To think that Covid has acted as a reset button on so many things that were going in the right direction

[Wheretobuy]

I am struggling to see the positives in this pandemic.
So far, it has:

• Pushed back women’s rights because women picked up majority of the childcare abs household work as this pandemic started and we went into lockdown
• led to loss of opportunity for earlier intervention and timely treatments for patients who would have received them otherwise
• costed our children millions and millions of hours of lost learning time
• disproportionately hit the earning and learning prospects of our younger generation who are struggling to find jobs while workers in senior roles (who would train new employees) get to negotiate to work from home
• disproportionate affected first generation immigrants who cannot travel outside the U.K. (especially red list countries) for fear of getting stuck and the expenses of self isolation upon return

All while Bezos and Branson get to visit space and the world has seen over a hundred new billionaires in the last year.

It all depends how you choose to view things.

I've seen more of my family over the last 18 months on zoom than I have in person over probably the last 18 years. We're all much closer as a result.

We got to know our neighbours and struck up friendships because we were helping each other out where we could and those friendships have remained.

My husband and I got so much quality time together rather than being like ships passing in the night. We had a superb 12 months!

Being forced to take a step back and enjoy a more simple way of living has been excellent and has given us a completely different perspective on things.

The medium to longer term will see more people being afforded more flexibility by their employers, as companies have had to find ways of carrying on whilst offering it over the last 18 months.

However, I appreciate that if you have a less than happy life at home, lack space inside or out or suffer from mental health issues, the pandemic will likely not have been the same happy experience.

Young people have been stuffed in so many ways.

Uni students stuck in their rooms all day watching lectures online.

School pupils losing hundreds of hours of teaching time.

Fewer trainee jobs in careers such as law/accountancy due to not enough staff in the office to train them.

A high proportion of the “excluded” freelancers and self employed were young adults.

Very good points by BobMortimersPetOwl and also hatgirl

COVID has massively accelerated advantages to those people who were in comfortable, remote-friendly jobs (tech for example), while putting those in jobs which had to be physical in mortal danger and leaving so many people redundant. And as with so many other situations in life, women ended up doing the vast brunt of the shit work.

This. And - I keep saying it on these threads, and it keeps being true - all the paid stuff I do with my young child is back on. Swimming, specialist language classes, theatre, you name it. Meanwhile the daily playclub that used to to run is down to 2 hours once a week bookable in advance, the leisure centre pool is shut for repairs for the next year after a year-long battle to even keep investing in it, the library is shut, the BF “cafe” is shut.

DD has probably benefited from the pandemic. Two interested parents at home, lots of free time, no financial pressure; at four she’s literally years ahead of where she should be - reading, bilingual, with a lovely time spent baking bread and gardening. And she’ll be starting school next to kids who may not have even had the chance to see the inside of a library or go outside their immediate neighbourhood, and who may have had family members going hungry through the pandemic, and we’ll all be surprised when those kids battle eh?

On the other hand it's moved many companies away from presenteeism to flexible working, which will MASSIVELY benefit women in the workplace.

@EmergencyHydrangea

We're fucked anyway, the effects of climate change are in free fall, we hit tipping point

Yes. We didn't restrict polluting flights even for the pandemic - at great cost to lives, health, and economy. We're clearly not going to tackle climate change.

Nevermind. The robots will take over soon 🤖

You're right btw OP. Eg. Work from home will widen inequality. Opportunities will be limited to the privileged minority - those who are at a settled stage of life and who can afford a home environment suitable for work.

The office based industry contributes hundreds of billions to the national economy. That goes towards funding public services (which have already taken a major financial hit from George Osborne's failed austerity politics).

Also work from home will disproportionately harm the poor in another way too. Many of those who will lose their jobs and their livelihoods as a consequence of work from home are the low waged. Sandwich and coffee shop workers, postroom staff, transport staff, shoe shiners, dry cleaners, office cleaners.

Not being in control of your own life for the past 18 months isn't something I can look past and think of any positives. Whether you're still recovering from long covid or lost someone to covid but the element of not having control of your own has been utterly shit for me.

Having to close my business down because it wasn't seen as essential for months, not being able to see people who I love, not being able to take my toddler to places, watching my sister cancelling her wedding numerous times, hearing friends lose hair from stress because of being redundant, hearing friends and close family members divorcing shattering their family lives because the lockdown has cost people's jobs and livelihoods forcing people to live in cramped places trying to homeschool at the same time. No, there is no positive to this and I'm not going to even mention the impact it has had on our economy.

Most people already work in stressful jobs, the only thing they looked forward to was perhaps an annual holiday, tickets to a musical, girls night out, anniversary/birthday dinners, play dates to escape etc etc .I don't know how wfh can be the best thing that has happened when you switch your laptop off and have nothing to look forward to.

I know we are back to normal right now but are we really? We are reminded daily of the next lockdown possibly this autumn, so is going swimming, going to the pub going to make me enjoy life when I'm potentially going to close my business in a few months. Can I really enjoy these little escapism's when I, like many others have so many doubts about our futures whether I will have my business or my employees will have their jobs. Are these doubts going to really add any happiness and quality to your family life and say yeah I've had quality time with my family. I've had better quality time with my family making memories on our Mediterranean holidays, family day trips, play dates, birthday parties, family bbqs, meeting friends for coffees, taking my son swimming, attending friends and family weddings and doing all the things that you look forward to from running a stressful business and actually being able to run your business and trying to make money. This was my experience anyway, there are far worse off than me and god help them.

I was able to take my time recovering from long covid wfh.

There's a bit of an inherent logical flaw listing that as a positive of Covid...

@Needapoodle

workers in senior roles (who would train new employees) get to negotiate to work from home

I don't understand this. Are you suggesting that older people should make way for younger people so they can step into senior roles? And that is a bad thing that it's easier for older people to continue working if they want to?

Yup, that almost certainy is what they mean. They are evil greedy privileged boomers taking younger people's jobs. And then if the older people do make way they are evil early retired privileged boomers.

Neatly damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Yup, that almost certainy is what they mean. They are evil greedy privileged boomers taking younger people's jobs. And then if the older people do make way they are evil early retired privileged boomers

The poster explained that's not what they meant.

Using the example of social work again, the current cohort of social work students have had to learn how to be social workers often without ever sitting in an office with other social workers. They are losing out on observing and utilising the many years of collective experience from senior workers as part of their learning process.

That's what they are meaning.