To think there is a divide forming between furloughed and non furloughed workers

[FuckingFu]

I've heard so many people talking about how they are jealous of their furloughed colleagues. I've a friend who is furious because her company is making up the 20% and so her colleagues are 'sat at home doing nothing' and getting full pay whilst she's still working.

Whilst I do understand the jealousy and even frustration, I really am starting to hate the way it's being spoken about.

There seems to be a lot of talk about 'they'. They are sitting at home doing nothing, we'll be paying higher tax to cover their wages as if furloughed employees are some form sort of seperate, less superior group and a burden on the rest of us.

Personally, whilst I understand those feelings, I have had to say to myself well what would I prefer? I don't want my colleagues, friends and family being made redundant if that can be avoided. And if my company can afford to top up wages to 100% then good, I don't want people suffering financial hardship when it's unnecessary just so I don't have to feel jealous about it.

I want to say to my friend does she not realise that it could have been (and still could be) her being furloughed and not the person at the next desk over. This is something completely out of people's control, no one wants this (perhaps a minority are okay with being furloughed) but certainly no one chose it.

It's as if people think furloughed staff are all lazy bums who want to sit about and have everyone else fork out higher tax to cover them.

I don't want to pay higher tax either but if the alternative is thousands of unnecessary redundancies then what choice do we have.

Just seems to be a very them and us situation going on.

tonemeth ah, interesting, thank you. Way my place worded it, sounded like it was a requirement of the scheme. Did say we could do unpaid work though

Because furlough means you are not working. That is what the word means.

In this context it means you're not working on that particular job. People with two jobs can be furloughed on one and not the other. They're still furloughed from that one job.

I cant get annoyed with it. There are jobs needing done like bloody fruit picking and supermarkets and the like. There needs to be an incentive to do these. No one will work for free and they shouldnt have to.

I’m jealous of those furloughed and those still working. I’m self employed, my business is going down the pan and I’ve not seen any financial help yet.

I'm WFH full time and parenting/schooling 2 dc. I would LOVE to be furloughed. Instead My work is doubled. I'm doing a crappy job at working, parenting and schooling. Not to mention daily exercise. So feel like I'm failing all round. But of course I am grateful to have a good job still and to be paid. But there is this assumption we are all having all this free time - I have very little. And Of course i am very concerned for us as a society about many thinks including how this is all going to be paid for.

I don't blame those who are furloughed and I am all for people being financially supported. I would also support universal basic income and moving towards a social democratic model of society. but it sure is a huge cauldron of conflicting thoughts & emotions I'm experiencing daily at the moment.

I don't resent anyone
I just would like to see the self employed being treated fairly

Comparison is the thief of joy. We're all better off than those in ICU.

This

People haven’t been furloughed by choice, I think their colleagues need to remember that.

The furloughed staff in my company are the ones most at risk to be redundant.

Business is going to be very slow to pick up again. The government have said they’re paying until end of June but I can’t see our business recovering until at least next year.

The govt can’t afford to keep this going for more than half a year. Depression is coming.

Of course people are going to feel resentful if their work has doubled and colleagues are sat at home, not working, on the same money. I am not sure why it posters are so berated for feeling such. They are not necessarily saying those on furlough have it easy, but doing the work of 2/3/4 people is no fun.

However there does seem to be an overriding thought that if you are not frontline then you are doing nothing.

That’s the kind of society we’ve been actively building for the last ten years, too concerned with what everyone else is doing and feart someone is getting something we’re not.

It hadn’t even occurred to me to be jealous of any furloughed colleagues. I hope they’re enjoying the hell out of it.

I got really angry with the radio yesterday. This jolly woman was laughing that if you haven't started a new hobby or business in April 2020, you never will because there has never been a better time.

Yep this gets on my tits too.

glad i'm working, though after a hard day not entirely happy about volunteers jumping me in the supermarket queue. especially when i'm tiered and know i have a raft of other jobs to do when i get home.

My employers fuloughed us at the beginning of April on full pay. We've now all had e-mails saying that as from Wednesday that will drop to 80% until the end of June at the latest, by which time the company will "review the situation regarding restructuring and the ability to keep the company going with the continued level of staffing". So 8 weeks of 4 days pay (£700 lost in 2 months) and possibly no job at the end of it. If anybody working would like to swap their position for mine over the next 2 months feel free.

I'm furloughed on 100% for the time being. Yes, it is very strange to know my colleague is still working (2 out of 10 are) although from home and tbh, not with that much to do.
I fully expect to be made redundant. I work in Football and this will be last thing that gets back to normal (full stadiums) as I am fan facing, so even behind closed doors games will not require me to market or 'engage' anything. I would go to work every day if I could, although if I was, and was made redunfdant anyway..
At the end of the day it is all literally unprecedented. Am sure some people are totally taking advantage, but it's not the majority, nobody is choosing any of this.

I’m jealous of those furloughed and those still working

Me too. I haven't had a permanent job since being made redundant 2 years ago, just a series of temporary contracts. Also a lot of people round here on zero hours contracts so also not entitled to any furlough, just the meagre UC.

I feel envious of my colleagues on full pay, checking emails once and then sunbathing/chilling all day for weeks, while my job is busier than ever (in addition to educating kids and doing all wifework while DH claims to be even busier with work).

They are not furloughed, they are on full public sector pay and their jobs are secure.

It's ridiculous if this is happening. I can't say as I've noticed, but believe people on here that it is.
Such a shame society is the way it is and not supportive of others, too much time? jealous because they perceive them as better than themselves? It doesn't do to compare to others, why make yourself miserable?

About two third of my company are furloughed. I’m working, partly because I’m the only one who operates payroll

Who was furloughed depended on the job they did. So the manager in charge of all the work we do in public services was kept on but the manager in charge of the work in retail and offices was furloughed.

Similarly the engineers who carry out this work or not were furloughed according as to which types of jobs they normally do.

Comefromaway is that not the fairest way? In essence you furlough jobs not staff? I know its slightly more complicated than that, but for some organisations it will be the only way they can do it.

I've been furloughed and am receiving 80% of my pay - I also had to agree that when I can finally go back to work, I may have to choose between working at a location much further away (which I won't be able to afford to do due to my already reduced hours due to my cancer) or resigning - it's not a choice I relish but I had to agree with it on my furlough agreement or be made redundant.

Being on furlough isn't fun and at times has been very emotionally hard (and that's before I receive my first reduced pay packet and work out how the hell I'm going to afford bills and mortgage payments and praying I don't have to apply for payment holidays.
It also doesn't mean we're lazy - I keep myself busy each day and keep to a routine but it's mind-numbing at times and on top of that, I'm genuinely worried about my friends and colleagues health and safety who are still working as key workers.

I’m working from home full time whilst also looking after/home schooling a five year old. At the moment I’m coping by doing as much work and housework as possible at night when he’s in bed. I’m exhausted, but at the start of all this when (by councidence) my son was at his dads and I wasn’t set up to wfh I was so so desperate to have my son back with me and was sooo relieved when my it department were able to sort out everything I needed to start working from home. At least working brings a sense of normality and distraction from the news, and I’d miss my son terribly if he wasn’t with me. I don’t think anyone, furloughed or otherwise, is having a great time at the moment. I also think mumsnet is a place people come to vent when they’re annoyed - I don’t think it necessarily represents the typical feelings people have towards friends /colleagues etc

I think a lot depends on how the company has handled it.

The company DH works for has handled it incredibly poorly. They asked everyone to take a pay cut of 25%. Then the furlough scheme was announced and they furloughed a raft of people. So the folks at home are getting 80% pay whereas the folks at work are still getting 75% pay.

They also cherry-picked who to furlough and who not to furlough. DH's job isn't being done atm, but he's still working, as are two others in their team, doing the job of three known shirkers. There are a few poor managers so this is replicated in different depts

However, they've all been told in writing that furlough makes no difference to redundancies. Redundancies if they happen will be based on roles not people. The roles they are covering are crucial so the people sat at home on 5% pay more than them are actually at much less redundancy risk

It's causing a lot of bad feeling

At the company I work for everyone is working full time from home. I’m not enjoying it - I’d much rather be back in the office or travelling to my clients in different countries. I’m getting more work done as there are less distractions (DC’s are Uni age so no home schooling needed).

I think the furloughed scheme will be extended past the end of June as not all businesses will be back working again by then. Hopefully with the job retention scheme and other schemes in place, businesses will survive without too many jobs losses. If the scheme protects jobs it’s worth continuing with.

I really sympathise with those where only a proportion of workers have been furloughed, and then the resulting slack heaped onto those still working.
Clearly if they can't achieve the work level they need without adding work onto someone else, then they need more workers working and less furloughed. It's the employers taking the piss here, not the furloughed employee. And quite honestly only those lacking common sense who'd blame and be angry with the furloughed workers. The furloughed workers had the same level of choice over being furloughed as those still working had over well, still working.

It's the resentment and sniping towards people furloughed in closed industries that makes no sense at all. Mandated closed by the government, yet somehow we're lazy scroungers that are just sitting on our arses and having fun through choice.
Then those baying for the furloughed to go fruit picking or whatever - conveniently forgetting that many companies have written clauses into furlough contracts stating you can't work elsewhere, and to do so ends your contract. Only an idiot would give up furlough for a temporary job. Furloughed workers are more at risk of losing their job, but at least there's a chance they won't, a temporary job will end. There's no opportunity to do many of these roles unpaid, or for a 20% top up which would release a lot of people like me, willing to do it. I'm not willing to give up the security of 80% of my income that pays rent and living costs, as well as a job to go back to for a lower paid and temporary job I don't want to do. I'd do it for the 80% I get now, or with a top up to 100% from where I'd be working as long as I wouldn't effectively get penalised in the future for it by having no job when the temp one ends having forfeited furlough to take it.
People are seeing it as black and white and have no idea what it is they're suggesting in reality.
Two things need to happen if the furloughed workers are to be able to 'do their bit'

• all companies to remove the clauses about not working anywhere else.

-a method of working in these jobs as a volunteer rather than a paid worker with a 20% top up coming from whoever you work for temporarily.

I bet there'd be a lot more willing to do it if they didn't stand to lose out from it. But it should be a choice and not forced. By definition a furloughed worker has worked - and paid tax - and so has contributed to the money in the furlough scheme as much as anyone else. They will also return to work, and be a tax payer, contributing to the pay back of all this. Making people unemployed by them losing the job they're furloughed from in favour of a tempo one is reducing the people paying tax . People need to stop the scroungers bollocks and actually research what they're spouting and think about it logically.

Much more fun to have a bitch at people though. Furlough bashing has replaced benefits bashing.

As it is I'm volunteering in the community for a charity, they're the only ones who would take me on a volunteer basis because that's what they do. Quite a few like me in the group.

I don't think anyone resents furloughed workers on 80%. It's the situations where some are getting full pay despite no travelling or work costs when unfurloughed colleagues are busting a gut holding up the business for the same pay.