Mayor Jacob Frey quips that choosing remote work over office makes you a 'loser'
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has come under scrutiny for a quip made during a speech Wednesday that suggests people are "losers" if they choose to work from home.
Frey was speaking in front of a packed house at the Minneapolis Downtown Council annual meeting at The Armory when he made the following comment, citing an unnamed "study."
"I don't know if you saw this study the other day, but what this study clearly shows, is when people have the ability to come downtown to an office and don't, when they stay home, sitting on their couch with their nasty cat blanket diddling on their laptop ... if they do that for a few months, you become a loser! It's a study. We're not losers, are we?"
He then proceeds to ask members of the crowd he knows by name if they're losers, before continuing: "No we're winners, we're resilient, we're tough we're strong, we're innovative, we rise to the challenge, we get knocked down seven times and we get back up eight, that's who we are as a city."
You can watch his comments here courtesy of FOX 9 at around the 4-minute mark.
The mayor has been eager to hasten the return to office settings as the Twin Cities recovers from the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, which saw a major shift to work-from-home, with many businesses retaining elements of remote or hybrid work since then.
His remarks Wednesday come after a December interview he gave to the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal in which he lamented the impact remote work has had on downtown, which included the comment: "It’s easy to forget all the things that you love about downtown when you've been sitting on your couch for the last two years watching Netflix."
He continued to say people don't want to come back to work in person "as much as he hoped," while acknowledging that the future of office work in central business districts has been irrevocably changed by the pandemic.
"Come back.' That's what I'm saying. That's my job. It’s the best thing for Minneapolis, it’s the best thing for downtown," he said.
Some Minnesota-based businesses, such as Xcel Energy and Target, have recently asked for employees to return to the office for at least part of the week, but the downtown workforce remains much lower than pre-pandemic.
The Minneapolis Downtown Council's latest figures showing only 65% of workers have returned to offices "in some capacity each week."
Frey's comments about working-from-home making you a "loser" attracted fairly swift condemnation on social media.
Andrea Yoch, a freelance marketing professional who is also the chair and co-founder of Minnesota Aurora FC, commented: "I was in the crowd and have to admit that as someone who works for themself and mostly from home, didn't love it. I come downtown plenty."
Laura Mitchell, the board president of Our Streets Minneapolis (which has had recent turbulence with the City of Minneapolis), commented: "I wish MORE families (and people) had access to flexible work arrangements, not LESS.
"My family’s quality of life would take a huge hit if I didn’t have the privilege of a remote job."
Another Twitter user commented: "I lost $20 because I paid for parking and lunch today instead of staying home and diddling on my laptop."
