Work not taking red alert seriously

[Founderflower]

Why are some people not taking the red weather warning seriously? Where I am it’s 39 degrees on Wed/ Thur but ‘feels like’ 42 according to BBC.

At work they’re expecting everyone in - the office is air conditioned, so fine, but we’re central London so everyone needs to schlep in on public transport.

Red means a danger to life and not just for vulnerable people. Some people who are healthy will die because of the weather. There’s warnings of power outages and transport failures. So what happens if we get stuck on a broken down underground train?

I KNOW other countries see these temps regularly. But they are prepared for dealing with it. England is not and it fucks up. I don’t want a heart attack from sitting in 48 degree heat on a train. I’m really stressed out!

If it were a red warning around severe wind or rain or flooding they wouldn’t be telling everyone to come in! So why is heat seen differently?

Have you ever been on the Tube in summer? It's sweltering. Some of the newer trains are air conditioned, but that's not going to help if they break down.

Aus here. On extremely hot days, a lot will leave earlier in the morning,
start work early, and finish early and avoid peak hour.

totally

I worked in Aus for a while, and we had weeks of it. The only concessions were that men could wear shorts with long socks into work.

It’s because of fuckwits like some posters here that this is even an issue.

Organisations must be forced to take their duty of care more seriously. The HSe needs to introduce a max safe working limit. Then the race to the bottom and reminiscing about 1976 will be as pointless as it is already irrelevant.

I'm retired now, and was working mostly from home, but if I was still working I'd be minded to go into the office for the next couple of days because the building has fantastic air con in all but a couple of rooms.

I think it's high time that H&S at work regs had a maximum temperature as well as a minimum one.

Surely, the Employers' duty of care doesn't extend to the journey in?

I'm getting on for 60 and we did not have major heatwaves like this years ago. Even the often quoted "76" never went above 35. I was reading a BBC article about it yesterday. They had an interesting global map showing just how much hotter the planet has become.

I wfh and have air con so I have no skin in the game. But the tube is horrific in hot weather. Several degrees hotter than the actual temperature so if the actual temp is close to 40, the tube will be 45+.

I used to refuse to go in on snow days because I got caught out once where all the trains/buses were cancelled that evening. No taxi's to be found. I had to walk home in a blizzard and I honestly thought at one point I was going to just collapse.

Employers don't care about their workers, so the workers have to care about themselves.

Interesting thing I learnt the other day! But actually British heat is worst than hot countries.

1. the humidity being high so real feel is more. In countries where there is high temps and high humidity it’s more a tropical season and it pours it down multiple times a day. In dry countries the heat is ok because you can sweat.
2. Not consistent - last week it was 15, early this week 20s. To suddenly go to 38 is insane!
3. 38 is the same temp as half of africa. Yet Africa has between 7 and 11 hours of daylight not 16! So we actually heat more. Continuously. On brick buildings designed to hold heat. And we don’t have time to cool down properly at night.

So basically it’s awful. People from hot countries even say it is worst here than their home countries and that’s when they are actually acclimatised to it.

You do realise people in hot countries are acclimatised to it, right? I know a few people who've lived in Australia and moved back to the UK and it took them a while to adjust both to moving there and then back here.

Its a shame some businesses are like this, Ive just told my team to go and finish the day at home and WFH the rest of the week as we'll all be more productive if we're not knackered and sweating our balls off.

Of course it does, which is why we don't expect people to drive to work in tornadoes

I think if you can wfh then a red weather warning is a very good reason to do so. Met Office do not issue them lightly and any responsible employer would take them into consideration. Unfortunately I need to be in, so will be heading into central London and hoping for the best with the trains 😬.

You’re peddling misinformation and that’s dangerous. The Met Office red weather warning specifically calls out that the threat to life warning applies to ALL people not just vulnerable. Please don’t state things as fact when you’re not correct. Someone might die because of it.

Yep 25c midweek but today it’s about 19c and showery.

We've not needed it in the UK until the last few years. Excess heat has rarely been a problem.

Even in the hot summer of '76, the heat in the office I worked in was easily mitigated by keeping the blinds down and using desk fans.

Lol, I've lived in the UK and Nigeria. The heat was far worse and harder to deal with in Nigeria, acclimatised or not.

OP just to say i think your concerns are completely legitimate.

I own a business in the north. It’s not going to get as hot here but we are closing our offices to keep our employees safe. The best way for employers to help employees manage the heat in the UK is to minimise transit. I am amazed that your bosses are happy for you all to travel in on the underground. I’d be horrified.

We need to rethink how we deal with extreme temperatures in this country because they are going to keep coming and we can’t grind to a halt every time. But that’s not going to happen before tomorrow so the priority should be health.

People in 'hot countries don't cope they get heatstroke jjust like all humans.

I was in greece last summer and its the hottest they have ever known it - the olive crops are dying, people can't cope at all.

People are unable to work in India now its so hot.

People have always avoided working or being out in the midday sun in hot countries

i can't cope with the stupidity of this constant line that is trotted out

where do people think the idea of a siesta comes from? it's literally a tradition of resting indoors in the peace and cool during the hottest part of the day - mediterranean cultures are built around people being indoors - then socialising/ coming out in the evning - its why they eat later than us.

however, these countries are now driven by capitalism so have lost their perfectly useful traditions as well sadly.

Some of these replies are surely jokes! Why take the risk if you can do your job from home? My sensible CEO has told all 600 of us to work from home or wherever feels sensible. It's a shame others don't have as much sense.

We have to adapt and get used to it being hotter because this is going to become the norm.
One of my twat neighbours says he's not bothered about climate change as he'll be long dead before it gets that bad. He's in his early 60's and has two very young grandchildren who he raves about but obviously doesn't give a shit that the future world is going to be very different to now. Climate, infrastructure, society all going down the pan and his grandkids will be living with it.

My family are in eastern europe in a country with very hot summers. It's absolutely hideous there in summer - people don't go out at all during the day unless its to go near water and lie under a tree.

Why would the modern office world be in any way justified by the fact that people in hot countries have hot weather too?

‘Only mad dogs, Englishmen and Joan from Mumsnet go out in the midday sun’

They will have an easier day if fewer people are out and about in temperatures higher than body heat.

You’ve clearly never been on the underground. It’s bloody boiling in March. Having been on a broken down tube in summer, I can confirm people were vomiting and passing out. It’s awful.