Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and now your reports from this hybrid office moment. Theopolis in Jersey city you're on WNYC. Hello, Theopolis.

Theopolis: Hello, Brian. Thank you. I live in Jersey City. I was working in Hudson Yards in Manhattan. I've been required since July to go into the office and it's been a lot of back and forth because we were required to come back in hybrid. Then because of the Delta variant, we didn't have to come in anymore. Manager would say one thing, they would get overridden by their manager because of higher-up executives.

I was commuting an hour to sit by myself in a room because the rest of my team wasn't required to go in but I was because I have a different management structure. Now, I go into the Jersey City office, at least I can cut my commute in half to fulfill this requirement of having to go into the office in New York Metro.

Brian: Are you asking your boss if you can just stay home if that's your preference? If you're going to sit by yourself in the office anyway and connect virtually?

Theopolis: In our group, you have to get a doctor's note saying you're concerned or you have to have elderly people or unvaccinated people you live with or young children. I have none of that so I figured it's not worth my trouble trying to convince my doctor to write me a note. That is the option, just a little bit tedious.

Brian: Theopolis, thank you very much for checking in. Interesting. Charlie in Newark who works in HR. Hi Charlie, you're on WNYC.

Charlie: Hi Brian, thanks for having me. I am pulled over by the side of the road. We were planning on coming back actually in September. Our CEO really wanted us to get back to having corporate culture. We are a relatively small company that always had a vibrant group of colleagues interacting with trivia nights and karaoke nights and ping pong on the break, and that was very much missed. Of course, every time we tried to plan it, we got knocked back by Delta recently and the current surge.

We are now looking to get back to reopening as best as we can at least three days a week that people can coordinate to be in the office primarily because of the reporting by NPR and other places recently that it does not look like there's going to be another surge and that the rates in New Jersey are, although still high, going down. Hopefully, by November, we'll be able to get back to everything unless, of course, something horrible happens in October. Fingers crossed that doesn't happen.

Brian: Now, what I think I heard you say was three days a week, so how does that work in your company's case? Is it everybody on site three days a week or some people some days, some people other days creating a hybrid virtual and in-person interactions?

Charlie: We want to have a hybrid. We are a company that's always been very focused on work-life balance. Even before COVID, we did have people being able to work from home when it was most practical for the job. We want to get back to a point where people are at least coming in as much as they can and coordinating with their supervisor what days they want to be in a work from home model.

Obviously, we've been in a work from home model except for those people who cannot work from home because they have to be in the office for certain projects that we do. People will need to coordinate that with their bosses. Even before this, you could argue we were a hybrid model because we did have that flexibility to work with your manager to work from home when it was convenient. We always had that home base.

Brian: I guess the part I'm curious about from what you've described so far is if you have enough experience to even say with this yet, what's it like when some people who need to interact with each other are there in person and some people are not?

Charlie: Well, it can be difficult obviously and that's part of the problem. When this actually first started, there were people that were complaining about working from home. They were saying, "We don't get to work from home, we have to work from home. We'd much rather be in the office without distraction at our desks with our equipment than having to work remotely in a place that was not immediately set up to work remotely."

Since then people have, hopefully, set up themselves in better situations. Even now, most people are interested in coming back to work just because it is more convenient for the work aspect of it, I feel. It's nice to be able to work from home. Obviously, we're in New Jersey. I'm sure if you're in New York, you have to deal with New York traffic and New York subways. It might not be as convenient. I feel that we are in a spot in our locations where it's easier for people to come in and so I think there is a desire to come in.

Brian: Charlie, thank you so much for checking in. We appreciate it. Ruthie in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello, Ruthie.

Ruthie: Hi Brian, longtime fan. I'm a city worker and I'm also a manager and a supervisor, and this has definitely been the biggest disruption we've had so far. Because of our really long commute, our days are much shorter, we're a lot less productive. The morale is the lowest we've ever seen after already very low morale with 18 months of attrition and everybody working more than just their own jobs.

This rigid return to work 100% of the time by the mayor has really made the morale sink even lower with many folks now trying to find other jobs and then thinking of resigning. I think it's been really tough. We go into our office, folks are anxious about COVID and we're still using MS Teams all day long unless we're going to go outside for a meeting. All around really disruptive and non-productive.

Brian: MS Teams for people that don't know, that's a Microsoft tool like Zoom.

Ruthie: Exactly.

Brian: What's that like if you're at full capacity in the office by order of the mayor? How much distance can there be between the employees for you to have virtual meetings in a way that protects you?

Ruthie: Well, that's a very loaded question. I think many of us don't feel protected for any number of reasons in terms of whether folks are actually following up on all sorts of COVID protocols and whether in fact, ventilation is really working as it should. As far as disruptions, people are sitting very close to each other within a few feet. Now, at least we have headsets. Initially, we didn't have headsets. Most folks don't have cameras and so it is more distracting.

Now also, we have companions and other people that we see might be also frustrated. There's just a lot more socializing than there was when we were all in our homes and going from one task to the next. Just very demoralizing and definitely not productive.

Brian: Are people getting back, in your situation at all, to the kinds of social interactions that the last caller from Newark was saying, he wants to see return to his company as a head of HR, playing ping pong together, other social bonding things that employees might do voluntarily?

Ruthie: No, not at all. I think the most that we've had is getting coffee outdoors and mostly again, that's just acknowledging that we all feel safer being outdoors and being able to see each other's faces. Absolutely, I love and adore my team, I've missed the people, but there's no question that no one feels comfortable working in this setting and that everyone's very demoralized. There's the commute. I think all that has just added a whole lot of other dimensions. Most of us can't afford to live in Manhattan so, we commute for an hour plus to work. That just means we're more tired and have a lot more things to be anxious about.

Brian: Ruthie, thank you for checking in. As we're taking your calls on this weird hybrid moment in many workplaces with some people in the office, some people out, some places like the city agencies as we just heard from that caller requiring everybody to come into the office but still working virtually with each other in ways that she described, and all kinds of improvised hybrid and different kinds of situations right now in this Delta variant moment. Here's Alan in Brooklyn who maintains a law office. Alan, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Alan: Good morning on behalf of many other people in the Brooklyn borough whole area who are small firms representing mostly plaintiffs in civil actions, that have not been a priority category for maintaining the court's activity during COVID. Many of these offices have had no pretrial conferences with insurance representatives to settle cases and most cases cannot be brought to trial. It would be impossible. If you aren't getting settlements, people are paying, many of them out of pockets, to maintain their offices actively, and many of them have closed in the last year and a half.

I think there would be some kind of a survey about what is the functional reduction in available representation for moderate, poor, and minority neighborhoods to get legal counsel on moderate to small tort actions after COVID. I think there's been a wildfire destroying a big segment of this population of practitioners. I was near retirement anyway, so it's affecting me a little bit less on the margin because I didn't have another 30 years of practice expected, but many, many spaces have gone vacant. Even with rental assistance, many people who will seek representation will have fewer options to get it.

Brian: Does this support what the mayor says constantly when people ask him about the overcrowding at Rikers, that a big underlying issue is that the court system has slowed up during the pandemic and they need to get back to full in-person capacity in his opinion? Are you a living, breathing example of somebody in that pipeline?

Alan: Well, it's a kind of a hybrid problem because I'm one of the people who also is very diligent about being fearful on the spread of COVID. I've just got my booster shot on Friday the first day possible. I don't want to see them open to dense in-person settings where the increase of infection is going to be likely. There should be some way of increasing opportunities for safe forums to maintain the level of activity whether it's subsidized zoom in spaces that don't require every office to set up their own facilities for that or more reconfigured spaces within the courts that have wider spacing on the schedule or on the floor. Definitely, we're not going to enable these firms to maintain their practices unless the activity is increased. It also affects the criminal sector, but I'm most familiar with the civil sector.

Brian: Are you saying there need to be more accommodations for people from the insurance companies and the lawyers and the clients to do things virtually, remotely in the civil litigation space?

Alan: Yes. I also think there might be changes in law that decrease the incentive of insurance companies to hold out since they're paid by the hour and [unintelligible 00:12:58] firms are only paid on contingency when things settle. They have very little incentive to negotiate seriously on reasonable settlement offered by plaintiffs because the rules that allow sanctions or defendants to refuse reasonable offers in the form of repaying their opponent's costs and fees are almost never enforced.

I think they're on the books. I think it's totally discretionary. It should be perhaps a little more enforceable that once you put on the record you have a settlement offer of X and your opponent continues to drag out the case, the cost of dragging it out shouldn't be put on the plaintiff any longer if it's ultimately resolved within a close range of the plaintiff's offer.

Brian: Alan, thank you. Really interesting how the pandemic, hadn't heard this one before, is empowering insurance companies to delay and delay and delay on legal claims against them. Andrea in Brooklyn, who says she's a chief people office of an ad agency at One World Trade. Hi, Andrea. Thanks for calling in.

Andrea: Hi, Brian. It's great to be on your show. I work for an advertising agency and part of policymaking. Our offices, we have multiple across the country. They are open if people want to go in. We have been seeing people come in. It's mostly people, like you said earlier, who, they're tired of the isolation, they live in small apartments, they're tired of working from their bedroom or having their kids around. We're seeing small pockets return.

What I see myself, I'm going in three days a week and there's this nice comradery amongst people in different disciplines who would never know one another. There is a steady crew of people that are coming in and I see more people coming back. You also asked about meetings between hybrid teams. We tend to be really easy about it. Get in an office if you're together, and call your team workers who might be working from home and just get the work done.

Brian: So not a lot of tension in that respect, everybody can deal with that hybrid situation pretty easily. It sounds like you're saying.

Andrea: Yes. That's the way that we've modeled it, like make it work. If we are transparent and we're honest with our managers and communicating and we get our work done, then we can make this happen. We're starting to-

Brian: -accommodate different people's preferences, it sounds like.

Andrea: Yes.

Brian: That has to be the last word, Andrea. Thank you so much and thanks to all of you for your calls on this weird hybrid moment at work. The Brian Lehrer Show is produced by Lisa Allison, Mary Croke, Zoe Azulay, Amina Srna, and Carl Boisrond. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen works on our daily podcast, Juliana Fonda and Liora Noam-Kravitz at the audio controls. Have a great weekend everyone, I'm Brian Lehrer.

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