Are you over working from home? Does your formerly perfectly adequate apartment now seem tiny. Is your kitchen table too high and your laptop screen too small?Are you one of those people who gets up and dresses as if they were going to the office – then just goes to the spare room?Or do you take personal pride in how much of the day you can spend in your pyjamas?Importantly, and are you missing those moments of splendid isolation on your bike, bus or train that transport you mentally into work mode as your body is moved from home to the workplace.As this story from the Guardian shows, some frustrated commuters are prepared to fake it if they can’t actually make it.As pressure quietly mounts to get more people back to the office, there are still plenty of us who don’t have that choice and may even miss the journey to and from work more than the experience of being in an office.Listen HereEnter, the Virtual Commute championed by Microsoft (who else?), it allows you to make that mental transition into your working day while your body stays exactly where it is.We’re talking about that, and other coping strategies, on this week’s podcast.Also, we’ll be looking at how the lure of free money may be helping some people overcome their concerns about the state of the apartment building industry.And, on that topic, we revisit the “worst block in NSW” that prompted Building Commissioner David Chandler to be given his sweeping powers to shut down building sites and demand repairs for badly consturcted high-rises.All, and more, in this week's Flat Chat wrap.Transcript in fullJimmy 00:00When was the last time you worked in an office?Sue 00:03Gosh, about 20 years ago, I think.Jimmy 00:09I occasionally have to, for special projects. I have to go and spend time in an office and I'm really, really bad at it.Sue 00:18Absolutely. I sometimes have to go into an office, and it takes me ages to work out what to wear. I'm just completely out of practice.Jimmy 00:25I'm thinking more in terms of people coming up to you and saying, ‘oh, how was your weekend?’ My instinctive response is, ‘what is it to you? I'm trying to work here,’ which is not the appropriate response. There are some people who, apparently, can't wait to get back to the office, who have been working from home. We'll be talking about that and we'll be talking about the end of the Home Builder grant, which is ending in just a couple of weeks. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue 00:59And I'm Sue Williams. I write about property for Domain.Jimmy 01:02And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]Jimmy 01:15There's a big push on, to get people to go back to work in their offices. Mainly, I think, from the little cafes around office blocks in the city.Sue 01:32That's very expensive real estate, those commercial offices. They're designed to foster the cultural capital of companies and provide good workspaces for people. As you said in the intro, we've worked from home for a long time, so we've got a good desk, we've got good chairs; we've got space. We've got office cats. We've got everything, really, but a lot of people are working in their bedroom or their kitchen, on dini
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Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.
