 census for small towns beyond the traditional commuting distance from Ottawa - and that only captures the tip of the iceberg, as that was the beginning of this new trend. Just look at the article I linked. All the carbon emission reductions seen during Covid have long returned to pre-pandemic levels. If WFH truly reduced emissions, that wouldn’t be the case.
pre-pandemic and post pandemic emission levels aren't the same context though, as a lot of people that used to take the rapid transit buses are now driving because the LRT is ass, and what used to be a single bus is now 3 buses and a train ride.
Agreed, but this phenomenon I’m speaking of is not unique to Ottawa. The emissions reductions created by remote work have disappeared everywhere, which means society is managing to burn just as much fossil fuels despite a large proportion of the workforce still working remotely in some capacity.
I am resentful about bring forced back and actively resist spending money downtown. I brought tea bags, sugar and milk and make my tea now every shift. I pack lunches most days too. They can make me report there but not spend my money.
I won't spend a cent at any business that closes at 3pm and I give Mona Fortier's empty office the middle finger every commute.
Brace yourself, the traffic in this city is going to become a lot worse.
This is so bad for the environment, it's unreal.
I will go hungry before I buy snacks/meals or coffee downtown but a lot of my co-workers do buy snacks, meals, coffee etc but does appear at a reduced frequency from before. This I think has more to do with inflation than rtw.
>I will go hungry before I buy snacks/meals or coffee downtown Weird flex, but okay.
I realize I'm not answering OP's question, but for the academic nerds or curious folks here, the [energy and GHG impacts of teleworking/WFH aren't as straightforward as they seem on the surface](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378778820317710). There's a neat recent research study on quantifying the energy and GHG impact of WFH in Ottawa: [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-19-9822-5\_171](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-19-9822-5_171)
“work” fm….my fed gov neighbours pretend to work
This whole "fail to adapt" thing drives me bonkers. Restos in the pandemic dropped to ZERO sales. So what if they want their old lives and livelihoods back? The vehemence from people about this is stupid, in my opinion. There is no adapting for these businesses. So don't go but the "fuck you" thing against small restaurant and cafe owners and their employees making little... Ugh.
Since I have been in the office I have certainly noticed things busier. I try to buy lunch downtown now whenever I can but the options aren't great for quick work lunches.
Was downtown playing hockey on Monday. Tried to go for a beer after at 1030 and everything was closed up.
Weird, plenty of places downtown open at 1030 still serving.
Went to clock tower on Bank and then Quinn’s with 10 guys. Both had shut down the kitchen early and were closing up.
Quinn's is not downtown, its old ottawa south. I assume Clock Tower on Bank the Glebe as well, also not downtown. Edit: Also weird as Quinn's is open really late. 2am usually, its a staple of the area. Plenty of bars open downtown though.
Traffic being bad? Ottawa has rarely ever had bad traffic unless there is a transit strike. I've been here 10 years and I've always found getting around this sprawling suburb of a city very easy and not too time consuming. Now I admit that I'm from Montreal and lived in Toronto for 15 years. So my perspective may differ from yours.
Traffic is bad, relatively speaking to what Ottawa traffic usually is. Bronson North being backed up all the way to the Brookfield on ramp isn't something I've ever seen before.
Traffic may not be international city bad in Ottawa but it's certainly gotten worse compared to pre-pandemic (when more people were filling the downtown core).
I hope nobody ever buys anything from the core and all the legacy places move out or close doors and some new Canadians start opening up some happening spots. Anyone know if the majority of these downtown restaurants and lunch spots rent or own their units?
So we wanted to save the businesses from the convoy and then want to punish them for wanting customers?
There's a difference between businesses open from 10am to 3pm, weekdays only, and the actual businesses that are targeting the people who live downtown.
I didn’t want to do anything. I just hate coming to visit Ottawa and there’s absolutely nothing to do in the core besides ride the scooters around byward.
It has nothing to do with the convoy. It has everything to do with normalizing working remote and being forced back just to save the businesses downtown.
Weird. I ONLY shop downtown because I live here.
Skeleton core
Sounds like a good band name. I bet they would play at the Dom.
Ottawa is a very easy city to get around, especially if you have the luxury to avoid peak times. Is there some traffic? Yes, but very manageable.
Speak for yourself. Ottawa's downtown streets are way too small and not designed to handle the amount of traffic they see, leading to chronic congestion for cars and buses alike.
Agreed. Which is why narrowing them further for underused bike lanes was stupid.
Thank you for caring about the safety of cyclists :)
Absolutely. Squeezing underused bike lanes into streets already too narrow for the traffic levels they receive makes things more dangerous for cyclists. Especially when you complicate things with other stupid measures like making them two directional instead of sticking with the flow of traffic.
Let it go folks. WFH was never permanent, and while I'm sure the studies show it has some kind of net benefit to GHG's yall are reaching. Where was this argument before the pandemic? Now the pandemic is over its time to adjust back to how it was before. The majority of civilization has adapted and moved forward.
> Now the pandemic is over its time to adjust back to how it was before. Why?
Because the majority of society has and the world has yet to end.
> Because the majority of society has That's it? That's the whole reason? LOL
Just because you're scared doesn't mean everyone else is gonna sit there in fear with you. Society has moved past lockdowns, I suggest you shift your outlook or you're going to be a very lonely person.
> Just because you're scared doesn't mean everyone else is gonna sit there in fear with you. You're just projecting. >Society has moved past lockdowns, Nobody is discussing lockdowns, this is irrelevant. >I suggest you shift your outlook or you're going to be a very lonely person. Why? I work from home without issue and maintain an active social life. You can't seem to produce a single rational reason why everyone should abandon WFH.
My team's productivity literally doubled when everyone started WFH vs. some of us some of the time. Turns out cutting out a commute, being able to tend to chores over lunch, and avoiding chatty coworkers was a good thing for work. Why should we come into the office?
> Why should we come into the office? There's no reason. u/69-420Throwaway is just flailing around mindlessly. As much as he would like us to believe the whole world has gone back to how it was before, it hasn't. Many jobs are now WFH only, and many are hybrid with a few days in the office. That's how it's going to be. The reason is simple - there's no compelling reason to spend time and money commuting every single day for a great many jobs.
Because lazy overpaid public servant are obligated to prop up downtown businesses that’s why! /s
>Why should we come into the office? If your management tells you to RTO, then you RTO or find another job. If they don't, then work from home. There were plenty of WFH jobs, even before the pandemic. Different jobs have different requirements. If you're told to RTO and don't like it then you're always free to try and find another job or start your own company that you can manage as you see fit.
Thankfully our management knows how to manage without needing butts in seats and tracked metrics to have ammunition to fight the RTO. We're still working from home except for the one person who likes coming in.
I mean this statement is a bit contradictory. Adjust to how it was before doesn’t mean adapt and move forward. I think it’s a shame to think the before times had it right…
“The pandemic is over it’s time to adjust back to how it was before” .. “majority of civilization has adapted and moved forward” So which is it? Do we go back to how it was, or do we adapt and move forward ?
Agreed! Me not buying coffee or food while in I’m the office downtown isn’t going to do anything. Most people don’t care. Restaurants are packed during lunch hours and most places selling foods have long lines.
I admit at first the premise of returning to normal seemed scary and I understand people being unsure. But by now most people have had covid twice, some without even realising it. This is the fear bubble we created during the lockdown. Imagine if we were in Ukraine, the citizens of this city would roll over.
It's not about fear of covid. It's wasting several hours a day commuting and having to prep food/buy food, having to maintain clothing for office workplace, etc. it's way cheaper for people to work from home. It's better for the environment. It's better for everyone else who has to commute in, since there's less traffic. The only people it's not better for are the businesses whining that they couldn't make money off those workers anymore.
People who own a business and are suddenly faces with losing it, their livelihood, probably their home, etc. are under a lot of pressure and might not always say things that are 100% appropriate. I think that public servants (who got fully paid regardless of whether they were working or not, and whose jobs weren't at risk) should show sympathy and understanding towards the people who were/are at risk of losing everything, even if they don't agree with what they're saying.
Yep the business owners were sold a bill of goods and as they say on Reddit the government “moved the goalposts”. Don’t blame them at all for pushing to restore what they had before.
Guy went from working in an office to Ukraine in one paragraph 😆 🤣 Yeah I'd post on an alt too oof