The Office is Dead

➡ Tech company Expensify, despite generating $215 million annual sales, failed to persuade employees to return to office spaces despite offering incentives like the “Expensify lounge”, a socialization space equipped with food, drinks, and activities. With working from home becoming the new norm and reflecting changing employee needs, the closure of the Expensify lounge flags an overall trend endangering office spaces and commercial real estate sector.
➡ The text discusses potential measures to deter crime in stores, a surge in deodorant sales as people return to offices, bank closures and data breaches at Capital One, costly items and experiences such as a culinary set from Costco or a Disney experience, discontent over automatic tipping in restaurants, and speculates on potential unrest between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle over differing views on money.

Hey, it’s Dan. Welcome back. You’re watching I allegedly, and I’ve got a good one for you today. Walking down the cliffs, just beautiful spot here. And the office is dead, completely done. Corporate America is finished. You’re going to see office buildings shutter like you’ve never seen. But I’ve got a great story in regards to this. As always, like the video, subscribe to the channel. If you’re on our email list, check your spam filter, because an email just went out, guys, and you don’t want to miss that.

So first things first, guys. This is such a great story. There is a company called Expensify, and Expensify is a tech company out of San Francisco that is not some new startup. They’ve been around 15 years. And their CEO, David Barrett, said, you know what I want to do? I want to bring people back to the office, and I want to do this in a grand scale. I want to have the expensify lounge.

So Expensify is a finance app that help you budget, help you, things like that, but with your expenses, okay? So the company is not some little tiny company. They do $215,000,000 a year in sales. So they’re players. Now, what David did was he’s like, let’s bring things back in a first class manner. Let’s set up the expensify lounge. So a few months ago, he sets up a lounge with food, with music, with private pods, with the incentives to have you go there and relax.

It had grass, beer, it had champagne flowing. They had parties, they had scheduled events. They had it so that you could go there and you could enjoy yourself and literally kick back on the 16th floor of this building and just have a place to socialize and a place to party and a place to relax and let your hair down. And if you wanted to get away from everything, you could go do that.

Now, this test didn’t work because people don’t want to voluntarily go back to the office, which is going to change everything. Now, since COVID it made it so that people just don’t want to work like that anymore. They don’t want to be around other people. This is a huge problem, guys, because some people need the instruction. Some people need to have their supervisor in any capacity all over them to make sure that they’re performing.

And others don’t need that. Others do. Well, I know a lot of companies. I know a gold company, in fact, that has their entire sales staff remotely and has an office and has everybody working at their house, which is a great way to do it. And everybody’s productive. Everybody’s got incentives. Everybody’s got people they have to answer to. But that is the future, guys. What do you do with all these office buildings? What do you do when you have a company of this size that gives out free everything, okay? Food, drinks, alcohol, music.

Oh, by the way, we have privacy pods. So if you want to go and you don’t want to be around everybody at this place, you can go sit there and use the Internet. They got giga, high speed, gigabyte Internet. They had food. They had chefs. They had everything for these people that made it so that it was basically a fantastic experience. But this even that couldn’t keep people there.

And as of November 1, they’re closing the Expensify Lounge to say, hey, listen, we’re going to change this. Now they’ve got another location, and they’re going to have a restaurant that they’re going to have set up with another one of their locations. But they are not convinced that this is going to be the thing that’s going to bring people back to work. If this doesn’t bring people back to work, nothing will bring people back to work.

Now, we all know about San Francisco and all the problems that you have in San Francisco. Is that what people were fed up with? Is it the crime? Is it everything? I just think it’s the expense. I also think that there’s a lot of know they tolerate other people. They tolerate other workers. I don’t want to be around you guys. I don’t like you people. I have to work with you.

That’s what I think a lot of people think. The cool thing that this guy did, and I got to give him serious credit for this, is he did an interview, okay? But then he had a company blog post. We shared the company blog post with everybody. Here’s what we shared publicly. And this isn’t some wackadoo tech company. This is a guy who runs a big company. They’re making a lot of money.

But if they can’t do it, who can? Who can do this? Seriously, who’s going to make this successful if a guy like this can’t make the office experience successful anymore? Now Nike goes out, and Nike says, listen, no more three days a week. You guys have to work four days a week, okay? And people are griping, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible. I don’t want to work this hard.

I don’t want to work around these people. That’s what they’re saying, okay? So add to that, Amazon we all heard about, amazon had all those walkouts, and everybody upset over the course of the last few months. You’ve seen a lot of that stuff. But it’s just getting to the point that what is going to get people back to these office buildings, because, man, oh, man, you know, with my interview with Jack from yesterday, you’re going to see more and more commercial real estate go down for the count.

And this is going to take so many banks with it. It’s going to take so many businesses with it. And you have to understand, just because nobody’s going to the office doesn’t mean these people don’t have these payments. They’ve got lease payments. If these people own these buildings. They’ve got those mortgage payments. This is going to be catastrophic and disastrous. And let me know what you guys think about this, because if an incentive program like this doesn’t work for you, nothing will work for you.

Team building, all that stuff. Hey, we’re all going to go out and do karaoke. I hate you guys. I hate karaoke. People don’t want that. People want money. People want respect. People want to work on their own terms. Correct me if I’m wrong. Tell me what you think about this so far. But man, oh, man, I think that this is the perfect sign that everything is bad and the office building is dead.

Remember that. Here’s another thing that people are absolutely fed up with, and that is crime. Think about this. There is a coffee company in Long Beach, California. The story is below the owner, Denise Maldonado, think about this. She’s had eight break ins. Eight. Eight break ins. People have broken to steal change. People have broken to steal coffee. They will take whatever they can. Now, here’s the worst part about this, is that they don’t leave anything of value in the coffee shop anymore.

By the way, the name of the it’s confidential coffee, which it’s not too confidential because everybody’s talking about it. So here’s the worst part about this. Eight break ins and they’re stealing anything they can. She’s had to resort to think about this life, sleeping at the coffee shop. She basically lives at the coffee shop now to prevent crime because the police can’t do anything. Alarms don’t deter these people.

Nothing deters these people. So it’s getting bad, guys. It’s just getting worse and worse and worse. There was a great robbery where Hennessy Cognac was stolen from a tractor trailer to the tune of about $500,000. Great story below on this. But here’s the thing about these thieves. They went out and stole an entire tractor trailer of booze. Now, the police were like, well, what are they going to do with that? Are they going to sell it? It’s going to be pretty obvious who took it.

It’s like insane, guys. But thieves have not they’ve elevated beyond the coffee shop to much bigger prizes. We’ve heard about Home Depot. That’s fed up with the crime rings and everything that they’re experiencing right now. And you’re seeing a little bit of everything right now that’s escalated beyond anything that we ever dreamed of. Stores. CVS is fed up with the robbery so much that in New York City, because it’s so bad, they’re having to resort to what can we do? The security guards don’t work.

I know. We’ll get police dogs. So they’re hiring. I love this. Off duty police dogs to stand there and to growl and deal with people that could potentially steal. Now, this has been a deterrent at some of these stores. Okay, bye. I don’t want to go in there. I don’t want to get bit. Okay, so people are fed up. People are absolutely to hear with it. Now, we’ve all seen the stories, and I’ve reported them here about how they’ve locked up everything inside these stores to keep the thieves away and to make it so that you can’t steal even mundane items like razors and toothpaste and belts and simple things.

Well, now, here’s the big problem. It’s taking as long as 40 minutes to get household and personal items, deodorants, soaps, things like that. Who is going to tolerate this? Now, we talked about in our last video that I sent to the email list, the consumer that wants to hibernate and be inside their house and wants to be locked inside their house, this is only going to get worse, guys.

You’re going to see people that don’t want to work and people that don’t want to I don’t want to deal with potentially getting robbed walking to my neighborhood store. That’s the extent of this. This is getting that bad right now. It’s getting that bad. But the crime, the deterrence, everything is not for the good people. It’s for everybody else. What’s the answer to this, guys? Seriously, what is the answer that’s going to make it so that crime is going to go away? Is it the Costco method where you have to show a card to walk in the store and then you have to show your receipt to walk out? Here’s the thing about know you got some codger, some old guy or gal who’s basically we’ll put Betsy up there.

You know what I mean? Betsy’s not a deterrent for crime. Betsy’s just trying to check your receipt. The people that give Betsy a hard time are the degenerates of the world. I don’t get it. Show her your receipt. Keep it out and show it to her. Okay? And again, hey, I already put it in my pocket. I’m leaving. I’ve seen people do that. And you know what Betsy does? Nothing.

Okay, so it’s not really a deterrent for crime, but what are you going to do? What is going to settle people to the point that they’re not going to steal or feel? I shouldn’t go in here, okay? I don’t know what it is. Is it a club? The thing about when you walk into a store and they say, hi, welcome, that’s supposed to deter crime. That’s supposed to be something that if they know, if you know that they’re watching you, you’re not going to steal.

Who believes that? Do you believe that? Doesn’t stop me from loading my pockets. How about you share your thoughts on this? See if you’re paying attention. Okay. Share your thoughts on this stuff so far. I’m over by the tide pools right now. It’s really a beautiful spot to walk through and see the sea urchins and the crabs and all the little fish in there and everything. But there’s a few things shopping.

Okay? You’re starting to see deodorant sales go through the roof again. And Procter and Gamble says that their deodorant sales have gone up exponentially because people are going back to the office and people didn’t have to wear deodorant and wear clothes and wear dresses and things like that. Now they need to get all gussied up to go to work. And yes, I said gussied up. Okay, you’re starting to see more banks close.

There’s a list of branches that are expected to close between now and the end of the year below. I won’t bore you with that, but what I will bore you with is Capital One Bank. Capital One Bank had a data breach from a couple of years ago, and they decide to settle it and give everybody $190,000,000 in refunds. And did you get that email? Oh, you didn’t? Okay, well, go check, use the link below and see if you’re eligible to get part of that $190,000,000.

If you have a Capital One account because millions of people were violated, their data was stolen. And again, if you guys don’t have a VPN company and you don’t have a VPN, you’re crazy. Friend of mine called me yesterday and says, hey, what’s the name of that VPN company? I’m trying to watch the hockey game. Bought it and watched the hockey game because he switched his location. Okay, so there’s that.

But take a look at the data breach. It is crazy what people are spending money on right now. Okay? I love when people write online reviews and they just lose it. They just go nuts. Think about this. There is a La Crusade set of pans which are cooking pans. They’re very nice. They’re very high end. They have over 100 items in this lot from Costco. So it’s really high end pots and pans, and they are incredibly expensive.

They’re $5,000. 05 grand to buy pots and pans. And this is at Costco, of all places. So the Costco members are losing their minds with their reviews of this thing, saying, this is insanity that you guys are charging this much. Who can afford this? Why would you share this? Well, again, guys, Costco sells stuff that’s $25,000 on their website. It’s not just that. They sell all this stuff that’s really high end.

So we’re seeing that all over the place here’s. One, that other thing that people are losing for is imagine a high end week at Disney, which I can think of 10,000 things I’d want to do before that, but high end experience with the Princesses at Disney. Okay? Think about that. 40 grand. $40,000. Guys, hello. I mean, come on. 40 G for your kids. Hey, remember when I took you to Disneyland, you met that princess? That dude, that was the Princess.

Remember that? Oh, yeah, I forgot about that, dad. You know what I mean? 40 G. Okay, isn’t that crazy, guys? So share your thoughts on that stuff so far. But again, there are people out there so broke right now and then there are people out there excuse me pissing away 40 G for a week at Disneyland, okay? Unbelievable. Unbelievable. So let me know. Are you going to buy the La crusade pots and pans for five grand again? Who can afford this stuff? Who can afford this? I’m going to finish this video with these few stories.

People are fed up with the automatic tipping. And Harry Snowden out of Chicago, went to an Anchorage, Alaska restaurant and was appalled. That when he ordered his food. And he says, I’ll pick up the check for everybody, which was $27, that they came back and said, listen, the tip recommendation started at 30%, and it went as high as 100%. So 100%. He lost his mind, took a picture of it.

The story is below from the New York Post. And more and more people that are traveling get hit with these automatic tips. And, hey, we added 18% to your check. Even though you’re by yourself, people are fed up with that. You are seeing more banks fire people right now. Next thing is the top four banks are letting go between now and the end of the year. 20,000 more people.

20,000. Why? Okay. Jamie Dimon is selling, what, $100 million worth of his stock right now. They know something that we don’t know that they’re not telling us. We know it because you watch his channel, but there’s something that they don’t want to admit how bad it is. Now, my favorite story of the day, which is something I told you guys was going to happen, and that is Prince Harry and Ono Markle, okay? They have different views on money, and he wants to just be simple folk, even though he was a prince or was he a prince, what was he? Okay.

She wants to build her brand and be bigger. Now, they had 100 million dollar deal with one place. They’ve got the spotify deal for another $20 million that they just didn’t really follow through on. And Meghan wants to build her brand even more. So, again, amazing. Okay. And you mark my words, when they get divorced, it will be this because Prince Harry wants his life back. Okay? Must be nice to have security and have people cook for you and take care of you and schedule your day and do everything for you.

That would be awesome. Okay? But no, let’s go build our own brand. Please don’t forget to hit the like button. Please don’t forget to subscribe to the channel again, join the email list, guys, because one just went out. And if you take a picture of this right here, you can join the email list. And if you are already on the email list, check your spam filter because one just went out yesterday.

Okay? Onward and upward, guys. I will see you guys very soon as I traverse the typhoon. Please, like, subscribe and share this video today. Bye. .