Colleagues ignored WFH advice now stranded in heatwave - karma.

[Loveaghost]

I work in a big office in central London. Everyone lives in lots of different places obviously, but almost everyone is a significant train/ tube ride away.

Due to the heatwave our work told us to WFH where possible. But my most senior manager loves a bit of presenteeism. Hence a number of people (ie all the suck arses) came in. And, then proceeded to post/ message incessantly on internal comms demonstrating that they were in the office. Highly tiresome presenteeism considering ALL our calls were moved to Teams on our clients’ insistence.

Fast forward a few hours and ALL the tubes are fucked. As are almost all the trains. No-one can get home and they’re panicking at facing down 2-3hr bus journeys in 39 degree heat.

Serves them right for travelling against the advice of the health agency, government, TFL and the company. There was a do not travel unless essential instruction.

Of course, senior boss is alright. He got a company cab home…

There’s loads of posters on Mumsnet who are jealous if people who are able to WFH. You can guarantee there will be a fair few of them on these sorts of posts.

Oh why let detail like that get in the way of gleeful enjoyment of people suffering

Oh it sucks to be a suck arse! This thread made me chuckle 🤭

I know exactly what you mean OP. As do all the poster’s feigning offence!

Very naughty, you’re right! But on the other hand, I’m honest. I’ve seen so many people diss their bosses and then are all creepy to their faces. Smile sweetly, titter at their stupid jokes, say yes to whatever. You get the truth from me!

@LoveaghostSeriously OP, you can’t win with the pearl clutching anti WFH crowd.

Why are you being nasty

I had to be in, there were plans already made. It was pretty hard given tehre were no trains, but not terrible. Guess I'm used to working really long hours.

Think you need to get a life. I bet they knew you wouldn’t be there so was probably a welcome break for them too good to miss.

You’re a committed Christian and loves seeing “arse lickers” suffer

oh dear.

I was strong armed to buy tickets and stay overnight during the red alert. Two days after I'd forked out for my tickets etc, work sud stay at home, so my director backed down. Luckily the hotel allowed me to change the date of arrival and both of my train journeys were cancelled so I have applied for refunds. This on top of tube strikes so not being able to get to the office once in London x2 and no train ticket refunds and 3 weeks of train madness - 2 fires cancelled all trains and Lord knows what = over 1.5 hour delay it's made me resent working in London. I pay for my own travel and accomodation because I'm working inside the most unfair tax rule around, IR35. I am supposed to be in London 3 days a week, but I normally aim for 2.

Anyways, I must have lost £600 already due to strikes and crappy train journeys. So, I cannot find it in myself to laugh at people caught up in the shit show, it's horrible.

YABU.

I was in London yesterday and had to use the tube to get to the airport. It took me 2 hours to do a 20 minute journey and I didn’t think I was going to make it.
The heat in the underground was actually dangerous.
I had no other way, we tried so many times to get a taxi and could not get one, I could not walk in the sun so had to just keep going.
It was horrendous.
The seats were hot, the bars to hold on to were hot. I was so anxious it was going to break down and we would get stuck on a tunnel. I was glad to get out alive.

I don’t know how Londoners cope with that heat. I would not wish that on anyone and I feel very sorry for your colleagues today.

You are entitled to enjoy a little schadenfreude no matter what anyone else says 😂

The irony of this thread being full of people commenting on how nasty OP is by being incredibly nasty to OP.

OP you should have put "lighthearted" in the title 🤣 I mean I'm assuming you are being lighthearted! 😄 I'm laughing so much at all these deadly serious replies

Tbf I’d I was in their position I’d just say fuck it, get a pack of fags, get some beers in and call in sick tomorrow with some made up heat related diseases 😂🤞🙄

You sound very smug and nasty!

Not everyone can work from home.

Danger to life - refers to people who cannot regulate their body temperature well - so the very young, very old and people with certain medical conditions that this heat makes worse.

Agree that people shouldn't travel when advised not to BUT as all your colleagues are so wealthy I’m sure they could all afford a taxi home.

One thing I would love to know is whether they WFH today @Loveaghost or if they made that journey again today just to ‘suck up’…

Surely the big boss who decided he wanted to be present in the office and then used company funds to get home shouldnt be abusing the companies money this way?? Not your problem I know, just an observation!!

Although I don’t think OP will be back. Don’t think she was expecting so many people to hand her her arse on a plate 🤣

This is sort of derailing the thread but…. I read in the papers this week that councils have the powers to make home owners remove legal and within regulations aircon units if they deem the home owners haven’t tried all other methods first e.g. ceiling fans etc. I’m reading only 3% of British homes currently have air con and the Government wants it to stay that way. Is it any wonder people want to work in a cool office environment? Surely it’s more of a danger to life in a boxy south facing house or flat where you can’t open the windows for various reasons.

Source? As they’ll be more to this. As is usually the case

Oh stop. That's not the case at all. You read that stupid GB news propaganda piece which was a total mistatement of the truth

Yes. It's a shitty GB news article with an inflammatory headline then half way through the article when GB news have to concede that's not the case at all.

Yes thought so

I always am a little 🤔 when a poster refers to an article but doesn’t provide a source

There's a little bunch of Tommy Robinson wannabes crawling all over the "it's too hot" Mumsnet threads posting about this "news"

OK so I thought I’d better try to find said article - it was the Financial Times - From 28th May, sorry a link does not work and I did get the 3% wrong it says less than 5%.
As I can’t link (got a breach of copyright message) here’s the jist of the article:

‘Fewer than 5 per cent of UK homes have air conditioning, and developers say only a small proportion of new homes are being built with it. The Conservative Party has blamed national building regulations from 2021, which prioritise passive cooling strategies, such as insulating walls and locating windows to maximise ventilation. The regulations, devised under the then housing secretary Robert Jenrick, who has since defected to Reform UK, made it difficult for developers to install air conditioners, forcing them to exhaust other measures first.’

My actual point was it’s no wonder people don’t want to work from home and is home air conditioning something that needs reconsidering.