No wonder why people get annoyed with those on furlough

[Whatnotwhat]

I work in a social club in the evening. I do have a day time job.
Before covid I worked Tuesday, Friday and Saturday.
I have been very grateful that I was paid furlough during lockdown.
At the beginning of September the club finally opened fully.
Glad to be back working missed the company.

This is now my aibu the girl who works on a Monday, Thursday and Saturday
who was paid furlough for those hours has come back and will only work
on the Monday as she doesn't want to work the other days.
Her words 'furlough was money for nothing'. She also has a job during the day.
Our employer isn't allowed to hire anyone else yet until she puts it in writing
that she will only work Mon

W

But still a hell of a lot better than a lot of self employed/freelancers who got nothing because they fell through the cracks in the support schemes.

The fact that other people were worse off doesn’t change the problems that budgeting on 80% gave people.

It does give the government - who are responsible for the number of people who fell through the cracks - a free pass for their cock ups as people are too busy sniping at each other.

@JustLyra

But still a hell of a lot better than a lot of self employed/freelancers who got nothing because they fell through the cracks in the support schemes.

The fact that other people were worse off doesn’t change the problems that budgeting on 80% gave people.

It does give the government - who are responsible for the number of people who fell through the cracks - a free pass for their cock ups as people are too busy sniping at each other.

Absolutely.

All this childish back and forth of "well I had it worse than you because of X Y or Z" just takes away from real issues.

The fact that some people took the piss is absolutely no excuse to treat all as though they did / were responsible for that.

It really is no different to saying the same thing about benefits because some people play the system.

Yes they do. But you'll never stop that. But on the whole, I think most will agree, it's still a necessary and important system to have!

I also wonder what everyone who was so against furlough would have preferred? All those people to lose their jobs? Wouldn't be saying the same if it were their own though no doubt.

YABU

Why shouldn't she reduce her hours if she wants to?

Our business had this problem with staff not wanting to come back to their previous hours

We’ve had staff who weren’t on furlough who have decided to reduce their hours. A lot of people have re-prioritised over the past 18 months. I’ve been able to increase my WFH days but if I couldn’t, I’d have had to have gone part time as my circumstances have changed this year and I could no longer waste 3 hours a day commuting.

I suppose some people have recognised what a horrible treadmill they had previously been on.

If a person wishes to earn less money in order to have more free time for themselves and be less exhausted, I can't see what the problem is, especially as you say she has a day job also.

I don't see furlough as "taking the piss". People received it because they couldn't work from home.

@GoogleyEyes1 The fact that some people took the piss is absolutely no excuse to treat all as though they did / were responsible for that.

But that's one of the reasons why so many self employed/freelancers were excluded from support. Rishi decided that because "some" self employed don't declare all their income, he imposed a completely different set of rules as to eligibility than he imposed on employees. I.e. the £50k threshold, the 50:50 rule, people who set up self employment within average 18 months ahead of covid were excluded, dividends excluded etc.

You can't use that kind of argument when it suits you and trivialise/ignore it when it doesn't.

It's like saying no one can have disability benefits because some people abuse the system.