Where people “go” to work

From the NYT:

What Remote Work Debate? They’ve Been Back at the Office for a While.

The competition for parking space is getting steeper. Commutes are inching longer. Workplace lounges are filling up with commotion as junior associates play cornhole. What return-to-office debate? In some parts of the country, it’s been settled.

“I know almost nobody in Columbus who is fully remote,” said Grant Blosser, 35, who works at a financial services firm.

In October 2020, Mr. Blosser started going back into his office in Columbus, Ohio, five days a week. He cracked jokes with the young analysts, one of whom recently dragged his team to hot yoga. (It “kicked our butts.”) He listened to his book club’s selection in the car (currently, a biography of Winston Churchill). It was a relief, he said, to feel the “separation of church and state” that came from leaving the house each day.

“Almost everybody I know is in an office most of the time here,” he said. “The headlines that I read about as far as people dragging their feet going back to the office are about select companies and select cities.”

More than two years into the pandemic, American corporate workplaces have splintered. Some are nearly as full as they were before Covid-19 struck; others sit abandoned, printers switched off and Keurig cups collecting dust. Workers in America’s midsize and small cities have returned to the office in far greater numbers than those in the biggest U.S. cities. Some executives in large cities are hoping they’ll catch up, though they’ve been impeded by safety and health concerns about mass transit commutes, as well as competitive job markets where employees are more likely to call the shots.

In small cities — those with populations under 300,000 — the share of paid, full days worked from home dropped to 27 percent this spring from around 42 percent in October 2020. In the 10 largest U.S. cities, days worked from home shifted to roughly 38 percent from 50 percent in that same period, according to a team of researchers at Stanford and other institutions led by the economists Steven Davis, Nick Bloom and Jose Maria Barrero.

This entry was posted in Demographics, Economics, Employment, National Real Estate. Bookmark the permalink.

111 Responses to Where people “go” to work

  1. dentss dunnigan says:

    first

  2. Hughesrep says:

    I lived in Nowheresville, OH and IN for 30 years. I’d want to go into the office too.

  3. Juice Box says:

    Pumps- Sorry to hear about your Grandma, and yes you are right age matters not when people are very sick, it is always tough. Stay strong my friend.

  4. grim says:

    We don’t have free coffee and TP in the trailer.

  5. Juice Box says:

    Best Day ever in Columbus..

    I like the end of the day activity. I have seen them a few times over the years.

    https://www.axios.com/local/columbus/2022/08/03/kimberly-mcconville-ohio-beverage-association

  6. grim says:

    Touring this year – Brooklyn and AC

  7. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Thanks, Juice. That’s the truth.

  8. The Great Pumpkin says:

    BOISE, Idaho—During the pandemic-fueled housing boom, Boise emerged as one of America’s hottest “Zoomtowns,” communities that experienced a spike in population from an influx of remote workers.

    Now, the housing boom around Idaho’s capital city has ground to a halt. Buyers are balking at record prices and mortgage rates that last month hit a 13-year high. Sixty-one percent of listings in the Boise metro area had a price cut in June, the highest rate out of 97 metro areas surveyed, according to brokerage Redfin Corp. Home builders who couldn’t keep up with demand last year are cutting back on construction.

    The factors that made the Boise area so alluring, such as its relative affordability and its fewer pandemic restrictions, are less appealing now that prices have climbed and companies are calling workers back to their offices.

    When average mortgage rates surged above 5% in April, “it was like somebody just turned the lights off,” said Shauna Pendleton, a Boise real-estate agent for Redfin. “The buyers just disappeared off the face of the earth.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/boise-housing-market-cooling-down-zoomtowns-11658931254?mod=djemRealEstate_h

  9. The Great Pumpkin says:

    It’s starting to happen. People are changing and getting tired of sitting home. This was inevitable. Human nature. Just like they like baggy jeans some years, and then skinny jeans other years.

    “Busy shopping centers like Plaza Mexico have been a pleasant surprise in the retail world as the U.S. has emerged from the pandemic. People who doubled-down on online shopping are returning to bricks-and-mortar locations that offer experiences not found on the Internet.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/los-angeles-shopping-center-shows-strength-of-bricks-and-mortar-retail-11659441600?mod=djemRealEstate_h

  10. Juice Box says:

    The Dropkick’s played allot at Paddy Reilly’s on 2nd Ave in Manhattan. I hear it’s still a great spot in NYC for live music.

  11. Ex says:

    10:29 I love how people “like you” pretend to know things on the https://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/3/2/14750464/truth-facts-psychology-donald-trump-knowledge-science

    “We’re biased to preserve our sense of rightness,” he told me, “and we have to be.”

  12. Ex says:

    “The decisions we make, the attitudes we form, the judgments we make, depend very much on what other people are thinking,” he said.

    If the people around us are wrong about something, there’s a good chance we will be too. Proximity to truth compounds in the same way.”

  13. Trick says:

    Saw black 47 a few times at paddy reilleys, norm from cheers were there one time.

  14. 3b says:

    Trick: I am a big Black 47 Fan, they packed it in after 25 years. I used to see Larry Kirwan play even before Black 47, Turner and Kirwan.

  15. 3b says:

    Juice: Paddy Reilly’s still there, and still a music bar. There is a great band called the Prodigals that play there when they are in town.

  16. 3b says:

    Juice: Fed officials running around today saying the Fed is not nearly done with tightening, 50 bp hike in September is appropriate, and 75 could be appropriate too.

  17. grim says:

    What’s the right strategy to play right now if you are sitting on cash?

    Safe haven in 6-18m CDs? Diversification play? Continue to sit on cash? Average into something?

  18. Juice Box says:

    3B – We know what the Fed really looks at, and it’s bank leverage. GSIB, Tier 1 etc, loan loss reserve ratios etc. They are cooling the lending markets in anticipation of further losses.

  19. grim says:

    Need autopilot

    Do not have the patience for orchestrating a pump and dump scheme

  20. Juice Box says:

    You could give it to that greasy Albanian ‎Dave Gahan fanboy… to manage.

  21. grim says:

    Yah, I need to brush up on my new wave lyrics

  22. Fast Eddie says:

    CNN is looking to pivot back to news only. I think we knew this recently. The fake liberal slant was killing them and they decided to attempt reality:

    https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/cnn-mulls-changes-anchor-lineup-154025431.html

  23. Ex says:

    11:59
    Saw a few legends back in the day at Kingston Mines and Blues,etc.

    This was my favorite blues guy ‘back in the day’…..FWIW…..

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TnQy1awKDg

  24. Hold my beer says:

    Pumps

    Sorry to hear about your grandma.

  25. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Still on the side lines. I’m still patiently waiting for the next low.

    grim says:
    August 3, 2022 at 11:59 am
    What’s the right strategy to play right now if you are sitting on cash?

    Safe haven in 6-18m CDs? Diversification play? Continue to sit on cash? Average into something?

  26. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Thanks, Hold. Appreciate it.

  27. Libturd says:

    Did you buy your treasury bonds yet?

  28. Ex says:

    Can anyone recommend a Zillow-like source for looking at multi use storefronts around the US?
    Asking for a friend.

  29. Libturd says:

    I know you are not willing to jump through hoops, but when Captain Cheapo comes upon some money that he knows he might need to put to work in 3 to 6 months, he takes advantage of the many too generous checking account and brokerage account opening offers. Yeah, they take a little bit of your time setting them up and putting reminders in your calendars for all of the hoops they make you jump through. But, the three month return is often a risk free ten to fifteen percent return annualized. One of the cheapo gods I follow has been maxing out his IRAs every year for the past 15 years or so utilizing nothing but the cash bonuses that these banks offer.

    If you don’t want to jump through hoops, this is the best you can do.

    https://www.mymoneyblog.com/best-interest-rates-on-cash-august-2022-update.html

    If you want to go the Captain Cheapo route, here’s an offer that returns 5% over 90 days for $15K. Of course, $149 of the return is in a free year of Amazon Prime, but still, 5% for 90 days?

    There are lots of these offers out there. The only problem is, you will eventually end up with a file cabinet filled with empty accounts that you don’t want to close since they effect your credit (if it’s a credit account). I close my bank accounts about two a year so I don’t get screwed by their system.

  30. No One says:

    Lately I’ve been buying tradeable CDs in my Fidelity account to get decent yields vs savings accounts. A few months ago I bought a couple of one year CDs at about 2%. Now 12 month CDs are offering about 3%. The stupid thing is that even as a top tier private client of JP Morgan Chase, in that account the highest CD rate they offer is under 1%. Yet on the Fidelity platform they offer CDs at 3%.
    It’s a joint account, so I limit any specific Bank’s exposure to $500k ($250k FDIC X 2). I even saw Bank of China and Bank of India offering CDs in the past in Fidelity.

    I bonds they cap my annual allowable buy to a level so low that it’s not worth the hassle.

    I don’t need to buy equity, I’ve already got equities exposure up the wazoo due to working in the industry and owning a stake in a partnership.

  31. Libturd says:

    Chase Private Client has been so annoying. Chase is my primary bank. Do to my advantage play in casinos, I occasionally have 30K cash swings upward in my checking account over a weekend. I often have too much cash in there too. Add in the fact I have about 120K in credit card availability over about 5 cards and had two Chase Mortgages that totaled about 900K at max, plus my tenant escrows and business account with them. Well, they REALLY wanted me to join private client. I told them I would if they would wave their annual commission. Truth be told, I wouldn’t ever use them to manage my assets anyway. Nonetheless, they bother me every time I step into the branch. For a short while, I had them reimbursing me for non-branch ATM use, which I negotiated. But they took that away about five years ago. I’m not sure why they like me. Besides the small float on cash, they don’t make a penny off of me. Not a penny.

  32. Yo! says:

    Ex, what do you mean by multi use storefront?

  33. chicagofinance says:

    Age and magnitude of activity. You represent a “warm” lead. It is a good pool to fish from……. their biggest customers look like you on paper at a similar age…. suddenly you blossom into a massive account overnight once you retire or rationalize your empty nest.

    It is a very passive and low cost thing for them to do. Don’t think much of it.

    Libturd says:
    August 3, 2022 at 4:19 pm
    I’m not sure why they like me. Besides the small float on cash, they don’t make a penny off of me. Not a penny

  34. No One says:

    Chase Private Client seems to be mostly staffed by airheads who move out every year. But they have a convenient branch near my houses in both NJ and FL and can handle industrial size wires, and provide some semblance of service. My wife makes sure we leave enough cash with them to get all the privileges without paying fees (other than the implicit fee of foregone interest). I would never let them actually handle my money. When they come at us with a sales pitch I tell them I have a CFA and am an institutional fund manager, and I’m not interested, they shut up pretty quick.
    A couple of times I have withdrawn some cash from some really nasty ATMs, and yes, Chase does really cover the ridiculous ATM fees.

    HSBC private client was the worst, I think we shut that one down recently. When my wife first set up the account for savings some middle-eastern sales guy tried to pitch her several complex single stock CDs with complex payoffs. I saw the photocopies she was given. Totally inappropriate. I have a feeling that somewhere out there is a bunch of people thinking they had safe CDs that was loaded up with risk by bank derivative desks and they are facing losses they never understood they could take.

  35. 3b says:

    Pumps: Sorry about your Grandma. It’s very hard for to go through that.

  36. Jim says:

    Pumpkin,
    Sorry to hear about your grandmother ,wish you all the best.

    Funny story, my mother was in hospice twice, first time doctors told me she would not make it through the night and were taking out her temporary pacemaker, it was for the best they told me. I okayed it. Within 3 days she was released ,and sent back to nursing home.
    The second time (2 years later) doctors said she should be put into hospice which was a wing right @ St.Clares hospital. They proceeded to take her off all medications, and give her any food she wanted. By the end of the week she was improving significantly, I got her back to the nursing home(3 years ago). Now she is doing great, does all the physical activities and plays Bingo every day, winning more than any other patient.
    She just turned 97 July 17, and will probably outlive either me(71) or my sister(74). She has no signs of dementia and smart as a whip.

  37. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Thanks, 3b. Appreciate it. You really are a good guy, sorry for all the hell I put you through on this blog.

  38. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Thanks, Jim. Your story gives me some hope that she will pull through. She is a strong woman. Just hate seeing her so skinny and weak. It’s horrible to see. Thanks for the share.

  39. The Great Pumpkin says:

    It seriously shows to what lengths politicians will go to find sources to fund their complete corruption.

    Doesnt this hurt the economy by taking away money from the consumer hands? In their sick mind, they are looking to invest in hurting the economy

    “$80 billion in new funding for the IRS means:

    87,000 new agents
    1.2 million new audits
    800,000 new tax liens

    Half of the audits will hit the middle class.”

  40. RentL0rd says:

    Grim, just put the cash in SPY and forget about it. There’s about a 5% downside and a 20+% upside according to some pundits.

  41. No One says:

    The IRS doesn’t care about the cost of the public’s time. Or the emotional stress of their threats and harassment. I bet tax accountants like this, more work for them.

  42. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Insane bear market rally.

    “Stocks have ripped higher in recent weeks, pushing the S&P 500 up for four of the past trading days and 13% higher from its mid-June low. Broadly positive earnings reports, coupled with signs that some drivers of the inflation surge are easing, have boosted the partial recovery in stocks after a difficult first six months of the year.”

  43. The Great Pumpkin says:

    “In a sign of the toll from decades-high inflation, Americans loaded an extra $46 billion on their credit cards during the second quarter and their balances saw the sharpest increase in more than 20 years, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.”

  44. Fast Eddie says:

    “In a sign of the toll from decades-high inflation, Americans loaded an extra $46 billion on their credit cards during the second quarter and their balances saw the sharpest increase in more than 20 years, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.”

    It’s transitory. Joe said we have the greatest economy ever. He created 6 billion jobs alone.

  45. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Looks like SARK-ARKK trade is blowing up on them, look at $COIN, this could cause a massive pop in Cathie Wood stocks.

  46. The Great Pumpkin says:

    I swear, they should just get rid of shorting. It really distorts the market and makes it like the penny stock market. One giant casino in the short term. Coin movement is insane.

  47. grim says:

    Prohibiting shorting is similarly distorting – especially considering an outright prohibition on it would likely apply on the retail side only – at least that’s how I envision it would work out.

    So the squids at Goldman could do it, but you couldn’t.

  48. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Yea, I understand the purpose, just hate seeing these shorts and short squeezes distort the market. GME was/is a complete joke.

  49. grim says:

    Conspiracy applies equally to pump and dump as well.

  50. Juice Box says:

    Pumps -Short sales make up a small percentage of the trading in $10 trillion worth of stocks traded monthly. Banning short selling only creates a temporary effect psychologically with anyone buying stocks and in the long term it will not cause stock prices to increase. The markets are supposed to be rational not emotional. Not always the case but in the short term has a smoothing effect over time.

  51. Libturd says:

    Being anti-short is quite similar to be against free speech.

    Sure, you can scream out blame whitey. Few will listen and even fewer will believe. But only Pumps would likely be against it.

    So short stocks and blame whitey.

  52. Juice Box says:

    BTW – Isn’t Blackrock just trying to save it’s own book with pumping money into Coinbase which is down 62% YoY. COIN’s earnings have been a blood bath so now that the retail traders all took it on the chin they want to expand to institutional money.

    Why do all these Crypto firms now need cash infusions from Blackrock and FTX to stay alive? Blackrock has crypto investments like in USDC a stablecoin, and other crypto investments which have all crashed. Like a 7.30% stake in MicroStrategy which is down over 50% in the last year. If the retail traders have dropped Coinbase then the music stops. Just remember other DeFi Apps like Robinhood were millions users have stopped trading completely because of losses. Sure lets give the institutional investors more rope to hang themselves with using crypto.

  53. The Great Pumpkin says:

    It’s the fact that people can create groups of short sellers or short squeeze, and totally manipulate the market. GME is proof of that. They shorted it down, and then an online group of retailers gave them a taste of their own medicine.

    I don’t give a chit about either side, just shows me how manipulated some stocks are by insiders.

  54. No One says:

    Those weren’t insiders.

  55. No One says:

    The average short is probably more informed than the average long holder.
    alphaarchitect.com/2022/07/short-sellers-are-informed-investors/

  56. The Great Pumpkin says:

    No one,

    You can’t tell me some guys with big money don’t work to bring down a stock price in the short term to their favor. You can’t tell me this current run up in the market is anything other than big money driving up the price and then selling into the wave as they suck in retailers who FOMO. They create a trend in a direction in the short term that causes short term traders to play. Eventually sucking in retail and pension funds to buy into said position to hold the bag. It’s f’ed up, but impossible to prove.

  57. Juice Box says:

    re: GME was/is a complete joke.

    Nah it has brought forward something that has been going on for a long long time, the short interest was greater than the amount of shares available, there is a flaw in the rules that needs to be changed again, it was not fixed after the 2008 financial crisis. 140% Short.. was not supposed to happen…the MEME stock kids found the loophole and piled in, took out a few big boys too.

    If a share is borrowed and then sold to short, can’t it be then borrowed again and sold again? Answer today Yes and Yes again… There is the flaw, the banks allow for a synthetic short…

    There is still a disagreement over what short interest actually represents and what it should represent.

    a) number of shares that have been borrowed / available shares = Short Interest?
    b) number of times shares have been borrowed / available shares = Short Interest?

  58. The Great Pumpkin says:

    I swear that’s why they push for people to passively invest. Just buy every month and call it a day. Sure, so you always have these people to provide your exit and buy your sell.

  59. The Great Pumpkin says:

    But whatever, it is what it is. Not worth worrying about.

  60. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Juice,

    They got greedy, kids figured out and spread the message around on social media. Then the puppeteers got taken for a ride.

  61. Juice Box says:

    The Feds don’t have the ability or resources to enforce the rules around collusion. Again Tens of Trillions traded monthly.

    The latest debacle is also blamed on the MEME kids in the media. If you peruse their forum on Reddit you will see they are denying starting the stock run up on the tiny company AMTD Digital based out of Hong Kong. It seems it was some kind of Asian run pump and dump scheme that spread on Asian social media weeks before it came to the USA based social media.

    Follow the money….

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/li-ka-shing-firm-sell-065037182.html

  62. The Great Pumpkin says:

    I just wish some of the participants sold instead of believing the bs line…diamond hands. In the end, they got used…

  63. Juice Box says:

    Pumps – FYI they are still at it short sellers have lost $443.4 million in July on shorting GME even with a massive 32% borrow fee for shorting…..

    Don’t fight the tide, the Fed or social media.

    https://www.thestreet.com/memestocks/gme/gamestop-stock-short-sellers-take-a-beating-in-july

  64. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Wow, that’s insane. 14,000%. Now that’s a pump and dump…

  65. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Juice,

    The die hards in that gme cult are seriously insane. Diamond hands!!!

  66. Phoenix says:

    The Feds don’t have the ability or resources to enforce the rules around collusion. Again Tens of Trillions traded monthly.

    Execute the first ten you catch as a pay per view special on Netflix.

    As gory as can be. Let “heads roll.”

    You would see a change overnight.

  67. Phoenix says:

    The Feds don’t have the ability or resources to enforce the rules around collusion.

    Sure they do. It’s called Pegasus.

    But you have to get off of your knees in order to start the process.

  68. Juice Box says:

    Grim: re: “but you couldn’t” As if it was easy anyway. Institutional or not.

    Same rules apply to squids and other banks big customers…..

    Regulation T requires a margin account to short stock. For most retail brokerages 50% cash or securities needs to be put up to trade on margin. So you want to short 1000 shares of GME? $38.10 price today and you think it will drop to $11 like some analysis say? It’s an expensive trade with little upside. Make sure you put in your stop loss and that trade costs 32% as well…Very expensive yet some retail trades still do it.

    Again the emotional mania that drives MEME stocks or CRYPTO retail traders to go out and borrow against home equity mortgage and drain their life savings to get rich quick is against most odds and any kind of reason. These people are an outlier fortunately.

  69. Juice Box says:

    re: Pegasus..

    Google has a lake full of data, FB has a lake full of data, your phone company has a lake full of call and txt data that all can be subpoenaed very easily.

    Heck as if that was ever needed, we aren’t China…

    You can catch Greed with Greed. The best way to do it is big rewards for whistleblowing on corruption.

  70. grim says:

    So why not go further and just ban put options too?

  71. Juice Box says:

    BTW was thinking of taking an electric car long distance educational road trip…

    I was looking at renting a TESLA. Hertz has loads of them at Newark. All in $600 for the week unlimited miles with discounts using VISA and my Gold Club membership not bad. With 8 Supercharger stops along the way the 1200 mile drive would take approx 6 hours longer according to Tesla’s App anyway. Supercharge cost $0.25 per kWh to fill up. Model 3 standard has a 50-kWh battery. So if I ran it down 80%- 90% each fill up would cost $11.25. So all in electric cost would be $191.25 round trip allowing some extra mileage about 2,600 miles or so. $520 cost to fill up on a gas car that gets 25 MPG. $329 in savings on the gas vs electric on the highway.

    So is the extra fill up time worth renting a Tesla? 17 fill ups at a supercharger take an average time of say 80% battery charge time about 40 minutes. It would add approx. 6 hours for each direction or 12 hours both ways standing around chargers unless I charge while we sleep, that it would cut down on the number of stops…

    I may just do in during our November Fall break instead of summer……take the drive to Florida etc.

  72. Juice Box says:

    Grim – it’s zero sum minus the premium….ban puts means no calls either….really no options at all. How else can you engineer a massive transfer of wealth without options?

  73. The Great Pumpkin says:

    State Drought Expands As Newark Sees Driest July Ever
    Much of New Jersey received only a quarter to a half of normal rainfall totals in the past month.

    https://patch.com/new-jersey/wayne/s/icpoe/state-drought-expands-as-newark-sees-driest-july-ever?utm_source=alert-breakingnews&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert

  74. grim says:

    Now is the time to go out and kill every Tree of Heaven you can find, it’s the only time of year you can kill it.

  75. Fast Eddie says:

    And there it is… mail-in ballots just in time for the steal, part II:

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-declare-health-emergency-over-175527009.html

  76. grim says:

    Let’s get rid of it all together and just go online.

    Why someone needs to mail in a piece of paper to represent an absentee vote is nonsense.

  77. grim says:

    Monkeypox is a non-issue. The cases are low, the rate of spread is low, and the fatality rate is low. Current outbreak estimates are 0.03% CFR, and that’s probably still too high, especially given that a number of the deaths were in people with serious previous conditions and/or immunocompromised.

  78. Juice Box says:

    Grim – Spend this weekend on fire Island and the dance floors of Parties there and you could easily catch it.

  79. grim says:

    Going to the “A pox on both your houses” party at Hedge Club this weekend.

  80. grim says:

    Oh, no, sorry. JJ is hosting it at Boardy Barn

  81. Fast Eddie says:

    Why someone needs to mail in a piece of paper to represent an absentee vote is nonsense.

    Register through an app… get your access code number via text… punch it in and vote. No duplicates, no fraud, no dead people, no multiples; accurate, reliable and failproof. If you can’t handle this procedure, claim you don’t have a smart phone, sink hole swallows your house or any other liberal-made excuse, you don’t get the privilege to vote.

  82. Juice Box says:

    BTW – real threat is if it jumps to animals, then there is no eradicating it.

  83. Fast Eddie says:

    Liberals are infected with donkeypox.

  84. Libturd says:

    Gotta have my Pox.

  85. crushednjmillenial says:

    Grim, assuming you are investing with a 30+ year time horizon, go long on low-cost, broad market index funds. VTI, SCHB. Or, global broad – VT. VXUS.

  86. 3b says:

    In more important news, Vabbing is a thing now for women. You take it from and apply to other parts of the body. It supposedly helps get a mate. Civilization is surely in decline.

  87. Libturd says:

    If Vabbing works, maybe I oughta try Farbbing. That’s when you take the odor from your taint and wipe it all over your body. Of course, you’ll probably just attract flies and those suffering from Monkey Pox.

  88. grim says:

    I don’t want to know.

    I probably shouldn’t have summoned JJ

  89. Libturd says:

    Believe me, you don’t.

  90. Juice Box says:

    3B – Perfumes were invented over 6000 years ago to cover up stank. The French took it to new heights apparently Napoleon used to actually bathe in it and Josephine’s quarters stunk for dozens of years after her death from all of the perfumes they used.

  91. 3b says:

    Grim: You know, you are just having trouble processing it!

  92. 3b says:

    Juice: I know, that was the whole point of perfume. When we toured Versailles a few years ago, the guide told us Louis IV was rumored to have only bathed once in his life! Apparently too, there was some belief back then that bathing was harmful, go figure!
    According to the guide , Versailles in Louie’s time reeked of human waste along with pet waste, absolutely filthy. Also the Kings in those days had their own arse wipers and it was considered a very prestigious position. You had the ear and the arse of the King!!

  93. Juice Box says:

    Speaking of that Island one of the better SNL sketches in recent memory.

    Cherry Island…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa4QaNIoPco

  94. Juice Box says:

    Ran the Tesla trip by the family. Seems I am the only nerd who wants to do it……..

  95. Juice Box says:

    3B – I did some work for a French fragrance company. The warehouse was something else, if you went in there they told you to wear old disposable clothes as the smell was so thick it would stick to everything. Amazing amount of science in the labs goes into it, never mind the Kardashian LARPing like they actually designed their fragrance.

    https://pagesix.com/2022/08/04/kylie-jenner-claps-back-at-criticism-of-unsanitary-lab-pics/

  96. Juice Box says:

    Alex Jones got off easy..

  97. Trick says:

    Juice, go for it. Went and test drove the F150 lighting pro this weekend and it was sick, Punch it at any speed and it chips the front tires. It was a mannequin at Maplecrest Ford so they can not sell it for 6 months. Sticker was $45k, that is if you could ever get one.

  98. Grim says:

    Marketing and PR teams drove her there, put her in a lab coat and gave her some glassware to play with.

    The manufacturing team was probably so starstruck they just let them do whatever. They probably just got told to leave the space so the photographer could have more room.

  99. Grim says:

    So now she has to backpedal the story someone concocted..

    I doubt it was even her that posted and responded.

  100. 3b says:

    Juice: I can only imagine the smell to say it must have been overwhelming, is an understatement.

  101. The Great Pumpkin says:

    Zillow Reopens the Door to iBuying
    Zillow says it will team up with Opendoor to help fight the impending downturn of the real-estate market

  102. The Great Pumpkin says:

    But we need to stop calling it a teacher shortage.

    You can’t solve a problem starting with the wrong diagnosis. If I can’t buy a Porsche for $1.98, that doesn’t mean there’s an automobile shortage. If I can’t get a fine dining meal for a buck, that doesn’t mean there’s a food shortage. And if appropriately skilled humans don’t want to work for me under the conditions I’ve set, that doesn’t mean there’s a human shortage.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2019/09/05/we-need-to-stop-talking-about-the-teacher-shortage/

  103. Juice Box says:

    3b: re “I can only imagine the smell.”

    Yeah believe it or not all that stuff in barrels some of it exotics that costs thousands per kilo all melded together smelled like oranges, not just oranges but kind of like oranges of death, not immediate but you had the feeling if you stayed too long well you would die. Lab was best ever BTW. I serviced the computers used to design fragrant molecules and their chemical informatics systems.. Neat suff. A few of the lab people who were always awesome usually were drunk by lunch from the chemicals or a trip to the local bar… Fun Times.

  104. Juice Box says:

    Also interesting I was involved in a 9/11 audit of chemicals there. We spent months proving to the government that every ounce of chemical was accounted for. Fun Times!

  105. Grim says:

    I went to a liquidation auction at a fragrance/flavor manufacturer up near Beacon.

    I had to throw out the mats in my car.

    They made the flavors for coffee, car smelt like hazelnut and Irish crème.

    My nose was so burnt walking through the place I didn’t notice it until the next day.

    Most of these chemicals smell absolutely terrible at high concentration.

  106. Grim says:

    I was up there to buy a high end densimeter, a gas chromatograph … and a 2000 gallon cook tank.

    Outbid on everything.

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