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Cities and workplaces have been upended since the pandemic began. Some people moved from cities to suburbs. Stores and restaurants moved out of busy downtown areas. Train and bus schedules shifted. We may use your contact information to get in touch with you, and we won’t use your submission without first confirming with you that it’s OK.

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☆ We’re in the Era of the ‘Top Gun’ C.E.O.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-30 | by ( Emma Goldberg | More About Emma Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“Your company is about to go on a rescue,” declared Christian Boucousis, who goes by the name Boo at work. “One of your company members went out to do reconnaissance and was shot down. His firm has worked with Nike, Pepsi, Bank of America and many other brands. “If you lose sight of the airplane you’re fighting against, you lose the fight,” Mr. Boucousis said. “We use that as a metaphor — if you lose sight of your business objectives, you’re not going to achieve them.”

Persons: ”, Christian Boucousis, Boo, ” Mr, Boucousis, Tom Cruise.Even, you’re Organizations: Nike, Pepsi, Bank of America

New York is doing better than San Francisco — Manhattan has a vacancy rate of 13.5 percent — but it can no longer count on the technology industry for growth. More than one-third of the roughly 22 million square feet of office space available for sublet in Manhattan comes from technology, advertising and media companies, according to Newmark. The company has opted not to renew leases covering 250,000 square feet in Hudson Yards and for 200,000 square feet on Park Avenue South. Twitter, Microsoft and other technology companies are also trying to sublease unwanted space. The large amount of space available for sublet is also driving down the rents that landlords are able to get on new leases.

Persons: Newmark, ”, Ruth Colp, Haber, Colp Organizations: sublet, New, New York State, Spotify, Trade Center, Twitter, Microsoft, Wharton Property Advisors Locations: York, Francisco —, Manhattan, New York, Hudson Yards

☆ Rethinking the Circus
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-23 | by ( German Lopez | More About German Lopez | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The idea of Cirque du Soleil might invite images of extravagant live shows with clowns, acrobats and fire breathers. Cirque du Soleil came out of the pandemic in rough shape. “Cirque is a funny example of an attempt at cultural reinvention because I don’t even think of circuses as trying to be relevant,” Emma told me. “They were asking the question, ‘Why isn’t Gen Z interested in the circus?’ That almost feels rhetorical. Because they were talking about the circus instead of, say, banking, people dropped phrases like, “I think there’s a real opportunity to elevate the art of clowning” and “Don’t focus on the Cirque, focus on the Soleil.”

Persons: Soleil, Emma Goldberg, ” Emma, “, Gen Z, ”

☆ Is Gen Z Down to Clown? The Circus Is Counting on It.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-21 | by ( Emma Goldberg | More About Emma Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The circus has to make money to keep its clowns clowning. Coming out of the pandemic, Cirque du Soleil was in trouble. After filing for bankruptcy protection in 2020, Cirque decided it had to be more than just a circus. It wanted to be a brand, something that could sell perfumes, sunglasses, tote bags and video games. So over the past year the circus brought in consultants, which yielded months of meetings peppered with phrases like these.

Persons: Seuss, —, Cirque, ” Organizations: downer

☆ ‘Training My Replacement’: Inside a Call Center Worker’s Battle With A.I.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-19 | by ( Emma Goldberg | More About Emma Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Her favorite radio show was discussing artificial intelligence, specifically an A.I.-generated sample of Biggie. “Sonically, it sounds cool,” Charlamagne tha God said. “But it lacks soul.”WeezyWTF replied: “I’ve had people ask me like, ‘Oh, would you replace people that work for you with A.I. ?’ I’m like, ‘No, dude.’”Ms. Sherrod nodded along emphatically, as she drove past low-slung brick homes and strip malls dotted with Waffle Houses. She played the radio exchange about A.I.

Persons: ”, Mandii, Biggie, ” WeezyWTF, “ I’ve, ” Ms, Sherrod nodded, Ms Locations: Mississippi, Ocean Springs, Miss

☆ Gen X Is in Charge. Don’t Make a Big Deal About It.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-07 | by ( Emma Goldberg | More About Emma Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It’s Gen X’s moment, that generation most known for being crowded out of sweeping cultural age analyses by millennials on one end and boomers on the other. Or as Patton Oswalt, a Gen X comedian, put it: “Gen X is trending, which probably means that, uh … eh, whatever. People are far more complicated than the year they were born — in Gen X’s case, some time between 1965 and 1980. Take Darby Equipment, a manufacturing company in Tulsa, where remote flexibility for years seemed like an alien concept. The former chief executive, Bob Darby, reigned the company, a family business, with a commitment to an in-person regimen.

Persons: —, millennials, Patton Oswalt, X’s, Darby, Bob Darby Locations: Tulsa

☆ ‘The Bear’ and a Chaotic Vision of Work
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-02 | by ( Melissa Kirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Business leaders are resorting to desperate measures to entice workers back to the office, my colleague Emma Goldberg reported recently. “It’s been three years of scattershot plans for returning to in-person work — summoning people in, not really meaning it, everybody pretty much working wherever they pleased,” she wrote. One idea I haven’t seen floated is to offer screenings of the series “The Bear,” whose second season was released in June on Hulu. When it debuted last year, “The Bear” was praised for its authenticity, for depicting the chaos of a real restaurant kitchen. Hands are burned, fingers slashed; the pace of the prep rush turns the kitchen staff into sweating, shouting bodies, meat cooking meat.” Hardly a convincing argument for in-person work.

Persons: Emma Goldberg, “ It’s, ”, “, Will inducements, Salesforce, James Beard, ” James Poniewozik, begrudgingly Organizations: Hulu, The Locations: Chicagoland, The Times, The

Apple | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon | Google Listen and follow ‘Hard Fork’This week, advertisers swarmed the beaches of southern France for the Cannes Lions advertising festival. Kevin says artificial intelligence is all anyone there can talk about, but admits the conference is making him rethink how quickly generative A.I. will take over the industry — despite the buzz. Then, the New York Times reporter Emma Goldberg on when remote work stopped being the future for tech companies. And finally: What does the newest season of “Black Mirror” tell us about what’s next for TV?

Persons: Kevin, Emma Goldberg, what’s Organizations: Apple, Spotify, Cannes Lions, New York Times Locations: France

☆ Return to Office Enters the Desperation Phase
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-20 | by ( Emma Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Manny Medina, the chief executive of a Seattle-based artificial intelligence sales company, doesn’t mind repeating himself. Mr. Medina replied with arguments he has delineated so often that they have come to feel like personal mantras: Being near each other makes the work better. Mr. Medina approached three years of mushy remote-plus-office work as an experiment. His takeaway was that ideas bubble up more organically in the clamor of the office. “You can interrupt each other without being rude when you’re in person,” said Mr. Medina, whose company, Outreach, is now in the office on a hybrid basis.

Persons: Manny Medina, Medina, ”, it’s Locations: Seattle

☆ The Big Number: 49%
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-04 | by ( Emma Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Business leaders have often found that the best way to fill the office is to remind employees of its social promise. “They actually forgot how great it was to actually interact with human beings,” said Sasan Goodarzi, the head of Intuit, which has allowed teams and managers to set return to office expectations. Maybe the biggest R.T.O. perk of all is the people. But that requires figuring out how to get those people to come back.

Persons: “, ”, Sasan Goodarzi Organizations: Intuit

☆ How Remote Work Connected Employees Making $19 an Hour and $80,000 a Year
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-31 | by ( Emma Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Eric Deshawn Lerma felt waves of anxiety when he sat down to tally the new costs in his routine since Amazon’s return to the office this spring. There’s parking. After all, he realizes that thousands of Amazon workers have no flexibility to work from home. Their jobs require them to go into warehouses to do physically taxing labor each day. “There are different rights and amenities afforded to my role.”He ultimately decided, though, that he would probably join virtually.

Persons: Eric Deshawn Lerma, Lerma, ”, “ Locations: Seattle

☆ What’s the Point of Your 20s? Ask the Patron Saint of Striving Youth.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-14 | by ( Emma Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Flowers and Ms. Liddy’s story is, like so many described in “The Defining Decade,” both particular in its mishaps and broadly resonant. “The ocean!” Dr. Jay said. This cohort is experiencing a stage of life that Dr. Jay describes as a modern phenomenon. For much of history, people didn’t have a full decade between leaving their parents’ homes and starting their own families. But a confluence of economic and social forces has meant that people now have a longer period between childhood and full-fledged adulthood.

☆ How Has Your Experience at Work Changed During the Pandemic?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Emma Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

I’m Emma Goldberg, a reporter for The New York Times. I cover the future of work and all the ways the workplace is changing: job-quitting, layoffs, the shift to hybrid work, a mounting movement for workers’ rights and rising concerns about the way artificial intelligence will transform industries. As I continue my reporting, I’m always looking to bring in new voices, including from Times readers. I’d like to hear about how your job and experience in the workplace has changed during the pandemic. We will not publish any part of your submission without contacting you first.

☆ ChatFished: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People With A.I.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-07 | by ( Emma Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It is enough time to listen to the Spice Girls’ “Spice” album (40 minutes), Paul Simon’s “Paul Simon” album (42 minutes) and Gustav Mahler’s third symphony (his longest). It is enough time to roast a chicken, text your friends that you’ve roasted a chicken and prepare for an impromptu dinner party. Five hours is about how long many workers spend on email each day. It’s a weird thing, workplace chatter like email and Slack: It’s sometimes the most delightful and human part of the work day. It can also be mind-numbing to manage your inbox — to the extent you might wonder, couldn’t a robot do this?

☆ Josh Kline’s Survival Art for 21st-Century America
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Jason Farago | Emma Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The real predecessor of an art of American consumer culture, with its shiny surfaces and its dirty undersides? It’s Jeff Koons — who also uses obviousness, directness and a proud anti-critical stance in the service of an “accessible” art. GOLDBERG Well, so much of Kline’s work says outright: What’s the point? can generate something really beautiful, then maybe Kline’s work is to generate something really human. FARAGO There’s an important work that’s not at the Whitney: a video called “Hope and Change,” which caused a minor sensation at the 2015 New Museum Triennial.

☆ What Young Workers Miss Without the ‘Power of Proximity’
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Emma Goldberg | Ben Casselman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

At least 10 times a day, Erika Becker, who works as a sales development manager at a technology company called Verkada, turns to her boss with questions. “What could I have done better?”Ms. Becker, 28, comes into her office in San Mateo, Calif., five days a week, along with all her colleagues. “It’s like if there’s something in my teeth, I want you to tell me,” she said. More than 50 million Americans, largely in white-collar jobs, began working from home at least part of the time. In recent months, as large employers — including Amazon, Disney and Starbucks — have tried to call workers back to the office, thousands of employees have objected, pointing to a track record of productivity at home.

☆ The R.T.O. Whisperers Have a Plan
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Emma Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

Resistors are typically senior-level employees and high performers, workers who aren’t worried that defying return-to-office rules will yield professional consequences. Those are the employees who when pushed to return to the office will quit — either on the spot or in the months after R.T.O. It’s not about remote workers detaching from work, but instead about people resisting when pushed toward working conditions they don’t like. Workers of color, who can feel marginalized within corporate work structures, tend to bristle at return-to-office mandates, Tsipursky said. A survey from FlexJobs, a remote-employment search site, found that 80 percent of women ranked remote work as a top job benefit, compared with 69 percent of men.

Persons: aren’t, They’ve, they’re, —, “, ” Tsipursky, It’s, Tsipursky, doesn’t, Knoblock, ” Organizations: Gartner, microaggressions, Workers Locations: Black, FlexJobs

☆ Silver Linings of a ‘Doom Loop’
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-07 | by ( Emma Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

When a cascade of unfortunate events turns a bad day into a terrible day, you might say, “When it rains it pours.” You also might say, “Time for takeout!”Or, if you’re an economist, you might call it a “doom loop.”Here’s what to know →

☆ I took an office-personality quiz, and it turns out that as a remote worker, I'm a caged butterfly
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Rebecca Knight | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Turns out, I'm a "break-room butterfly" who thrives on teams and doing in-person work. It's hard to let your inner break-room butterfly soar when the only break room in sight doubles as your kitchen. After all, what does an "office personality" even mean nowadays? My gregarious editor is a fellow break-room butterfly, our tight-ship boss is a cubicle cat, and another free-spirited, somewhat reclusive colleague is a couch koala. By extension, the very notion of an "office personality" is becoming outdated.

☆ Office Mandates. Pickleball. Beer. What Will Make Hybrid Work Stick?
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Emma Goldberg | Hilary Swift | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The freight elevator doors opened onto 50,000 square feet of office real estate. He has plans for his company’s new office — conference rooms, a pickleball court and, of course, all of his 200 employees in the New York City area. Mr. Besmertnik conceded that it was scary to persuade his board to sign a lease doubling his office real estate in 2021. But to him, leasing a larger office was a symbol of his belief in physical, in-person collaboration. Beer?” Mr. Besmertnik offered, jokingly, at 10:15 a.m.) and sticks (employees are required to come in three days a week).

Persons: Seth Besmertnik, gestured, Besmertnik, ” Organizations: New Locations: New York City

☆ What Is a ‘Culture Budget’?
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Emma Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Meghan Merriman, a marketing manager and a “culture committee” member at the accounting firm GrowthForce, said her group will spend much of its stipends next year on professional development. (”Culture” work has tended to land on women, but Merriman said her group was fairly even in terms of gender.) “When people think of culture budget, they think pizza parties,” Merriman said. “We took it one step further.”Encore, one of the world’s largest event production businesses, surveyed nearly 1,000 event planners in the United States this fall and found that 60 percent intended to increase their budgets in 2023.

☆ She Didn’t Want a Pelvic Exam. She Received One Anyway.
▼ + stars: | 2020-02-17 | by ( Emma Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Before the procedure, she told her physician that she did not want medical students to be directly involved. But after the operation, Janine said, as the anesthesia wore off, a resident came by to inform her that she had gotten her period; the resident had noticed while conducting a pelvic exam. “What pelvic exam?” Janine, 33, asked. Later, she said, her physician explained that the operating team had seen she was due for a Pap smear. The hospital declined to comment on its policies regarding informed consent for pelvic exams.)

Persons: Janine, “, ” Locations: Arizona

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