Remote workers are moving to Utah, with or without Gov. Cox's blessing. 

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One of the grandest changes brought about by COVID is that we no longer need to work from an office. In the three years now since COVID first aligned against persons living their full lives, I've spent perhaps a month or two of cumulative time inside our Salt Lake City office.

Frankly, I do miss it—but not so much that I'm willing to leave home and forgo an exciting Food Network Challenge on my TV.

To be sure, co-workers not mingling has a negative effect on a company. In the old days, the alpha personalities on our sales staff were always looking to beat the beta personalities to the punch with more calls, appointments and closed sales. It wasn't beyond those hungry reps to swipe and claim accounts right from under the noses of less aggressive reps. That no longer happens.

Also, in those olden days, the editorial staff might have tossed story ideas off each other, tipped each other off about potential scandals, helped each other with insights or suggested an alternate adjective here and there. The keener of our editors kept their eyes out to make sure no one else was crawling into one of their story spaces. That no longer happens, either, at least not in real time.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss that. It was a grand duty to check in with employees, hammer a keyboard on occasion and then saunter off to Port O'Call for drinking and smoking sessions with fellow media types that lasted well into the night. It can be said that some of us did our best work behind the bottom of a gin and tonic.

I've tried that in recent years, but I never liked drinking with strangers. Without a gang, it's simply not the same.

We're all scattered. There are City Weekly employees I have seen only once or twice in three years. I suppose if we sold sandwiches or pieces of cloth, many of us would have to arrive at our daily workspace to prepare, present and sell our wares. But we don't. We can sit at home—or in a coffee shop, tavern or public park—and hack away at our keyboards until our work is done, then send our work off to other unseen employees who handle it next and who pass it on again until that work appears in print and online.

The best part is we don't even have to be in our own homes to do that. In this past year, City Weekly was put together by employees working remotely from points all over the globe, from inside national parks and from the outside of sports stadiums. In that regard, working "from home" is a major advantage for many American workers. Unless that worker is bound by duties like racking parts inside a factory, or dispensing vaccines in a medical care facility, or being obligated to perform outdoor labors such as pulling onions or painting walls, a growing number of Americans can work from anywhere they choose.

This is creating a problem, though, of a different sort. Some of our states are experiencing negative net-migration as former residents high-tail it out to work from home without needing to live next to the glass office tower. California has famously lost hundreds of thousands of residents in these past years, notably more than 340,000 in the most recent year of record-keeping.

A week ago, Gov. Spencer Cox made the news by saying Californians should not look to find better lives in Utah and that California should do its part by cutting taxes and regulations. This is something Cox knows about, because Utahns flee taxes and regulations by moving to Mesquite, Nevada. Still, it was a great national soundbite from a conservative Republican governor.

Trouble is, that's hardly the reason so many people are leaving the Golden State, especially when weighed against the fact that Utah isn't even in the Top 10 states where outgoing Californians choose to live—Arizona and Texas got over 50,0000 new residents via California in that same year, for example, while Utah netted under 20,000.

That's still a lot. For example, Bluffdale, Utah, has been around for more than 150 years and has fewer residents—just over 17,000—than moved here from California in just one year. To boot, Bluffdale had the head start of boarding polygamists.

I don't think, when all things are considered, that Californians are seeking looser regulations (wait till they learn about how we regulate and treat the transgender community) when they decide upon where to move. Nor are they deciding to bear lower taxes, especially when one finds that certain pockets of Utahns—like our notable sinners—pay taxes disproportionate to the general populace.

No, Californians are moving here for the same reason everyone else came here: to catch the last fish, to run the first virgin snow, to catch a Bryce Canyon sunrise. They can work for their California employers while watching the sun set over or through the smoggy glaze that has become our ugliest feature.

Utah doesn't know it yet, but there are already too many people living in Utah—our air is worse than Los Angeles', and we don't even have enough water for our cows, let alone to whet the thirst of parched liberals. Californians survived COVID by being among the best at protecting themselves and their neighbors. They trusted the science that Utahns by and large don't believe in. They've earned the right to move.

So, let's agree with Spencer Cox—but for different reasons. Stay home, 49ers! Unless you're bringing some marijuana seeds, that is, because Utah taxed and regulated much of that industry into the ground already. Next up: Tech.

Send comments to john@cityweekly.net