There were 500 attacks on undersea energy in Europe in 2024--what does that mean for offshore wind? SunTrain may be powering Denver in the near future. And the latest workplace trend, "Coffee Badging", may not be the best plan for new employees.
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Allen Hall: Coffee badging hits the workplace, NATO addresses offshore wind security, and a wild proposal to move solar power by train. Plus, NextEra's massive Montana wind project powers up.
You're listening to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, brought to you by BuildTurbines.
com. Learn, train, and be a part of the clean energy revolution. Visit BuildTurbines. com today. Now here's your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, Phil Totaro, and Rosemary Barnes.
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Phil Totaro: com? Allen, you're right. We have a total of 32, uh, or participants and speakers from a total of 32 different companies at this point, registrations today, uh, that I haven't even checked in yet.
So, it's, uh, you know, tickets are going like hotcakes at this point, and we are actually capacity limited at this facility, so get yours today, uh, if you want to be part of this event.
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Allen Hall: There's a new workplace trend called coffee badging and companies are pushing for return to office and employees are doing what this new thing is called coffee badging, and what that means is that you walk into the office, check in, get yourself a cup of coffee. You hang out, chit chat. And then you go back home.
And employers obviously know about this, but they're not really doing too much about it at the minute. It does meet minimum office requirements. So a lot of large companies say that counts as being in the office. But the demographics for this are really interesting, Joel. Uh, if you look at who is actually doing the coffee badging, mostly men, like 60, 40 men to women are doing this practice and it also is related to age.
Uh, it looks like Gen X and Gen Z are the ones who are most active in this coffee badging scenario. And to me, this is a little weird because it's got to be the most expensive cup of coffee you can get, right?
Joel Saxum: So a big thing here that's not being taken into consideration in any of these conversations. We talked a little bit about this return to work last week.
Is the cost of it, right? So in this article, we're talking about, you know, a hybrid worker, they're spending an average of 50, 50 or so a day to commute into the office. So, I mean, that, that adds up, right? 400, 500 a month for a hybrid worker, or even a thousand dollars for someone full time. And, and it's something that I, it was taken into, taken into consideration, you know, or not taken into consideration before when we never, not that many people were working remotely.
But now when people are starting to go back and then see that cost, that's a lot of money. I mean, for a lot of people, that's a big percentage of salary. So I think I align right with you, Allen, saying this is a really, really expensive cup of coffee. Cause if it's going to be 50 to go in and out, that's.
Plus your coffee. That's 50 bucks for your coffee.
Allen Hall: Rosemary, you say Australian coffee is really good. So it's probably worth going into the office for, is this a trend in Australia too?
Rosemary Barnes: Um, I don't know. I work for myself primarily. I do have an office, um, for the startup that I work for and I go in there.
Once a week or so. They've got terrible coffee in, in there. Um, yeah, but I mean, I actually, I think maybe I'm, although you said, right, that this is a gen X and Z thing, missing out millennials in the middle, gen Y.
Allen Hall: Millennials are also highly involved in this.
Rosemary Barnes: Okay. Cause I'm a millennial and, um, I actually miss the office quite a lot because, uh, I don't know.
I, um, I think when you're trying to work. Creatively, like, you know, to me, engineering is a creative, creative discipline, which, you know, a lot of people might be surprised to learn. But, um, I really gained a lot from, um, coffee, chit chat, and talking in the canteen when I used to work in Denmark, there was a canteen and everyone had lunch together every day away from the computer.
And, um, yeah, like you learn about what else is going on in the company. You learn about, you know, Oh, Hey, this guy worked on something similar 15 years ago, and you would never have known except for that you ran into him and, Um, he overheard you talking about something that he knew about and Yeah. So I, I kind of actually think that all that is incredibly valuable.
Allen Hall: Was this similar to the mouse moving devices that have become popular? I've got hit with a lot of ads over the Christmas holidays for mouse movers. And I thought, really, is this something? But evidently a large number of people that work from home have. Little mouse movers just look like they're active at the desk.
Rosemary Barnes: Aren't managers tracking the output? Like a mouse mover, like are there really managers who are like, it's super important that you're moving your mouse eight hours every day and they don't actually care if you get any work done or not. I just find this so. Crazy that anybody manages like
Phil Totaro: that. On my end, I mean, I said this last week already, like, but we're, you know, my company is, you know, half consultancy, half, you know, software as a service, uh, kind of development platform.
And we have the ability for, for myself and all the contract employees to work wherever everybody wants to. Um, so at the end of the day, people are, you Engaged in a job, especially like a back office, you know, white collar, typically, uh, type of job, like, you don't have to actually be in the office. I agree with Rosie that you do lose a lot when you're not there, and it's maybe important for a younger generation to do it, but I'm not surprised that people, I am Gen X, I'm not surprised people in my generation and, and above are You know, doing this because it just, there's a point at which being in the office is more consuming than the ability that you have when working remotely to increase your productivity.
Um, because you're not always being bothered by somebody that wants, you know, an answer for, for two minutes of your time or this, that, whatever. Um, so it's, it's, there needs to be a balance though. And at the end of the day, like I said last week, you know, people. need to get their job done or they get fired one way or the other.
So mouse movers and all this other coffee badging, I mean, whatever. Like, as long as you get your job done and you're helping the company achieve the goals and objectives that are important here, then whatever it takes.
Joel Saxum: As busy wind energy professionals, staying informed is crucial. And let's face it, difficult.
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