To think furloughed is NOT a synonym for feckless?

[GinDaddyRedux]

During this unprecedented, horrible period of time for everyone, one of the most dismaying things I've read about has been the vilification of workers who through no fault of their own, have been furloughed by their employer and paid 80% of their wages according to the Government scheme.

I have read on websites (not this one, have only recently returned) and heard friends say the following kind of things:

"Some of us are still working while others are getting a paid holiday at home. End this and get people back to work".

"The longer you pay people to sit at home, the longer they resist going back to work".

"Another furlough scheme will mean the sponging dossers will sit it out for as long as they can lying in bed and watching This Morning".

For God's sake, what is it about this country that means despite a life-threatening crisis, people instead turn on each other and blame people who have been forced home from their jobs?

I am not furloughed thank God, but my wife is. She has worked for 22 years in various professions with children and she certainly is not "feckless". She would love to get back to work but recognises the importance of the scheme.

Why are these people vilified? Why do we always do this, instead of constructive conversation about when furloughing can be lifted and what to do?

AIBU here?

The company I work for teaches a group sports activity to children in fairly confined spaces. There is no way the company can trade until lockdown and social distancing is fully removed. Therefore none of its employees have a job to do at the moment and there is zero income. Hence furlough. How I can be described or considered as “feckless” for this situation is a mystery. I would love to go back to work but I fear this won’t happen until autumn at the earliest, and furlough pay will stop before then.

If you still have a full income and job security then you are somewhat better off despite what you think.

I think the FB furlough scheme is really the only way the government could have responded to this. They needed to try to save peoples jobs.
I don't blame anyone who has been furloughed for this situation at all and honestly I'd be worried about my job if I was furloughed.

What really annoys me is my furloughed friends and acquaintances assuming that everyone has all the time in the world at the moment to be involved with charities and community projects etc "we've nothing else to do at the moment" tinkly laugh.
I've never been busier, we're both still working all of our hours from home with no childcare for our 3yo and I'm suffering from pregnancy sickness and fatigue, I'm a key worker in welfare and have never been busier.
Maybe my circle are just pains in the arses

Don't know where the 'FB' came from

Many of my colleagues including the only other person at my level, have been furloughed. I haven’t and I am very busy. Yes I’m a little bit envious of her being paid the same as me whilst she decorates her house and sits in the garden but given the choice I think I’m in the better position. She is worried about her future security, she feels lost and abandoned and neither of us have had any choice in the matter.

People are just fucking twats

My daughter is furloughed and obeying all the rules

People would really rather she went out to find work as she's 'feckless'

Her healthy body staying home instead of wandering all over London is helping to not spread the virus!

Many people are furloughed as the government told their businesses to shut.

My DH was furloughed as many of the construction sites decided to shut. As a subcontractor you have no choice in this. Also as most supply chains have broken down his company couldn't get any cement and other materials from the builders merchants so everything ground to a halt.

Remember furlough money covers 80% of wage costs only and business are still having to pay for plant, machinery, vans, premises, pay builders merchants and the million and one other bills they have to pay to keep their businesses going.

Most people I meet who are furloughed are bored and want to get back to work. I’m 39 weeks pregnant and my DH went back to work last week. Obviously I would be nice to have him at home but it’s more important to work so that the company he works for survives and he has a job in 6 months time!

People really are idiots. People didn't CHOOSE this, it's just misdirected anger and jealousy.

While they're seething with jealousy they can have a think about how unstable or jobs are!

Our jobs*

I'm furloughed. I am not sitting on my arse, nor am I playing video games. Neither am I getting something for nothing, being older I have paid my taxes and NI for years and years....
And I can't think of an alternative, unless we should just have left thousands and thousands of people to get ill and/or die, and with a high percentage of the workforce ill or dead, the economy would have taken an even bigger hit...

People are either naturally dick heads and dont need any excuse to look down on people or they're too thick to understand what the furlough scheme actually is and why it was put in place.

I’m furloughed and thoroughly enjoying it for my own personal reasons (hate the current situation which requires me to be furloughed of course).

Spending lots of quality time with my daughter who should be going to school this year is great. And getting paid for it .

I’m not worried about being made redundant, as I don’t actually need to work.

I’m not feckless, but am definitely happy about it and you “anti furloughers” can moan all you like but it seems to be completely borne from envy.

I’d love to be furloughed so that I can cope a bit better with my son. This wfh and childcare malarkey is bloody hard. So yeah, I’m a bit jealous of my furloughed friends.

But why on earth would it be their fault that they are furloughed or would it mean that they are feckless. It’s not something they have a choice in

Nice to see the politics of envy are still alive and kicking.

I’ve actually been busier since being furloughed than when I was working part time. I find it absolutely ridiculous that someone can label people who have been furloughed through no fault of their own but a global pandemic as “feckless” and pretty much shines a light on the mentality of the Benefit bashers we usually see on here. Entirely lacking in empathy.

Unfortunately it's the way society has gone. Everyone is out for themselves and jealous if they perceive others having something they haven't or appearing to have life better.
It came to a head a few years ago, with Cameron and his curtain twitching, but has been creeping up for some time, now.
My dh furloughed me as we have our own business, I'd rather know i had a job to go back to, but pretty sure I haven't.

DH is furloughed through no choice. Most of his work comes from businesses that are closed ATM, so his company furloughed 90% of the staff. It sucks, he is the main wage earner and 20% loss is a lot for us. I work in care, normally I could do overtime and get an extra £400 a month on my basic, but can't even do that now as I am shielding. Scary time for us, luckily we can take a mortgage break, but what will happen in the next few months?

It's a view that requires a particularly narrow and judgemental mind probably also a dose of pettiness and jealousy.

Nobody in this household is furloughed. DH is one of a handful of people still working on his level at his company out of dozens, so he is under greater pressure than usual for only 20% more pay than his colleagues who have been furloughed. I imagine some of them might even be (shock horror) playing video games and binging Netflix. But crucially, he is an adult with a modicum of common sense and a social conscience so he realises that everybody needs their bills paid and to eat, and some work still needs to be done to ensure that there is still a business that can employ everybody at the end of this.

In the business that my husband works for it was made very clear that if the staff didn't accept that the majority would have to be furloughed there would be no business left for anyone to go back to. There is a skeleton staff keeping things ticking over but without the furlough scheme everyone would have been made redundant as soon as lockdown started. They also made it clear that if there are redundancies in future no one, working or not at present, will be excluded from the process. It will depend totally on what form the business survives in/evolves into. Not one of them wants to be sitting at home, they are frustrated and just want to get back in and get things up and running again. They are all in touch and supporting each other, working currently or not.