OT: Sens Lounge -The four seasons edition

[AchtzehnBaby]

Alright not as bad as it could have been. Lots of degen traders and hedge funds got wrecked by the Yen carry trade collapsing but there doesn’t appear to be significant contagion. Even crypto weathered the storm pretty well.

The regular Q5 is a really boring car man. No juice whatsoever and not great in terms of cargo space. Would definitely look elsewhere in that category. X3 smokes it on most metrics. SQ5 is great, however. Hope one of your lowballs hits here soon.



The electric green is just a work of art. It’s unbelievable.

Coincidentally… I was following a beautiful AMG E63s down the 400 yesterday evening. Staggered wheels… that is a sweet ride.

 

[Relapsing]

Sorry, gonna interrupt the car chatter to complain about how stupid 8 hour delivery windows on a signature required package is.

Like, f*** me, I have shit to do, and instead of doing it, and making money this afternoon, I've had to sit around and wait for a driver to hopefully decide to do their job and actually deliver my parcel instead of just leaving a "sorry, I wanted to f*** off early missed you" notice.

I can't get any updates on when it's expected to be here. It wasn't even supposed to arrive today!

The ONLY option I have, is a signature release, which frankly sounds insane to me. For the pleasure of not having to wait around, I can release the delivery company of all liabilities, and let them leave it wherever they damn well please, for whoever to decide to steal it on me.

Ugh. At least Amazon will tell me how many stops away my shipment is when it's close, and that company couldn't give a single f*** about me as a customer. It's almost like they have data on where their drivers are at any given time through some new fangled technology called GPS.

 

[jbeck5]

Sorry, gonna interrupt the car chatter to complain about how stupid 8 hour delivery windows on a signature required package is.

Like, f*** me, I have shit to do, and instead of doing it, and making money this afternoon, I've had to sit around and wait for a driver to hopefully decide to do their job and actually deliver my parcel instead of just leaving a "sorry, I wanted to f*** off early missed you" notice.

I can't get any updates on when it's expected to be here. It wasn't even supposed to arrive today!

The ONLY option I have, is a signature release, which frankly sounds insane to me. For the pleasure of not having to wait around, I can release the delivery company of all liabilities, and let them leave it wherever they damn well please, for whoever to decide to steal it on me.

Ugh. At least Amazon will tell me how many stops away my shipment is when it's close, and that company couldn't give a single f*** about me as a customer. It's almost like they have data on where their drivers are at any given time through some new fangled technology called GPS.

View attachment 899480

Who is it? Atleast with Canada Post you it goes to the station after and you can just pick it up there.

 

[Relapsing]

Who is it? Atleast with Canada Post you it goes to the station after and you can just pick it up there.

It was DHL - not my choice whatsoever, but what can you do.

So, turns out, I had another option after finally chatting with a rep - you can request an alternate delivery day (DUH). Arranging pickup at their depot isn't a feasible option for this parcel.. too big for me to carry! Anyways, I waited as long as I could, made the request to delay it until Thursday, and headed out.

As I'm walking up the street, the god damned DHL truck passes me by! $%$*!

It is what it is, I think to myself... and then I get a call from my buildings front door. I guess there's a good delay between DHL's systems, as the driver is there with my parcel, none the wiser to my earlier request.

I explain to them that I'm not home, and at least 10 minutes away at this point... but is there any possibility, by any chance at all, that they can just drop it off?

Bless the lack of scruples of some people - the driver was more than happy to utterly ignore the signature requirement. Rushed back and the parcel is safe and sound waiting for me.

I'm a happy old man.

 

[bicboi64]

One of my colleagues told me he drives between Ottawa and Barrie once a week. That sounds wild. I know some people like to be in office, but i'm never going in unless I'm explicitly told to, I hope WFH never ends

 

[BigRig4]

One of my colleagues told me he drives between Ottawa and Barrie once a week. That sounds wild. I know some people like to be in office, but i'm never going in unless I'm explicitly told to, I hope WFH never ends

That’s insane. I’d be looking for a new job lol.

 

[jbeck5]

One of my colleagues told me he drives between Ottawa and Barrie once a week. That sounds wild. I know some people like to be in office, but i'm never going in unless I'm explicitly told to, I hope WFH never ends

I don't get the governments strategy. They're trying to get people to go back to the office more often while also trying to reduce the amount of buildings they own.

Something has got to give...

I know plenty of people in the private sector and in high tech who work from home permanently. The business makes more profit by not renting office space. If ever they need to meet a few times a year they can do it at some conference center or something. It makes much more sense.

Looking at spreadsheets...no need to be in office.
Working calls all the time...shouldn't be disturbing others...the list goes on. It makes no sense.

And then you'll here some construction worker saying "if I need to be on site to work, so should you!" Without realizing we work on a computer and that's way different than construction or retail or something. Heck, in the future you might be able to work machines from a controller in your living room, and I would support that.

The whole thing is annoying. Just make everyone pay $10 for gas and $20 for parking 4x more per month...premiere ford says "go back to restaurants. Go buy things on your lunch"...can't. were spending all our extra income on gas and parking. Before, we were actually stimulating our own local economies. Way more restaurants options in Orleans today than in 2005. Why was that a bad thing?

If downtown Ottawa wants to attract more people and business, they should make it more fun to be around. More touristic stuff. I see walking only streets in Nashville that look like a permanent music festival. Do something like that with sparks street for example. Extend it to LeBreton area. Build a casino. Build a stadium. Have this party central street that goes all the way from LeBreton to the market. Revitalize the market like you did bank street a decade ago.

I could go on forever..

 

[Golden_Jet]

I don't get the governments strategy. They're trying to get people to go back to the office more often while also trying to reduce the amount of buildings they own.

Something has got to give...

I know plenty of people in the private sector and in high tech who work from home permanently. The business makes more profit by not renting office space. If ever they need to meet a few times a year they can do it at some conference center or something. It makes much more sense.

Looking at spreadsheets...no need to be in office.
Working calls all the time...shouldn't be disturbing others...the list goes on. It makes no sense.

And then you'll here some construction worker saying "if I need to be on site to work, so should you!" Without realizing we work on a computer and that's way different than construction or retail or something. Heck, in the future you might be able to work machines from a controller in your living room, and I would support that.

The whole thing is annoying. Just make everyone pay $10 for gas and $20 for parking 4x more per month...premiere ford says "go back to restaurants. Go buy things on your lunch"...can't. were spending all our extra income on gas and parking. Before, we were actually stimulating our own local economies. Way more restaurants options in Orleans today than in 2005. Why was that a bad thing?

If downtown Ottawa wants to attract more people and business, they should make it more fun to be around. More touristic stuff. I see walking only streets in Nashville that look like a permanent music festival. Do something like that with sparks street for example. Extend it to LeBreton area. Build a casino. Build a stadium. Have this party central street that goes all the way from LeBreton to the market. Revitalize the market like you did bank street a decade ago.

I could go on forever..

I don’t get the whole spending all our income on gas and parking.
Seems to me they’re spending half of what they did, before Covid, since it’s 2-3 days a week.
Maybe it’s possible they think there are a lot of slackers working at home.

Lots of people would love the generous pension plan they offer. If you’re good at your job, should have no issue getting a job in the private sector, that allows you to work from home all the time, probably not getting that pension though.

 

[Micklebot]

I don’t get the whole spending all our income on gas and parking.
Seems to me they’re spending half of what they did, before Covid, since it’s 2-3 days a week.
Maybe it’s possible they think there are a lot of slackers working at home.

Lots of people would love the generous pension plan they offer. If you’re good at your job, should have no issue getting a job in the private sector, that allows you to work from home all the time, probably not getting that pension though.

Well, for me at least, it's less expensive to keep my monthly parking pass and only use it two or three days a week than it is to pay parking on a per day basis, so I'm not saving all that much with WFH, but I also wouldn't be spending much more going in 5 days a week.

What I find funny is before Covid, we went through a big cut in our travel budgets where I work, the direction was anything that can be done via video conferences shall be done by video conferences, no exceptions. I guess they found the exception, lol.

I actually was allowed to WFH prior to Covid, I think it was max two days a week, but honestly I never took advantage. I prefered to come in, but after being forced to do it, I got better at it and was able to be as productive as home, now if anything, I'd argue I have fewer distractions when I WFH so depending on the project I might be more productive. There are still some team things that I prefer doing in person.

The issue I have is not allowing departments to be flexible and figure out what work arrangements meet their specific needs, it feels like the move to reduce WFH is more about optics than results, that's unfortunate imo.

 

[jbeck5]

I don’t get the whole spending all our income on gas and parking.
Seems to me they’re spending half of what they did, before Covid, since it’s 2-3 days a week.
Maybe it’s possible they think there are a lot of slackers working at home.

Lots of people would love the generous pension plan they offer. If you’re good at your job, should have no issue getting a job in the private sector, that allows you to work from home all the time, probably not getting that pension though.

I used to bus, but back then, busing was a breeze. You'd pay $120 for an express pass and the express bus would come down your street and bring you downtown in 25 minutes.

With the whole LRT screw up and no funding, there are no more express buses, and the time to commute shows me 1h15-1h35. We get to work in 20 minutes by car, and 30 minutes home in the evenings. So now we drive...and you don't really get any savings anywhere unless you go 5 times a week with a monthly pass...or else it's just better to pay per individual trip.

Also, I don't know why anyone would want to make the downtown congestion worse than it has to be.

Well, that's the tradeoff. Private treats you more comfortably if you're good at you're good at your job. Whereas the Treasury board forces things upon you regardless of what you think. The private sector also pays you more, so you could contribute to your own retirement. My wife's an accountant. Her classmates make twice as much in the private sector...but they also work 50-60 hours a week, but from home.. lol tit for tat for tit.

 

[BigRig4]

I don't get the governments strategy. They're trying to get people to go back to the office more often while also trying to reduce the amount of buildings they own.

Something has got to give...

I know plenty of people in the private sector and in high tech who work from home permanently. The business makes more profit by not renting office space. If ever they need to meet a few times a year they can do it at some conference center or something. It makes much more sense.

Looking at spreadsheets...no need to be in office.
Working calls all the time...shouldn't be disturbing others...the list goes on. It makes no sense.

And then you'll here some construction worker saying "if I need to be on site to work, so should you!" Without realizing we work on a computer and that's way different than construction or retail or something. Heck, in the future you might be able to work machines from a controller in your living room, and I would support that.

The whole thing is annoying. Just make everyone pay $10 for gas and $20 for parking 4x more per month...premiere ford says "go back to restaurants. Go buy things on your lunch"...can't. were spending all our extra income on gas and parking. Before, we were actually stimulating our own local economies. Way more restaurants options in Orleans today than in 2005. Why was that a bad thing?

If downtown Ottawa wants to attract more people and business, they should make it more fun to be around. More touristic stuff. I see walking only streets in Nashville that look like a permanent music festival. Do something like that with sparks street for example. Extend it to LeBreton area. Build a casino. Build a stadium. Have this party central street that goes all the way from LeBreton to the market. Revitalize the market like you did bank street a decade ago.

I could go on forever..

All studies on the subject have shown equal or more productivity from home, along with numerous other positive benefits on work/life balance, etc. There’s a reason why the public sector are the only ones going back.

It’s a tax on workers to subsidize other failing sectors. Small coffee/sandwich shops, corporate real estate, and public transport couldn’t adjust/attract local clientele in a post-Covid market so they bitched at politicians until they forced us back in. It’s that simple really.

 

[AchtzehnBaby]

I don't get the governments strategy. They're trying to get people to go back to the office more often while also trying to reduce the amount of buildings they own.

Something has got to give...

I know plenty of people in the private sector and in high tech who work from home permanently. The business makes more profit by not renting office space. If ever they need to meet a few times a year they can do it at some conference center or something. It makes much more sense.

Looking at spreadsheets...no need to be in office.
Working calls all the time...shouldn't be disturbing others...the list goes on. It makes no sense.

And then you'll here some construction worker saying "if I need to be on site to work, so should you!" Without realizing we work on a computer and that's way different than construction or retail or something. Heck, in the future you might be able to work machines from a controller in your living room, and I would support that.

The whole thing is annoying. Just make everyone pay $10 for gas and $20 for parking 4x more per month...premiere ford says "go back to restaurants. Go buy things on your lunch"...can't. were spending all our extra income on gas and parking. Before, we were actually stimulating our own local economies. Way more restaurants options in Orleans today than in 2005. Why was that a bad thing?

If downtown Ottawa wants to attract more people and business, they should make it more fun to be around. More touristic stuff. I see walking only streets in Nashville that look like a permanent music festival. Do something like that with sparks street for example. Extend it to LeBreton area. Build a casino. Build a stadium. Have this party central street that goes all the way from LeBreton to the market. Revitalize the market like you did bank street a decade ago.

I could go on forever..

Major layoffs coming with the next governments over the next decade.

No way the country can sustain that many employees.

They won't need as many buildings.

 

[OmniSens]

My daughter turns 1 next week. That went by too fast.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

I don't get the governments strategy. They're trying to get people to go back to the office more often while also trying to reduce the amount of buildings they own.

Something has got to give...

I know plenty of people in the private sector and in high tech who work from home permanently. The business makes more profit by not renting office space. If ever they need to meet a few times a year they can do it at some conference center or something. It makes much more sense.

Looking at spreadsheets...no need to be in office.
Working calls all the time...shouldn't be disturbing others...the list goes on. It makes no sense.

And then you'll here some construction worker saying "if I need to be on site to work, so should you!" Without realizing we work on a computer and that's way different than construction or retail or something. Heck, in the future you might be able to work machines from a controller in your living room, and I would support that.

The whole thing is annoying. Just make everyone pay $10 for gas and $20 for parking 4x more per month...premiere ford says "go back to restaurants. Go buy things on your lunch"...can't. were spending all our extra income on gas and parking. Before, we were actually stimulating our own local economies. Way more restaurants options in Orleans today than in 2005. Why was that a bad thing?

If downtown Ottawa wants to attract more people and business, they should make it more fun to be around. More touristic stuff. I see walking only streets in Nashville that look like a permanent music festival. Do something like that with sparks street for example. Extend it to LeBreton area. Build a casino. Build a stadium. Have this party central street that goes all the way from LeBreton to the market. Revitalize the market like you did bank street a decade ago.

I could go on forever..

I work in a warehouse, so pretty much have to be on site to sling freight....and I miss the lockdown days. Going back and forth to work on virtually empty roads was a treat.

That said, I wouldn't be upset if jobs that required people to be on site got a nice little bonus in their paycheck for it. *hint hint* It also makes sense considering we're stuck paying for transportation to the job when half the workers out there can work from home.

 

[FunkySeeFunkyDoo]

All studies on the subject have shown equal or more productivity from home, along with numerous other positive benefits on work/life balance, etc. There’s a reason why the public sector are the only ones going back.

I haven't seen many true "studies" on productivity for remove vs in office work... almost everything described as a study is actually a survey, which is obviously biased by whether the respondent would prefer to work at home or not.

One exception is this paper : The Power of Proximity to Coworkers: Training for Tomorrow or Productivity Today?, which was discussed in a podcast I listened to a couple months ago.

Haven't read the paper, just listened to the podcast, but in short the idea was to use comments in a SW code repository as a proxy of the level and effectiveness of collaberation within teams. They had good data for remote and non-remote teams. One key point though, is this was for SW development which is a much more collaberative profession than most of what would be going on in the federal public sector.

Your last sentence is not entirely true: I know of at least two Ottawa private sector firms that are in the office 100% and have been since 2022 (ie the one I currently work at and the one I previously worked at).

 

[Micklebot]

I haven't seen many true "studies" on productivity for remove vs in office work... almost everything described as a study is actually a survey, which is obviously biased by whether the respondent would prefer to work at home or not.

One exception is this paper : The Power of Proximity to Coworkers: Training for Tomorrow or Productivity Today?, which was discussed in a podcast I listened to a couple months ago.

Haven't read the paper, just listened to the podcast, but in short the idea was to use comments in a SW code repository as a proxy of the level and effectiveness of collaberation within teams. They had good data for remote and non-remote teams. One key point though, is this was for SW development which is a much more collaberative profession than most of what would be going on in the federal public sector.

Your last sentence is not entirely true: I know of at least two Ottawa private sector firms that are in the office 100% and have been since 2022 (ie the one I currently work at and the one I previously worked at).

Here's another study (full disclosure, I came across it in this bloghttps://stackoverflow.blog/2023/11/27/are-remote-workers-more-productive-that-s-the-wrong-question/);



It suggests full WFH resulted in a drop in productivity, but hybrid models don't show any drop.

Fully remote offers employers a couple advantages, you can hire from a global market instead of just the local one, so in theory you get more qualified employees, and you potentially save on office space lease costs. Not sure if that's worth the "lost productivity" or not...

I work in a warehouse, so pretty much have to be on site to sling freight....and I miss the lockdown days. Going back and forth to work on virtually empty roads was a treat.

That said, I wouldn't be upset if jobs that required people to be on site got a nice little bonus in their paycheck for it. *hint hint* It also makes sense considering we're stuck paying for transportation to the job when half the workers out there can work from home.

Unfortunately, you aren't likely to get a bonus, the opposite is more likely to happen, and wages offered by employers who offer flexible work arrangements are likely to go down, at least in the private sector.

 

[Masked]

I don’t get the whole spending all our income on gas and parking.
Seems to me they’re spending half of what they did, before Covid, since it’s 2-3 days a week.
Maybe it’s possible they think there are a lot of slackers working at home.

Lots of people would love the generous pension plan they offer. If you’re good at your job, should have no issue getting a job in the private sector, that allows you to work from home all the time, probably not getting that pension though.

It's not about slackers. Going to the office will change nothing about that. Maybe even make it worse with coworkers more likely to waste time chatting with themselves. It's about commercial landlords pulling the strings on their politicians to help maximize the values of their holdings.

I don't get the public who wants the public servants to return to the office as much as possible. That's tax dollars wasted on office space, increased greenhouse gases from commuting and increasing traffic which increases commute times for those who do have to be in an office. There's no benefit to the public. It's just sour grapes from those who chose careers that don't let them work from home.

 

[Stylizer1]

It's not about slackers. Going to the office will change nothing about that. Maybe even make it worse with coworkers more likely to waste time chatting with themselves. It's about commercial landlords pulling the strings on their politicians to help maximize the values of their holdings.

I don't get the public who wants the public servants to return to the office as much as possible. That's tax dollars wasted on office space, increased greenhouse gases from commuting and increasing traffic which increases commute times for those who do have to be in an office. There's no benefit to the public. It's just sour grapes from those who chose careers that don't let them work from home.

So if people work from home does this mean our taxes will go down because of all of the savings?

 

[Micklebot]

It's not about slackers. Going to the office will change nothing about that. Maybe even make it worse with coworkers more likely to waste time chatting with themselves. It's about commercial landlords pulling the strings on their politicians to help maximize the values of their holdings.

I don't get the public who wants the public servants to return to the office as much as possible. That's tax dollars wasted on office space, increased greenhouse gases from commuting and increasing traffic which increases commute times for those who do have to be in an office. There's no benefit to the public. It's just sour grapes from those who chose careers that don't let them work from home.

I mean, that last sentence is pretty powerful motivator. Public service gets demonized a fair bit because everyone sees it as their tax dollars (not to mention there's some lobbyists that are forever looking to cut back on gov't that will portray them as overpaid, looking at you frasier institute...)

So if people work from home does this mean our taxes will go down because of all of the savings?

It potentially means taxes won't need to be spent as much on leases and other overhead that the general public doesn't get value from. Whether that gets turned into tax cuts, or reallocation of funds to improve other programs is up for debate, seems like a win either way though.

 

[bicboi64]

I live in the GTA and have to drive to Barrie once a week, which is fine for me and I prefer the change in scenery, but my supes have emphasized that it helps to build team morale and understand the way the organization works.

Which I get for those of us starting (like myself), but an hour drive once a week is fine. The dude is willing to drive 4-6 hours every week, damn, he must really like the job lol.

 

[Golden_Jet]

It's not about slackers. Going to the office will change nothing about that. Maybe even make it worse with coworkers more likely to waste time chatting with themselves. It's about commercial landlords pulling the strings on their politicians to help maximize the values of their holdings.

I don't get the public who wants the public servants to return to the office as much as possible. That's tax dollars wasted on office space, increased greenhouse gases from commuting and increasing traffic which increases commute times for those who do have to be in an office. There's no benefit to the public. It's just sour grapes from those who chose careers that don't let them work from home.

I know slackers in the public service , that use s/w that makes it seem like their mouse is moving periodically, while doing other stuff.

 

[milkbag]

I live in the GTA and have to drive to Barrie once a week, which is fine for me and I prefer the change in scenery, but my supes have emphasized that it helps to build team morale and understand the way the organization works.

Which I get for those of us starting (like myself), but an hour drive once a week is fine. The dude is willing to drive 4-6 hours every week, damn, he must really like the job lol.

4-6 hours a week isnt that crazy, people living and working in Ottawa potentially drive that much with how shitty our infrastructure is during rush hour.

I'm all for the WFH people staying at home, good for them for getting a gig like that. It'd alleviate so much congestion on the roads for the rest of us plebs if they didn't have to drive at all.

 

[bicboi64]

4-6 hours a week isnt that crazy, people living and working in Ottawa potentially drive that much with how shitty our infrastructure is during rush hour.

I'm all for the WFH people staying at home, good for them for getting a gig like that. It'd alleviate so much congestion on the roads for the rest of us plebs if they didn't have to drive at all.

it ends up being 4-6 hours one way and then back to Ottawa, but the biggest issue for me would be going away from home two nights a week. The gentleman stays in Barrie for 2 nights in the middle of the week.

I wouldn't want to be away from my GF or dogs in the middle of the week. To each their own though

 

[milkbag]

it ends up being 4-6 hours one way and then back to Ottawa, but the biggest issue for me would be going away from home two nights a week. The gentleman stays in Barrie for 2 nights in the middle of the week.

I wouldn't want to be away from my GF or dogs in the middle of the week. To each their own though

Yeah I don't really get it either, but you gotta do what you gotta do I guess. Even 10-12 isn't that uncommon in my industry, especially for the dudes living in buttf*** nowhere Quebec.

Worked with a guy recently who came down from Quebec City and stayed in an airbnb here during the week. A lot of the time those guys are just trying to get away their old ladys' for a bit though lol

 

[Micklebot]

I know slackers in the public service , that use s/w that makes it seem like their mouse is moving periodically, while doing other stuff.

I think his point is those type of people will find a way to slack off regardless. I know people in the private sector working from the office that slack off too, they'll poke around on their phone, or play minesweep and hit alt tab when the boss walks by, anecdotes aside, if you have staff who aren't productive, it should be obvious regardless of whether they are in the office or not, and as a manager, you address it.