COVID-19 - On the Ground

[japhy]

As a business owner/boss I have always been skeptical of the work from home concept. We have had employees who wanted to try it and rejected the idea for the majority because our work requires collaboration and that we always assumed was most efficient if you were all at the same location. But the thing is, we are a national firm and most of our client interactions come via zoom meetings, and that was a selling point to clients. We don’t all need to be in the same city to work together. I have had projects in cities where we have a physical office, but the work was done remotely in KC because the client wanted to work with the people in KC.

So it was “good” for clients but not for us internally was the thinking. We had some people we didn’t trust to be productive, so we stuck with our old model. And then covid hit, and we had to adjust. The bottom line was ,we are an above average profitable company for our industry. We average about 1.5X the profit of our peers while keeping fees the same as theirs and paying above average salaries. When covid hit we knew that would change with everyone suddenly working remotely. It was a big experiment in managing people and clients and productivity. What we didn’t expect was that profitability and efficiency would increase dramatically. Profits have almost doubled even after adjusting for other factors. This is not a small enterprise, we are talking about over 200 employees in 6 locations with a gross revenue of over $30M annually.

Not sure what the take away from that is; maybe treat people like professionals and they will act accordingly for the most part? Take care of people and they will be loyal?

If only DC were here to splain business it to me. He is a business theory guy. I have no background in biness theory. I have had to muddle thru for 30 years and was part of growing this thing from 3 people to 200 people without no biness schoolin. Who knows what we could have done if’n we knowed wut we wuz doin?

One thing I did note, people were more respectful of each other’s time. A big part of my position is as an “office resource”. I have 15 years more experience than my partners in KC. I also am someone that senior engineers seek out to ask questions and get opinions from in their decision making. When we want to meet with clients we send out a meeting invitation and schedule the meeting when everyone who needs to be there is available and everyone can schedule to stop what they are otherwise doing and be prepared for the meeting. Everyone still has access to me, but we schedule it and do it by internet. No more dropping by my office and interrupting and vice versa. And yet we still seem to enjoy each other’s company when we do talk, maybe a little more?

Fast forward, we have returned mostly to the office. Because of rapid growth our office is more crowded now, I have to share an office with a younger partner who does not wear a mask at work and has a small maskless child in school. So far the only ones who have made mention of me “coming back in” have been the other partners. I am still mostly remote. They tell me it would be good if I came back in, they would benefit from my actual presence. I just sort of point around the open office where none of the employees wears a mask, we have no vaccine mandate, and just shake my head. Then I point at the balance sheet and give them my, “wut’s the problem” look.

One member of my team is leaving for Australia this week and will be there working remotely for a month. I have been getting the side eye from other partners about allowing this. Well; she was going with or without my permission, and I have no way of finding a replacement right now with the specialized knowledge she has. So yeah, we are going to give it a try. She has been very productive for the last two years so I trust she will still be in Australia. The time difference is going to take some coordination for zoom meetings, but we can figure that out.

I thought it was going to be the boomers like me who wanted everyone back in the office, because although we didn’t want to say it out loud, we didn’t trust our employees. Turns out it is the millennials that don’t trust each other or the generation that followed them. This in spite of much evidence to the contrary.

[jfish26]

As a business owner/boss I have always been skeptical of the work from home concept. We have had employees who wanted to try it and rejected the idea for the majority because our work requires collaboration and that we always assumed was most efficient if you were all at the same location. But the thing is, we are a national firm and most of our client interactions come via zoom meetings, and that was a selling point to clients. We don’t all need to be in the same city to work together. I have had projects in cities where we have a physical office, but the work was done remotely in KC because the client wanted to work with the people in KC.

So it was “good” for clients but not for us internally was the thinking. We had some people we didn’t trust to be productive, so we stuck with our old model. And then covid hit, and we had to adjust. The bottom line was ,we are an above average profitable company for our industry. We average about 1.5X the profit of our peers while keeping fees the same as theirs and paying above average salaries. When covid hit we knew that would change with everyone suddenly working remotely. It was a big experiment in managing people and clients and productivity. What we didn’t expect was that profitability and efficiency would increase dramatically. Profits have almost doubled even after adjusting for other factors. This is not a small enterprise, we are talking about over 200 employees in 6 locations with a gross revenue of over $30M annually.

Not sure what the take away from that is; maybe treat people like professionals and they will act accordingly for the most part? Take care of people and they will be loyal?

If only DC were here to splain business it to me. He is a business theory guy. I have no background in biness theory. I have had to muddle thru for 30 years and was part of growing this thing from 3 people to 200 people without no biness schoolin. Who knows what we could have done if’n we knowed wut we wuz doin?

One thing I did note, people were more respectful of each other’s time. A big part of my position is as an “office resource”. I have 15 years more experience than my partners in KC. I also am someone that senior engineers seek out to ask questions and get opinions from in their decision making. When we want to meet with clients we send out a meeting invitation and schedule the meeting when everyone who needs to be there is available and everyone can schedule to stop what they are otherwise doing and be prepared for the meeting. Everyone still has access to me, but we schedule it and do it by internet. No more dropping by my office and interrupting and vice versa. And yet we still seem to enjoy each other’s company when we do talk, maybe a little more?

Fast forward, we have returned mostly to the office. Because of rapid growth our office is more crowded now, I have to share an office with a younger partner who does not wear a mask at work and has a small maskless child in school. So far the only ones who have made mention of me “coming back in” have been the other partners. I am still mostly remote. They tell me it would be good if I came back in, they would benefit from my actual presence. I just sort of point around the open office where none of the employees wears a mask, we have no vaccine mandate, and just shake my head. Then I point at the balance sheet and give them my, “wut’s the problem” look.

One member of my team is leaving for Australia this week and will be there working remotely for a month. I have been getting the side eye from other partners about allowing this. Well; she was going with or without my permission, and I have no way of finding a replacement right now with the specialized knowledge she has. So yeah, we are going to give it a try. She has been very productive for the last two years so I trust she will still be in Australia. The time difference is going to take some coordination for zoom meetings, but we can figure that out.

I thought it was going to be the boomers like me who wanted everyone back in the office, because although we didn’t want to say it out loud, we didn’t trust our employees. Turns out it is the millennials that don’t trust each other or the generation that followed them. This in spite of much evidence to the contrary.

My firm is having an excellent 2021, after a very good 2020. Part of that is significantly reduced costs, but I think there have also been significant productivity gains in professionals being able to work the way they want.

That said, I perceive there to be a massive, latent development problem that has yet to really manifest.

Specifically, remote work is a terrible way for new people to learn how to be lawyers. That has a ripple effect through the entire system of workflow in a law firm; I can't push as much down as I'd like, which means (1) I'm doing work at partner rates that should be done at associate rates and (2) I'm not using my time for force-multiplying pursuits like marketing and other more strategic things. And the younger people aren't learning how to do my job, which will muck things up for a number of years at this point.

[MICHHAWK]

you think there is a problem now. wait 5-10 years from now when this crop of children that have been remote learning and social distancing and masking up attempt to launch. oh boy.

the world could not have screwed this up any worse. and we just keep on going with the phucqueups.

[CrimsonNBlue]

I'm not worried about kids that have to learn how to shelter from school shooters on the first day of class. They're a lot more resilient than we are.

[sdoyel]

My son’s school hasn’t had a mask mandate at all. Texas…

[japhy]

My firm is having an excellent 2021, after a very good 2020. Part of that is significantly reduced costs, but I think there have also been significant productivity gains in professionals being able to work the way they want.

That said, I perceive there to be a massive, latent development problem that has yet to really manifest.

Specifically, remote work is a terrible way for new people to learn how to be lawyers. That has a ripple effect through the entire system of workflow in a law firm; I can't push as much down as I'd like, which means (1) I'm doing work at partner rates that should be done at associate rates and (2) I'm not using my time for force-multiplying pursuits like marketing and other more strategic things. And the younger people aren't learning how to do my job, which will muck things up for a number of years at this point.

You make a great point. We have a similar issue. The tight labor market has made it tough to get new people out of school. When we do, we feel they benefit from more supervision and training. Our best hiring successes for the last two years has been in hiring experienced people whose previous employer treated them poorly. We will start recruiting new graduates harder this next year and that will be our dilemma as well. We have also started doing "on boarding" via a series of video conference calls with HR and giving each new hire a more experienced mentor that they meet with regularly. I tend to give new people assignments in smaller chunks. When completed they can send them to me and get a quick review while they go on to their next small assignment. I have a couple of associates on my team who are very good at keeping the work flowing and working with new employees. It is going to be on adjustment on everyone's part. I am curious to see how new graduates have changed during covid. Keeping in mind these people have had to go to school remotely as well may increase their capacity to adjust. Our industry does have the advantage that most of our work product requires using a computer for calculations. So having meetings and discussions while tethered to the computer is not so dehumanizing. We are already practically robots.

[JKLivin]

you think there is a problem now. wait 5-10 years from now when this crop of children that have been remote learning and social distancing and masking up attempt to launch. oh boy.

the world could not have screwed this up any worse. and we just keep on going with the phucqueups.

I have noticed two effects in my incoming Freshmen. On one hand, they are so sick of virtual learning and so starved for human contact that they skip class significantly less often than past classes. They also participate in discussions. On the negative side, they are behind in terms of what they should have been learning the last two years of high school. Hopefully, we can get them up to speed.

[CrimsonNBlue]

We're going to a remote flexible system, but attorneys with 3 or less years of experience are in-office. It makes sense to me.

[japhy]

you think there is a problem now. wait 5-10 years from now when this crop of children that have been remote learning and social distancing and masking up attempt to launch. oh boy.

the world could not have screwed this up any worse. and we just keep on going with the phucqueups.

You and the Archie Bunkers of every generation have been saying ignorant shit like that for decades. If you can't handle change, get the fuck out of everyone's way before you get trampled while they show you how it works.

Because here we are; still the richest, most powerful nation in the world.

And it's not the old people pushing the envelope and moving the needle. We are just staying the course on the dying business models.

[Cascadia]

you think there is a problem now. wait 5-10 years from now when this crop of children that have been remote learning and social distancing and masking up attempt to launch. oh boy.

the world could not have screwed this up any worse. and we just keep on going with the phucqueups.

You and the Archie Bunkers of every generation have been saying ignorant shit like that for decades. If you can't handle change, get the fuck out of everyone's way before you get trampled while they show you how it works.

Because here we are; still the richest, most powerful nation in the world.

And it's not the old people pushing the envelope and moving the needle. We are just staying the course on the dying business models.

nailed it!

[ProudBoy]

I don’t know - all these traumatized kids might start doing crazy things like shooting up their schools, classmates and teachers.

Or vandalizing their schools.

Or eating laundry detergent.

Or smoking cigarettes dipped in formaldehyde.

Or try eating a spoonful of cinnamon.

What will this world come to?

[ProudBoy]

“ maybe treat people like professionals and they will act accordingly for the most part? Take care of people and they will be loyal? ”

It really is quite amazing how difficult a concept these are.

[japhy]

I don’t know - all these traumatized kids might start doing crazy things like shooting up their schools, classmates and teachers.

Or vandalizing their schools.

Or eating laundry detergent.

Or smoking cigarettes dipped in formaldehyde.

Or try eating a spoonful of cinnamon.

What will this world come to?

I spent most days in high school stoned. The teachers had no clue what to do with me or I with them.

In Engineering School a professor declared myself and a couple of friends, "the underachievers" and referred to us by that name in class.

As another engineering professor said to me years later, "A students make the best professors, B students make good engineers, it's a C student that donates the money for the new labs at the engineering school." "You've done all right."

They were all probably right. But people, especially the young, are resilient. And they have to find their own way. As soon as you start doubting them, they can shock the hell out of you. And they don't need your approval, Archie.

[Overlander]

I don’t know - all these traumatized kids might start doing crazy things like shooting up their schools, classmates and teachers.

Or vandalizing their schools.

Or eating laundry detergent.

Or smoking cigarettes dipped in formaldehyde.

Or try eating a spoonful of cinnamon.

What will this world come to?

I spent most days in high school stoned. The teachers had no clue what to do with me or I with them.

In Engineering School a professor declared myself and a couple of friends, "the underachievers" and referred to us by that name in class.

As another engineering professor said to me years later, "A students make the best professors, B students make good engineers, it's a C student that donates the money for the new labs at the engineering school." "You've done all right."

They were all probably right. But people, especially the young, are resilient. And they have to find their own way. As soon as you start doubting them, they can shock the hell out of you. And they don't need your approval, Archie.

Well said

[CrimsonNBlue]

Paxlovid FTW.

[sdoyel]

[ousdahl]

That’s clever, but also a little misleading.

I think it’s more so that we culturally and socioeconomically value making CEOs lots of money more than we value time with loved ones.

[MICHHAWK]

i value:

paying the mortgage
making the car payments
saving for retirement
saving for summer vacation
paying the electric bill
paying the monthly ice bill
saving for winter vacation



just to name a few.

[Cascadia]

i value:

paying the mortgage
making the car payments
saving for retirement
saving for summer vacation
paying the electric bill
paying the monthly ice bill
saving for winter vacation



just to name a few.

Your life sucks

[ousdahl]

So much for mich’s loved ones.