To be sick of companies using “because of Covid” by now?!

[Hotair1234]

Ok, light hearted (ish!) but seriously??

AIBU to think that 18 months on, three lockdowns, and a highly successful vaccine program then companies who are brazenly using “because of Covid” are now just doing it because it worked out better for them?!

Example: local bank reduced opening hours to 10-3 because of Covid! So customers had a smaller window to go in and therefore would be more densely together but staff costs were reduced and the bank saw this as public safety?

My latest sighting: Finally got back to the pool which I seriously missed during all the lockdowns - people dipping themselves in bleach, what could be cleaner but hey, that’s a different thread!

Have to schedule the time to arrive, no issue. Can’t go into the building until five minutes before your booking, ok with that. Did mean you then had to pass everyone leaving the pool down a narrow corridor, ok less impressed, but the clincher was getting out of the pool and, having long hair, headed straight to the showers to find they were all taped off - no showers, “because of Covid”!!!

A) they’re cubicles so literally separated, close every other one of it’s a genuine concern but B) you don’t want people to WASH in order to avoid Covid?! How’s that?!

Come on mumsnet, I’m sure there are other businesses who can put stupid that, help me feel sane again.....examples??

It doesn't seem lighthearted and people have done their best to explain why things are as they are.

The pizza thing is down to reduced staff, therefore reduced menu. Must be difficult to stay two metres apart from your co workers in a kitchen environment. That's not difficult to understand, surely?

Maybe the money from the 'paid for' loos is spent on the deep cleaning of them?

As for the showers-how are they expected to keep them appropriately clean between users?

I sell online so the limited opening times at the Royal Mail sorting office is infuriating. If I take more than 5 parcels to the normal post office they do cats bum mouths, they really don't like processing parcels when the postage has been bought online OK, no problem, I'll just take them all direct to the sorting office, I prefer to do that anyway - except I can't 'cos covid. Well I can, but only between 8-12 because covid is rife on the afternoons 🙄

Yes I know staffing shortages, covid restrictions blah blah - still fecking annoying though!

But your examples of "piss taking" will have some reasoning behind them that are generally either down to staff safety and/or staff availability as well as customer safety.

As a retail worker who has worked through this whole thing and been abused daily for upholding "stupid covid rules" or been accused of "making excuses" when trying to explain how covid has had a genuine effect on the issue they are complaining about (sometimes it has been to do with supply chains/logistics so the "covid link" isn't immediately obvious to the man on the street) then there is nothing lighthearted about people complaining that "covid excuses are wearing thin".

Technically we are only in phase 3 of the road map out of lockdown, we are not "back to normal" but some people have decided that since they are bored of it then the rules shouldn't be applied any more.

I’m endlessly impressed at how some organisations have adapted to keep their businesses going. Restaurants and cafes offering take away deliveries; a pizza van comes round here weekly and you can order and pay online and walk up to collect a freshly made pizza from the van. Same with fish and chips and tacos.

We can’t get anyone to service our boiler for three months, I tried the e consult app, which was unhelpful and I tried to get the online physio suggested by the text from the GP and failed. It isn’t an issue that can be sorted by answering algorithms on an app, but I can’t see a GP. I expect my next asthma review, like the last one, will be by phone. She will ask about blood pressure, dunno, I don’t have a monitor, weight, dunno, I don’t have scales, height, probably the same as last year.

I had this with customer services with energy supplier . Said the reason its taking 7 week to deal instead of 1 is he's WFH and has emailed other dept ( in other parts of country).
He quoted covid a few times asked him why if it's done be email has WFH slowed it up then he admitted it hadn't .

I totally agree. It is sucking the joy out of everything. Not Covid, but the needless rules and regulations that make the simple things in life such a miserable chore.

I said last week our leisure centre has taped up all but one toilet and all but one sink, so now everyone leaving the pool at the same time is stood waiting to use the one toilet and one sink. It makes NO SENSE, and if anything, more likely to spread diseases.

My kids have today been to soft play. A hundred kids all running around next to each other, but the local pool has slashed the times kids can swim to 8 sessions per week, four families per session so we can't get booked. Only four families allowed in the whole pool, in water, in chlorine bleach. But a hundred in a soft play centre. So stupid.

Our pool also has the no showers, turn up in your gear and get changed in front of everyone at the side of the pool (????). You aren't even really allowed to 'loiter' in the pool, you either have to swim or get out. It is soooo stressful.

I do understand how it makes everything less enjoyable. We cango out to eat but there’s a list of Covid compliant rules to follows Masks on unless sat down etc, using an app to order and then wanting your table back after 90 minutes. Stressful. But right at this moment it’s where we are with all this.

Yep. But this is what happens when we accepted such severe covid restrictions in the first place. These companies will keep spouting this bullshit for at least another year.

@melj1213 that actually makes sense. That the rules are blanket rules and the context in which they are applied makes them seem arbitrary and stupid.

YANBU. If I call the council it says please don’t call “unless it is urgent” because covid. Well, it is urgent in that I need an answer within the next year yes! Meanwhile they will quite happily send bills and angry letters about the (incorrect) bills.
All banks, insurance utilities etc all seem to have reduced call centre hours “because covid”... why, when most people are working from home?

Life will never be the same and its something everyone has to get use to

My hospital consultant told me that as hospital telephone appointments have gone so well, hospital and gp surgeries will move to doing alot more of them going forward from now on even once Covid is under better control

YANBU. If I call the council it says please don’t call “unless it is urgent” because covid. Well, it is urgent in that I need an answer within the next year yes!

Unless there is no other way to contact the department you need - email, website contact form etc - then needing an answer "within the next year" is not urgent.

All banks, insurance utilities etc all seem to have reduced call centre hours “because covid”... why, when most people are working from home?

Because instead of being able to pass someone directly to another department in the same building if there is an issue/problem etc call centre staff are having to contact someone miles away. The same with if the staff have an issue - they can't just pop to the supervisors office or walk over to their boss' desk, now they have to call/email and wait for a response.

Some call centres are limiting the access their staff have to their systems when working from home for security reasons which means they can't always do everything they could when working from the call centre.

Not everyone will have the same WFH set up so some may not be able to deal with the same volume of calls, Internet might be slow so they can't connect remotely to the system as quickly so calls take longer etc

They are having to take into account staff who can't WFH for whatever reason or who now have different availability - caring for CEV relatives, child care and homeschooling, self isolation, having covid/being ill etc- which will affect their staff availability.

I work in retail, my ex works from home and we usually share custody 50/50 every other week. During lockdown last year for about 6 weeks DD lived with her dad full time because instead of my set shifts (that were decided with school/extra curricular activities/paid childcare and family help being taken into account) I was working any hours between 8am-10pm and I had nobody I could leave DD with - no school or extra curriculars, paid childcare not being compatible with the short notice shift changes and family were all either in the same boat juggling their own family or were CEV/caring for CEV family.

It's better to guarantee that the call centre lines will be open from 9am-5pm and know you have more than enough people to cover those hours than say they will be open 8am-8pm only to have people unable to cover the entirety of those hours.

@Sparklingbrook I completely get the pint about the paid-for loos sort of not costing as much as the fees will go towards paying for cleaning. However, twice I’ve used them, on separate days and twice there has been no soap. They aren’t a block but separate self-contained cubicles, like the ‘Superloos’ you used to see.

By contrast, we visited another seaside place a few weeks ago, their toilets had an ‘honesty box’ with suggested donation for keeping up with cleaning and an attendant to make sure that soap/loo paper/paper towels were kept topped up.

I am grateful they are open at all and know to bring my own gel/loo paper. After the first lockdown eased last year, we went out for the day and none of the public loos were open, despite that website saying they were. Had to pop in a pub for a G & T!

Our gym has reduced its opening hours by an hour a day meaning it closes at 9pm instead of 10pm so people going after work like DH who often doesn’t get back in town until 8pm has less than an hour to workout. This is ‘because of Covid’ but they can’t explain why the need to close early because of it .

They’ve also taped off a load of machines this week to do building work nearby which surely could have been done while they were shut for 4 months! Half of the machines are already out of service for SDing. We still have to pay full membership though even with the spa being shut.

It is an utter pisstake.

@DroopyDaff

Our gym has reduced its opening hours by an hour a day meaning it closes at 9pm instead of 10pm so people going after work like DH who often doesn’t get back in town until 8pm has less than an hour to workout. This is ‘because of Covid’ but they can’t explain why the need to close early because of it .

They’ve also taped off a load of machines this week to do building work nearby which surely could have been done while they were shut for 4 months! Half of the machines are already out of service for SDing. We still have to pay full membership though even with the spa being shut.

It is an utter pisstake.

I've just cancelled our membership at the leisure centre. All the swims for the next 3 mths were booked!

@DroopyDaff

Our gym has reduced its opening hours by an hour a day meaning it closes at 9pm instead of 10pm so people going after work like DH who often doesn’t get back in town until 8pm has less than an hour to workout. This is ‘because of Covid’ but they can’t explain why the need to close early because of it .

They’ve also taped off a load of machines this week to do building work nearby which surely could have been done while they were shut for 4 months! Half of the machines are already out of service for SDing. We still have to pay full membership though even with the spa being shut.

It is an utter pisstake.

That has to be deep cleaning related surely? Lots of handling and touching in the gym, not to mention dripping sweat?

They aren’t a block but separate self-contained cubicles, like the ‘Superloos’ you used to see.

This may be the reason this set of loos are open and the others aren't- if each one of the open block is self contained then they won't have to worry about too many people in the communal area- queueing to get in/out; crowding the sink area; no way to social distance when going in/out if there is only one door (most public loos don't have a huge sink area so if you're waiting then there is often no way to be 2m away from someone while they come out of the cubicle, wash their hands and then try to get out of the door you are waiting by)

The supermarket I work for had an issue for a while as they closed the loos in a few stores and people were kicking off because they were told they couldn't use them when "X branch still has them open".

The problem was that the closed loos were internal (no way to ensure adequate air flow) small sink areas (social distancing) and usually accessed down a narrow corridor right next to the entrance (causing a queue of people standing right by the door, as well as all the partners/family/friends etc loitering while someone used the loo which was causing a issues with there being too many people in the area) whereas the open ones were on the side of the buildings (so had windows to the outside that were locked open for airflow) had a large sink area (so adequate space to social distance) and were accessed through doors directly on the shop floor (so plenty of space to queue if necessary). Whether or not the toilets were open was entirely dependant on the layout of the stores and the staff had no say over it as the decisions were made by head office based on the rules set out by the government to be a covid safe retailer and remain open.

Showers at public pools are closed because it encourages people to get dressed and out quickly reducing the amount of time people are milling around in the changing rooms. They are booking 1 x 40-45 min session every hour, then they need everyone from that session out before the next one arrives.

This is what I don’t get. I gave up and joined a private gym. Since 12th April the changing rooms have been open as normal. You are allowed to loiter. You don’t have a time slot to stick to. They seem to be happy with a normal amount of people in the pool or in the gym at any one time rather than massively reduced capacity.
Guidelines are clearly interpreted very differently but WHY is it that council run services have decided to interpret rules in such a way that basically means they can’t offer much of a service? See also public libraries.

Could be deep cleaning related Sparkling although the staff are not aware if it is! They are generally cleaning while the gym is in use anyway and wait for people to leave and follow them out.

That makes sense, never thought of that. It’s one of my favourite places to visit, but public loos have always been a bone of contention there; way before COVID, people used to complain there weren’t enough. That’s why the new individual cubicles were installed.

• I mean the town is a favourite place to visit, not the toilets

Its probably annoying for you and the companies as well.

I think you’re over estimating the impact of the vaccine programme - most people of working age have had at best one vaccine. I think these companies are being very sensible and there are a lot of covid secure procedures which take a great deal of time, that they need to follow.

I've learned in my 40 years of life that things rarely "go back". How long ago was the shoe bomber, and yet we are still having to remove shoes and avoid liquids to fly. When the price of something goes up for a specific reason, it rarely comes down again even after that reason is gone.
I fully anticipate things like zoom parents evening and zoom GP appts, at least in the first instance, to remain.
My DC's school day is 30 minutes shorter. They have cut out afternoon playtime ( just as important as learning time, in my opinion). I don't actually think they'll ever return to 3:30 instead of 3:00.
The prices that have gone up in hair dressers and restaurants, due to being able to have fewer customers, will never come down again.

I hear you op! I managed to either wfh or go into work every work day as has dp, phones diverted to mobiles etc. I had lots of sympathy at first with companies have to rework production lines, get people working from home etc but it's been 14 months, I've been back full time since February, dp since Easter.

The banks annoy me the most, they wanted to shut down branches before