It's the front-page feature in the Sunday Globe's City of the Future:
"Lines for the elevator. One-way corridors. Zooming with colleagues in the next pod over. Office life is going to be strange" by Tim Logan Globe Staff, May 16, 2020
You don't flip on a dime with an unforeseen crisis and have this crap ready to go this fast. This is part of the PLANNED-EMIC!
If you think working from home these last two months has been strange and unsettling, wait until you head back into the office.
Temperature checks. Long lines to get on the elevator. Desks cleared of personal items. One-way corridors and closed meeting rooms. And lunch? Let’s not even go there yet.
While many white-collar workers have been sequestered at home to help stop the spread of COVID-19, landlords and property managers, architects and safety experts have been trying to figure out how to make the office buildings that have been vacant for two months or more into safe places in a pandemic. Now, with a phased-in restart of the local economy imminent, companies are preparing to gradually return to dramatically changed workplaces.
“It will look and feel different, right off the bat,” said Joseph Allen, an assistant professor at Harvard University’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health and consultant on healthy buildings. “And it will be inconvenient to go to work.”
Depending on the job, the changes may start before your commute begins.
The Cambridge Innovation Center, for instance, home to hundreds of startups in small and flexible office spaces in Kendall Square and downtown, will require people to take their temperature — and enter it on an app — before they come in each day.
I quit.
It won’t track or store people’s health data, said CEO Tim Rowe, but the hope is that the mere act of temperature-taking will serve as a behavioral prompt ― don’t come in if you’re feeling unwell.
They REALLY ARE TREATING US like LIVESTOCK NOW!
“It’s an honor system. Nobody’s confirming that what you’re reporting on the app is really correct," Rowe said, “but any day you happen to not be feeling well would be a really good day to stay home.”
I wouldn't be feeling well about "work" any day!
If your forehead’s cool, get ready for a new work experience, beginning in the lobby.
Concierges and security guards may sit behind plexiglass. Masks will be mandatory. Hand sanitizer dispensers will be everywhere, said Ben Myers, director of sustainability at Boston Properties, one of the city’s largest office landlords. So will janitors.
Didn't the sanitizers get pulled from the market?
Looks like a hard police state so you better keep your mouth shut at work.
“We’ll be having crews clean more frequently in the lobbies, everything from door handles to elevator buttons,” said Myers. They’ll make the rounds during the day, too, not the night shift, when such work is typically done. “Visibility is important,” he said.
The visibility of the undocumented workers will keep you in fear.
You might notice something else feels different: The air. Many buildings and landlords are upgrading air filters, to sift out finer particles in an effort to prevent the coronavirus from spreading through HVAC systems. Boston Properties plans to flush its towers with outside air 48 hours before they officially reopen. Some property managers plan to experiment with higher humidity levels, based on the theory that the unusually dry air in air-conditioned towers can more easily spread the virus. It could be a tricky balance to achieve, Allen said. “That’s one of the things that’s harder to do,” he said. “If you don’t do it right, you could create condensation and mold.”
Something needs to be flushed all right!
Then there are the ups and downs that go along with getting to and from the office ― elevators.
Many buildings plan to limit how many people can be in an elevator. That could mean lines of people — socially distanced, of course — waiting to go upstairs. Myers said his company is designing queues in its dozens of lobbies, each one unique to the building’s floor plan. “We’d like to not have people lined up down the street,” he said. “We want to keep it as much as possible in our lobbies.”
Feel free to FART in the elevator if you wish, and they want to keep people in the lobby so the virus can spread?
Upstairs, you might pull open the door with a handheld device that resembles a hook — Rowe has ordered 11,000 of them for Cambridge Innovation Center tenants. Or you might just push it open with your foot. Corridors and walking paths could be one-way — no more passing in the hall — and internal doors may be rehung to push outward in both directions, so people never have to pull on a handle or knob.
This is really over the f**king top!
At your desk, you can perhaps take off the face mask ― there won’t be anyone sitting within at least 6 feet, and your cubicle could be cordoned off by plexiglass. Everything on desk surfaces, including keyboards and phones, may smell of virus-killing disinfectant. Family pictures and stacks of paper will be banned ― they can transmit the disease. Casual conversation won’t be easy.
They are taking away one of the things that makes going to work enjoyable, and ENCLOSING YOU in a PLEXIGLASS CELL which will keep your germs in and deprive you of oxygen.
I know it always felt this way, but WORK will now be a PRISON!
Even among colleagues, you might feel isolated. Lonely even. That’s partially because there will be fewer people around. Social distancing means sharply reduced capacity in many once densely packed offices. Governor Charlie Baker on Friday asked companies, when possible, to let many employees work remotely for some time to come and some of the state’s largest — MassMutual, Raytheon, Wayfair — said they’d gladly oblige.
That means Raytheon will not be racing you, and as for Wayfair:
"Quarantines, it turns out, can be good for Wayfair Inc., the Boston-based online seller of home furnishings. The company’s stock surged nearly 24 percent Tuesday, to close at $165.88 a share, after it reported that net revenue rose 19.8 percent in the first quarter, to $2.3 billion. The company’s string of net losses continued, this time to the tune of $286 million for the quarter, compared to $200 million in the same quarter a year ago, but judging from the share price increase, investors seemed less worried about the widening loss and more interested in betting that Wayfair might end up becoming one of the few corporate winners in the pandemic."
That's if you can keep your home; of course, the entire paper is geared toward the ruling cla$$ elite and not me or you.
Meetings, too, will be different. Crowded conference rooms won’t be a popular place to be, and with so many people working from home anyway, many meetings that would typically be held in person will shift to video streaming at your desk. Expect communications tools like the Slack messaging platform to become even more popular, “and a lot of technology will shift to apps on your phone,” said Brian Day, CEO of Fuze, a Boston-based company that provides cloud communications software.
I don't want to light a fuze, but all that data can be collected of course, rather than the personal moments that may not. It's a CEO's control grid dream.
That may be how you make your coffee, too, with a touchless app-based coffee maker. If you use the microwave, you’ll need to wipe it down every time. The common kitchens that serve as a cultural hub of so many offices will be changed in all sorts of ways, and if you’ve become accustomed to snacking on trays of leftover rollups from client meetings, bring an extra sandwich from home instead.
“That big deli platter is a thing of the past,” said Marc Margulies, principle at architecture firm Margulies Perruzzi. “As much as we might love it, that’s not going to happen again for a long time.”
WHY?
This is all an over-the-top reaction and damned EVIL!!!!
So many of these changes fly in the face of the way businesses have designed their workplaces for two decades now, trading private offices for open floor plans and aiming to spark collaboration through a steady stream of free food, happy hours, and social events, but even though that’s all going away, workers will find ways to adapt, said Jeanne Nutt, co-managing director in the Boston office of design firm Gensler.
If not, they are out and it doesn’t take long for something that starts as strange to feel more natural, said Katherine Milkman, a behavioral science professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and, she added, humans’ social needs also mean that they care deeply about fitting in with their “herd.” Seeing friends on Facebook homeschooling their children, for example, reinforces that staying home is the social norm, and the right thing to do. “People are actually quite adaptable,” Milkman said. “Doing a thing that’s unpleasant day in and day out gets easier over time, and gets easier when we see that everyone else is doing it.”
She is a sick totalitarian pushing her group think social conditioning and brainwashing!
I think the "Milkman" should stop making deliveries because that $h!t is $our.
“People will still crave interaction,” she said. “And the office is still going to be a place where organizations create community and culture. It’s just going to be defined differently.”
For how long remains an open question. Most experts say they expect a COVID-19 vaccine will eventually allow the majority of employees to work in offices — though they also expect more of them will choose to stay home one or two days a week. Social distancing mandates will gradually ease, but the lessons of this experience will likely stick around for a long time.
??????
Allen likens it to the period after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when airports and skyscrapers rushed to incorporate new security measures. Some of those fast-tracked protective actions were aggravating or ultimately proved needless. Over time, efforts to bolster security became smarter, less intrusive. Today, the stanchions and extra security guards introduced during that era have simply become part of the landscape — barely noticeable.
The pre$$ is comparing it to another monstrous false flag lie and atrocity, and that should tell you a lot.
“The goal with security is you walk in and you don’t think about it,” Allen said. “The goal should be the same with healthier buildings. We’re not there yet, but we will be.”
Maybe, maybe not.
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Will you still be able to whistle and sing while you work?
"Alexion becomes the newest Boston-area firm to face pressure to sell from activist investor; Biotech moved to Boston in 2018, but it could be forced to go on the market" by Jon Chesto Globe Staff, May 15, 2020
When Elliott Management knocks, it’s difficult not to answer the door.
According to OPM, not answering is the same as letting him in.
The New York investment firm led by legendary activist investor Paul Singer is known for its persistence as it pressures companies to improve their share prices — and its willingness to turn hostile when necessary.
It's hard to imagine anyone more $ini$ter. Maybe Shelly.
Just ask Ludwig Hantson and the rest of his team at Alexion Pharmaceuticals. Elliott was already dogging Alexion in 2017, just before the biotech relocated to Boston’s Seaport District from New Haven two years ago. At that time, though, Elliott wasn’t pushing for a sale — just improvements to operations.
Now, Alexion could become the latest major Boston-area company to be reshaped under Elliott’s watchful eye.
This week, Elliott argued for putting Alexion up for sale as the smartest way to reward frustrated shareholders who have watched the biotech’s stock performance lag those of its peers for the past three years. Elliott Advisors, the UK affiliate of Elliott Management, outlined all the reasons Alexion should be sold in a 10-page letter to board chairman David Brennan on Tuesday.
The letter is unusually polite for an activist overture, even by British standards. Elliott frequently compliments the strides that Hantson has taken to improve operations, not to mention the assets that should make Alexion a prime catch on the open market. The company reported $5 billion in revenue last year, mostly from two related drugs that treat a rare blood ailment. Elliott praised the successful commercialization of Ultomiris, the newer of the two medications, but Elliott doesn’t mince words about what it sees as a recalcitrant board: “Public boards have a duty to represent their owners, not test their patience.”
A spokeswoman for Alexion declined to comment, other than to say what you would expect from a publicly traded business: Alexion maintains an active dialogue with shareholders and welcomes all the input it receives. The letter, she said, will be reviewed “in due course.”
Perhaps no other activist investor has shaken up corporate Boston quite like Elliott during the past decade.
Iron Mountain cast aside its chief executive in 2011, for example, and Akamai Technologies reported in 2018 that it cut 400 jobs.
Then there were the buyouts. Athenahealth cofounder Jonathan Bush tried to protect the independence of the health IT company that he led, but Elliott eventually won, wresting control by teaming up with another private-equity buyer.
What is interesting about that is around the same time, Bush (he is the cousin of W) was hit with old charges regarding spousal abuse. Hmmm. What timing. I gue$$ he never had a chance.
LogMeIn seemed to be a more willing seller when an Elliott affiliate teamed up with another investment firm to make a bid late last year; LogMeIn already had a relationship with Elliott deal-maker Jesse Cohn through its merger with Citrix’s GoTo business, which Citrix hived off after facing pressure from Elliott.
EMC’s $67 billion sale to Dell, a deal that closed in 2016, was the biggest of them all. Elliott was a significant motivating force behind that one.
Now, it is Alexion’s turn. Elliott, frustrated by the biotech’s lagging share price, decided last year it wanted Alexion to go on the block. This power struggle came to light in December. That’s when Alexion issued a statement rebuffing Elliott, saying a sale process would not be in the best interest of shareholders or patients. Alexion’s stock now trades around $102 a share, down from around $108 at the start of the year, after plummeting into the $70 range two months ago. The most recent closing price values Alexion at some $22.5 billion.
Who gives a f**k?
Elliott says the stock continues to underperform. The investor singles out as problematic the surprise departure last year of chief financial officer Paul Clancy, as well as the market’s response to two recent acquisitions. The $1.4 billion deal unveiled last week to buy Portola, a smaller biotech in San Francisco, is described as the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back, in terms of investor confidence: Elliott says the subsequent decline in stock price wiped out $1.7 billion in market cap in one day.
Elliott says it gave management more than enough time, but now sees no workable alternative to selling the company.
The letter only makes a few subtle references to COVID-19. Apparently, a global pandemic can’t keep activist investors at bay.
Oh, I was wondering when they were going to get around to mentioning the COVID-19 effect, if any, and the hedge-fund, private equity guys aren't worried about COVID, huh?
Alexion became one of the state’s biggest publicly traded companies overnight when it moved here, but that status might not last for much longer if Elliott has its way.
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Also see: Alexion buys San Francisco biotech for $1.4 billion
