Personally, as a non furloughed person, the people who piss me off most are the furloughed people sharing memes saying 'you are being paid to sit on your arse, why can't people just do it' memes. Totally forgetting that lots of us are not just sitting on our arse and a lot of people are having to go out to work. But, the ones I know who do that, are people I know and generally don't really think about stuff before they share or generally have empty for other positions. I can imagine even furloughed staff get annoyed at those memes.
I do think some furloughed people are directing their annoyance in the wrong direction. But that really depends on how the people they know who are furloughed are acting. Of course some non furloughed will just be dicks and it doesn't matter the situation, they will be dicks to furloughed people.
Some furloughed people think that that non furloughed people don't have lots of the same worries. Non furlughed people are also worried about their companies closing, redundancies etc. Again, some furloughed people are dicks and taking the piss out those left working or assuming those not furloughed have safe jobs, so no worries and direct their annoyance at them.
For example, 30% of our work force came back this week. On Friday 4% of those coming back decided to tell us then they were shielding. They didnt tell us before or during furlough as they were instructed to do (shielding people will remain on furlough for as long as the scheme is going, then we will look at paying them to remain shielding if still needed). We needed to know who was shielding, who had symptoms etc so we could plan properly when we came back. Not one of the people who dropped in that they were shielding on Friday had any proof that they actually were. Never mentioned health problems as part of their yearly physical, no shielding letter etc. All those people have been told they need to return.
But it took alot of work between H&s and HR, who are already flat out, to resolve. Plus causing more issues for their own managers and other staff. At a time when people really didn't need piss takers making their jobs harder.
The genuine people who are shielding, have let us know before then. Like the woman on my team who is furloughed but received a letter last week. Just messaged me to tell me and sent photos of the letter. We knew she may get that letter and surprised she hadn't had one already, because she had already told us about her condition.
We also had people tell us their elderly parents had moved in and needed shielding. 2 of these had already had bereavement leave for both parents, in the past 2 years.
Not all furloughed people are angry at their colleagues. And not all furloughed people are concerned about money or want to get back to work and not enjoying it.
Someone on my team wants to be the last to come back. Her and her partner bought a house at the end of last year. Both earning 80% but feel better off, as less out going costs and they are doing all the work done in the house they wanted to do but didn't have much time for. She is also distancing studying so doing that. I have some desperate to come back.
There people on all sides of this. All feel slightly different. I am stressed beyond belief. But I would still rather be working.
Threads like this only increase the divide by declaring that its non furloughed staff that should be grateful and have no worries and and acting unreasonably. And positioning all furloughed staff as people sat at home worrying, wanting to get back and generally suffering.