COTC - 8 Apr 2026 - Hagerty returning to in-office work

Speaker 0: Good morning, Northern Michigan. This is your cup of Traverse City for the 04/08/2026, and I do have my coffee here in my home office studio. That's important due to the story I'm working on, from Interlochen Public Radio, Hagerty. It's a classic car insurance company for those that don't live around here. They are big national brand in the classic car and boat insurance world and do a lot of car related things, but their big headquarters is in Downtown Traverse City.

They have a pretty large building. They're between Cass and Union, kinda around where the Union Street Dam is was. I don't know the status of that dam anymore. But, anyway, they're they're working on it. Whatever is going on.

But, they're bringing back their people, to downtown. Ever since COVID, they've been doing, remote work or allowing their employees to do remote work for the jobs that, can do that. You know, there's, you know, some people at the office, obviously, but they're bringing back about 200 workers. It's gonna be a hybrid schedule, where they work Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in the office, and then Monday and Friday from home. And I'm sure there's some people there that are not happy about that, but I'm gonna guess that that, you know, the majority of them, they're okay with it.

I I would hope. I don't know. I know a few people that work over there. I haven't really talked to them. All the management staff have returned, I think a month ago or so, officially.

Although probably a lot of them worked at the office a lot anyway but, yeah, it's gonna be a little busier downtown and that's pretty good news for the bars and restaurants around Hagerty headquarters So, yeah. That's, that's good. I've been working remote since probably 2008, 2009, at least part of the time. 2011, I, pretty much full time. And, now my employer doesn't even have an office.

Of course, the office was in Columbus, so I never really had to work there. So but, we got rid of that office a couple years ago. So even the people in Columbus actually, there's only, I think, one left, over at Blueberry. But, but yeah. So, you know, I I don't know.

You know, if if they said, hey. You know, we're gonna open an office. You gotta come into the office. Blah blah blah. I don't know.

I I kinda like my my lifestyle at home. For those of you that don't know, I built an office studio in my backyard in 2020. That's what I did during COVID. And, you know, so I got a little building out here. Some people call it a shed.

I think it's a little more substantial than that, but not much. And it's great. You know, I got a 35 foot commute, even when it's really snowy. I, you know, I could shovel my way out here and have a lot. But, you know, so I I do go to the office, but it's 35 feet out my back door.

So that is a lot nicer. And speaking of a 35 foot outdoor commute, what's going on outside? Today, it says a chance of snow showers before noon and then a chance of rain showers between noon and two. Cloudy then gradually becoming mostly sunny with a high near 53. So south wind 10 to 15 miles per hour with gust as high as 30.

Chance precipitation is 50%. Tonight, rain at mainly between eleven and 5AM, low around 40 ones. Stay quite warm. Good. My big snow pile on my front yard is shrinking quickly.

South wind around 15 miles per hour with gusts as high as 40. Chance precipitation is 90%. New precipitation amounts between a quarter and a half an inch possible. It's pretty substantial in rain world. Tomorrow, mostly cloudy through midmorning, then gradual clearing with high near 47 west wind 10 to 15 miles per hour with gusts as high as 30.

So all in all not too bad. I don't like the word snow in the forecast but, again, it's gonna be that three foot snow, three feet between the snowflakes. So I don't think it'll be substantial. And, of course, no commute no accumulation is expected. So have a great day.

We'll catch you tomorrow.