Bike boom - is it over?

[ChrisF]

16 minutes ago, Zebra said:

Unpopular, contrarian view coming up; as a small business owner (just 9 employees), I am all for the return to work for MOST (not all) staff…
 

we have seen/experienced a massive disruption, or falling in standards from a good few suppliers who ‘work from home’, not reachable until 09.30 or 10am, then again awol from 3pm, or earlier…

If work from home meant WORK from home, I could care less; personal experience has taught me that standards have slipped, no doubt while QOL increases for the ex-desk jockey…

We were open 5 weeks after lockdown - legally - with a skeleton staff, and then ALL 9 back after 9 weeks. With R650k of COVID loans to survive the shut-down, it’s ALL shoulders to the wheel, to survive.

your experience is no doubt different, but working for a large corporate, or a small/medium business, could not be more different, IN MY OPINION.

I disagree with your ‘absolutely clear’ statement, yet respect your right to have an alternative view.

let us know if you change jobs?
chris

 

 

Certainly a lot of truth to your post.

 

We see it with some of our counterparts in industry as well.

 

Dare I say those that were diligent before lockdown work well from home.  Those that "worked the system" before lockdown certainly fell behind working from home ....

 

For our industry a hybrid model certainly has lots of merit, and more and more are going this route.  For now our company is still doing the traditional office hours in office ....

 

[TyronLab]

2 hours ago, Zebra said:

Unpopular, contrarian view coming up; as a small business owner (just 9 employees), I am all for the return to work for MOST (not all) staff…
 

we have seen/experienced a massive disruption, or falling in standards from a good few suppliers who ‘work from home’, not reachable until 09.30 or 10am, then again awol from 3pm, or earlier…

If work from home meant WORK from home, I could care less; personal experience has taught me that standards have slipped, no doubt while QOL increases for the ex-desk jockey…

We were open 5 weeks after lockdown - legally - with a skeleton staff, and then ALL 9 back after 9 weeks. With R650k of COVID loans to survive the shut-down, it’s ALL shoulders to the wheel, to survive.

your experience is no doubt different, but working for a large corporate, or a small/medium business, could not be more different, IN MY OPINION.

I disagree with your ‘absolutely clear’ statement, yet respect your right to have an alternative view.

let us know if you change jobs?
chris

 

Yup, unfortunately very true. As someone that has a relatively flexible job, and whose performance is measured by larger, longer term project successes rather than doing x widgets per y hours for z hours a day, working from home has been awesome and has increased my productivity.

I think that, if anything, WFH has polarized the difference between performers and along-for-the-salary-ers even further. I'd take a firm bet that the same people who are taking advantage of not being policed by office hours would be the same ones spending all of their time at the office on personal jobs, chit chatting and social media anyway. Very much doubt a performer in the office suddenly turns into a schlub at home, and vice versa.

It's also shown the gaps most people in management positions have, where blanket rules are applied to the whole workforce to counteract the one or two bad apples. As is human nature, the overwhelming majority stick to the rules and behave ethically, the doofus minority does doughnuts on the rules with their silencer-less quads holding a brandy and coke blasting De La Rey, resulting in that thing being taken away. That's a failure in being able to effectively manage a person as opposed to a group.

Edited July 20, 2022 by TyronLab

[Sid the Sloth]

9 hours ago, madmarc said:

Ye i really feel for the younger generation trying to get into the system

yep this all sounds rather grim. 

[porqui]

Today's inflation figures was 7,4%

Tomorrow's repo rate increase at least 50 basis points.

Did you get a salary increase yesterday - I work for myself (I think) so no.

Who can afford a new bike ???

 

Both my kid's bought houses a year ago - EINA !!

Must say that when I bought a house many years ago the mortgage rate was double to three times.

 

Edited July 20, 2022 by porqui

[Hairy]

3 hours ago, Zebra said:

Unpopular, contrarian view coming up; as a small business owner (just 9 employees), I am all for the return to work for MOST (not all) staff…
 

we have seen/experienced a massive disruption, or falling in standards from a good few suppliers who ‘work from home’, not reachable until 09.30 or 10am, then again awol from 3pm, or earlier…

If work from home meant WORK from home, I could care less; personal experience has taught me that standards have slipped, no doubt while QOL increases for the ex-desk jockey…

We were open 5 weeks after lockdown - legally - with a skeleton staff, and then ALL 9 back after 9 weeks. With R650k of COVID loans to survive the shut-down, it’s ALL shoulders to the wheel, to survive.

your experience is no doubt different, but working for a large corporate, or a small/medium business, could not be more different, IN MY OPINION.

I disagree with your ‘absolutely clear’ statement, yet respect your right to have an alternative view.

let us know if you change jobs?
chris

 

We are a small design company (That I work for) and with lockdown I am putting in at least 10-12hrs extra a week working from home.

I start earlier, work a little later, take lunch at my desk (Fortunate enough that my wife makes, and brings it to me) and I check in on emails over the weekend.

Outside of these hours I have my own "hustle" that benefits from me being able to work from home, so a win win for me other than not being able to commute by bicycle to town anymore.

It depends on the type of industry and person I recon to judge the success of working from home.

[FA]

Man, I'm 27 and married, I have a little 2 year old daughter and another due in September.

The cost of living is so expensive that I'm strongly considering selling my one and only bike to ensure my family is seen to, which will mean I'd have to give up my favourite sport, my therapy. 

I have an Enduro Hardtail that I absolutely adore. I couldn't afford a full bike so I built it from the frame up over a period of a year and a half. My plan was to always get a full suspension, but the fact that I may have to give up the sport altogether means that's absolutely impossible now. I sometimes feel like MTB is the only thing keeping me sane and losing it will make things so much more difficult. 

It's tough out here, especially for us young people.

 

[PhilipV]

Going back to topic. 

I think the 2nd hand market might be a good indicator of the bike boom. 

I haven't been following it lately, but there was some bikes selling for shockingly high prices. Is this still going on, or has it slowed down. 

Another indicator is events. Once the euphoria of being allowed to go to events again wears off, if times are tight, I think event entries WI take a dip as well. 

[_David_]

7 hours ago, FA said:

It's tough out here, especially for us young people.

As an older guy who have had similar experiences in the past- the only advice I can give you is to hang in there. Bad times like anything else doesn't last forever and it will eventually pass.

[Dexter-morgan]

2 minutes ago, PhilipV said:

Going back to topic. 

I think the 2nd hand market might be a good indicator of the bike boom. 

I haven't been following it lately, but there was some bikes selling for shockingly high prices. Is this still going on, or has it slowed down. 

Another indicator is events. Once the euphoria of being allowed to go to events again wears off, if times are tight, I think event entries WI take a dip as well. 

I feel the same way, also the cost to get to the events with the high fuel price, even just to get to a MTB track to have some fun, we either ride there have a short ride and ride back or ride there in one vehicle.

[Vetplant]

7 hours ago, FA said:

Man, I'm 27 and married, I have a little 2 year old daughter and another due in September.

The cost of living is so expensive that I'm strongly considering selling my one and only bike to ensure my family is seen to, which will mean I'd have to give up my favourite sport, my therapy. 

I have an Enduro Hardtail that I absolutely adore. I couldn't afford a full bike so I built it from the frame up over a period of a year and a half. My plan was to always get a full suspension, but the fact that I may have to give up the sport altogether means that's absolutely impossible now. I sometimes feel like MTB is the only thing keeping me sane and losing it will make things so much more difficult. 

It's tough out here, especially for us young people.

 

 

10 minutes ago, _David_ said:

As an older guy who have had similar experiences in the past- the only advice I can give you is to hang in there. Bad times like anything else doesn't last forever and it will eventually pass.

^I agree with David here^

Also, try not to look at your supposed "peers" and the homes they live in or the cars they drive, you might not know how indebted they truly are or whether Daddy helped them with the purchase. Run your own race, do what is best for you and your family in the long run. If it means you need to downsize your home now, to ensure you don't run into financial bankruptcy later on, take the small pain now instead of the big pain later.

At the end of 2018, just as our 2nd child was born, my wife was on unpaid maternity leave, plus then my employer couldn't pay us out of the blue(haven't seen a cent from them since). I went three months without a salary, I finally got a job with a 30% pay cut. Things were damn tight, we were quickly eating into our safety net of financial reserves. All luxuries were cut, including takeout and restaurant visits with family.

Fast forward to March of this year: my wife got an insane job offer, Permanent WFH with reduced weekly hours. I got a double promotion at work. This all transpired within the same hour on the same day!

I think most people have their own story to tell where things were tough, but they hung on, and they are now in a good position.

Write your own story, with a long-term view.

[Ispeed_V]

22 minutes ago, _David_ said:

As an older guy who have had similar experiences in the past- the only advice I can give you is to hang in there. Bad times like anything else doesn't last forever and it will eventually pass.

Couldn't agree more.

I think a lot of people don't realise that we are coming off one of (if not) the lowest interest rate cycles in years. 

The sad reality is that a lot of people took this as an opportunity to amass credit (yes some didn't have a choice due to Covid) without realising/understanding that the rate will eventually go up to a normalised level. 

[dave303e]

12 hours ago, Zebra said:

Unpopular, contrarian view coming up; as a small business owner (just 9 employees), I am all for the return to work for MOST (not all) staff…
 

we have seen/experienced a massive disruption, or falling in standards from a good few suppliers who ‘work from home’, not reachable until 09.30 or 10am, then again awol from 3pm, or earlier…

If work from home meant WORK from home, I could care less; personal experience has taught me that standards have slipped, no doubt while QOL increases for the ex-desk jockey…

We were open 5 weeks after lockdown - legally - with a skeleton staff, and then ALL 9 back after 9 weeks. With R650k of COVID loans to survive the shut-down, it’s ALL shoulders to the wheel, to survive.

your experience is no doubt different, but working for a large corporate, or a small/medium business, could not be more different, IN MY OPINION.

I disagree with your ‘absolutely clear’ statement, yet respect your right to have an alternative view.

let us know if you change jobs?
chris

 

Look, I 100% get your view as well. There are majority of employees that can't be trusted not to abuse a 3min coffee break in the office, never mind manage themselves at home. It is the reality of dealing with people.

I ran some analytics on the web browsing history on a team of developers, there was as much netflix and youtube abuse pre and post covid. But the true performers didn't miss a deadline or let their work slide. The usual let downs did what they always do, just as you pointed out, at a larger scale with WFH.

What I have seen is that there are controls you can put in place and they are brutal. Obviously you need to become outcome based performance, but we have software that takes a few random screenshots a day, miss a deadline and have them find non work on your screenshots and there are issues.

As for my absolutely clear statement- we had discussions with bosses, and then we moved out of jhb and onto a farm. It is around 110km to sandton now.

Since then I have switched jobs, onboarded 100% WFH with WFH in the contract. It took 6 months for me to go to the office for even a meeting. Consulting also means- if the client thinks you are incompetent and slacking, it takes 1 email for them to request a new resource and there is groot k.... So you are always on your toes.

We also haven't half done the work from home though. Built dedicated offices behind the shed. Generator, satellite internet, comfy desks and chairs, multiple screens, sound insulation. Current office is far more conducive to work than any of my actual office environments I have had.

 

But yes to your point, as an employer I can imagine is is chaos with certain employees. But if they were serious about not ruining a good thing, you wouldn't be wanting them back in the office.

[Hairy]

51 minutes ago, PhilipV said:

Going back to topic. 

I think the 2nd hand market might be a good indicator of the bike boom. 

I haven't been following it lately, but there was some bikes selling for shockingly high prices. Is this still going on, or has it slowed down. 

Another indicator is events. Once the euphoria of being allowed to go to events again wears off, if times are tight, I think event entries WI take a dip as well. 

No idea, recently stopped looking at the classifieds 🙈🙉🙊

[dave303e]

And back to the actual topic while my model is training. 

I traded up a few months ago, the 2nd hand market was strong and I got a trade in far better than I ever expected. Looking at it now- I think it would be a hard sell to get that trade in today...

 

2nd hand cars are also a big joke, heard of people making profits selling newish hilux's earlier this year.

[mecheng89]

16 hours ago, FondTF2 said:

As mentioned, I really feel for the youngsters of today.

Back in the mid 90's, I bought my first property (a 60m/sqr1 bed garden apartment) in Morningside, Sandton for R155 000. (less than a high end bike now days). Advice given by my folks was to look for the worst house in the best area as you can always improve on the property and not the area.

Those same apartments are now selling for over R1million.

Not many youngsters in their mid 20's can afford a bond in excess of R1 million which makes it extremely difficult to break into the property market.

 

I hope you've held on to that property.

[PhilipV]

10 minutes ago, dave303e said:

And back to the actual topic while my model is training. 

I traded up a few months ago, the 2nd hand market was strong and I got a trade in far better than I ever expected. Looking at it now- I think it would be a hard sell to get that trade in today...

 

2nd hand cars are also a big joke, heard of people making profits selling newish hilux's earlier this year.

Toyota has always had good resale, but when their factory flooded it caused a massive backlog. 

Now is a good time to get out of a Toyota and into another brand. 

 

 

Now that I rethink my hypothesis, we might be seeing a lot of people who would have bought a new bike rather  buy a second hand bike.