To be fed up of the "I'm a key worker" line now

[Chishelled]

Fair play, I do understand that not every key worker is pulling this out at opportunity and that not all key workers are acting like entitled selfish twits, plus the fact DP and I (although only on day two) are both NHS - him as a doctor and me within mental health.

Our entire local facebook page is full of "I am a key worker, I need to get petrol, people are being so selfish" BUT why do key workers expect to be prioritised for petrol now, particularly when many of the ones posting work in our local hospital which is a 20 minute walk away??

It's just all adding to the scare mongering and hype by trotting out the "I'm a key worker, I need petrol priority...[it's going to run out again], plus plenty of people are having to commute back to work due to the end of furlough and the fact that offices are well and truly reopen - are their jobs seen as lesser?

I propose on the spot fines for anyone who uses the phrase "I am a key worker" to get preferential treatment from this point forwards [unless of course we go back into Lockdown again]

[quote Chishelled]@MissyB1 Read the entire train of comments on that - and you will see that I was saying most don't. which is absolutely correct - there are skeleton staff in hospitals overnight, it is a very different situation to what you see in the day.[/quote]
Hospitals are just as busy at night as in the day these days (not sure when you last did a shift in one). Anyway no matter how many support staff are in at nights and weekends they still have to get to work.

What is the point of this thread anyway? Apart from bashing NHS staff?

Not fuel related, as I work from home, but so many non-key workers prop up the key workers. I do doggy day care in my home. Some of my customers work for the NHS, the Police, an in supermarkets. If I don't work, they can't go to their jobs. But I'm not a key worker myself.

There's a pandemic....Stay at home, Save the NHS, Keyworkers first

There's a petrol crisis....Stay at home, Save the NHS, Keyworkers first

We're going to hear this a lot over the next few years.

Key workers keep the country running, they should PE proritised.

No supermarket staff-no food
No teachers/school staff- no schools
No nurses, doctors- no healthcare
No emergency workers no fire/ambulance/ police
No care workers- no one in care homes.

They absolutely should have priority. Including school ‘admin’ some of them might be attendance or safeguarding staff and not just ‘work in an office’

Your argument is pointless. The country stops without key workers.

YANBU. Also people slagging off others for daring to go to a petrol station. Tossers

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

Key workers keep the country running, they should PE proritised.

No supermarket staff-no food
No teachers/school staff- no schools
No nurses, doctors- no healthcare
No emergency workers no fire/ambulance/ police
No care workers- no one in care homes.

They absolutely should have priority. Including school ‘admin’ some of them might be attendance or safeguarding staff and not just ‘work in an office’

Your argument is pointless. The country stops without key workers.

Just some school admin?

What about the administrative staff who onboard all of those staff? What about the staff who train them to ensure they are complying with the law to ensure your key services are delivered in a lawful manner?

What about the people who fix electricity lines, maintain the railways, drive buses...the list of key workers is vast, but why do I suspect that some of the people screaming 'Key workers first' would be the first people to start sniping if they saw an electrician in overalls filling up at the pumps?

Give it a rest.

Be nice if the government actually prioritised NHS workers not just expecting the public to - NHS is not a priority despite all the stuff said by government during last 18 months.

As healthcare staff I had the keyworker status I hated that term last year and still hate it now. Some people do like the self importance of it all without doubt. Lots of people’s jobs are important but the phrase keyworker needs to go away.

In addition to the conversation regarding nhs keyworkers. I won’t lie the appreciation and clapping was nice as it’s usual quite negative but it was so short lived and we were soon back to the negative, verbal/physical abuse and actually if anything it’s gotten worse. We are lazy, had empty wards, greedy ( pay rise or free stuff), liars ( covid isn’t real) killing people ( vaccine). This thread has examples of it all.

At the end of the day most nhs staff just do what everyone else does and go to work. The hero worship/keyworker rhetoric made things worse.

I’d rather go about my days off without flashing my badge/work status thanks

Am earlier poster stating she needed fuel and was key worker as she delivers artisan food products to shops summs it up.
If someone not being able to buy their oat and spelt lentil loaf is deemed as bad as a community palliative care nurse not being able to get to a dying patient, well I think as a society we have reached rock bottom

Are you SERIOUSLY trying to argue that food reaching the shops is non-essential? That food production workers aren't key workers?

My point was that I would not be able to prove my keyworker status to get petrol because I'm self employed, while someone doing an equivalent role but employed would be able to prove it through means of work ID cards etc.

This isn't meant to be oneupmanship between different keyworkers - I imagine the palliative care nurse and the dying patient alike are going to be struggling if there's no food in the shops either.

I'm a key worker, I work in I.T. on critical systems.

However as I don't wear hi-vis or have a lanyard stating I work in the NHS, I would just be seen as "someone that works in an office"

The term key worker is a bit misleading.

For fucks sake, this whole thing is caused by morons stockpiling, if petrol was limited to £30 a car we'd all be fine. But everywhere I go I see 4 x 4s filling their tanks with £100 spends and then about 20 cans as well.
I have a tiny car and £30 fills up my tank for a week. I am NHS staff but don't feel comfortable being prioritised. It would be nice if people just had a bit of common sense and stopped running around like Chicken Licken.

@Saz12

I get why you’d be annoyed at “I’m a key worker so shouldn’t have to get (perfectly quick, frequent and convenient) public transport” or whatever. Also, the petrol issues are going to resolve in a few days - so some pandemic key-workers stop being quite as strategically essential in a crises that lasts 3 days rather than several months. Theoretically I’m a key worker, but in practice the world wouldn’t stop turning if my client group had service cut for a few days - it’s be pretty crappy, but not as bad as waiting 3 days for a&e to open would be.

Problem is, lots of aNHS frontline staff work shifts that make getting public transport either impossible or extremely inconvenient. We often work unsociable hours with the legal minimum of 11 hours between shifts. If I were to get the bus to work I would not be able to start until at least 0830 in the morning as the first bus is just after 0600 and I'd have to change buses twice and then walk 15 mins. The buses finish at 1800 so I'd have to be home by then, which frankly makes it impossible to do.

I’m NHS and don’t need fuel. But if it was deemed necessary for all NHS workers to get priority access to fuel, then NHS employers would fully expect all of their staff to take this up, and not feel guilty about not being front line enough.
It was the same with childcare during school closures, we were expected to send our children in, and not agonise about whether we were truly “key”. It’s all a mess.

@MissTrip82

I work in ICU.

Have literally never heard any of my colleagues describe themselves like this. Not once. Not ever.

IME it tends to be a phrase used by people quite a long way from genuinely key roles.

My family (doctors and allied health professionals) don’t use it either.

It’s galling that the ‘NHS’ is such a broad term used for stirring people up. There should be a clear split between HCP and the rest.

Also to add the other group who catches flack - farmers. Who wake up at 5 a.m to grow our food and we still complain about them and tractors. =•=

Training in a school takes place on a set day, so it wouldn’t be affected.

The people who do stuff in school don’t need anyone else for the 2 or 3 days it takes to sort it out.

But fine, let the country grind to a halt👍🏻

I’m a police officer and I cringe at it. Several colleagues on FB put the sanctimonious frame “I CANT stay home poor me blah blah” on their profile. The most vocal were two of the laziest fuckers I know both of whom work in offices-one was working from home anyway! But “can’t stay home”. You’re at home anyway you slack cow.

Actually I was v grateful to a) have a job and b) that my life stayed reasonably the same.

Hmm - I'm a key worker (albeit one that is lucky enough to work from home - this meant full time job plus homeschooling inc one with ASN and no support as I was able to work from home!)

Who do we count as key workers for priority fuel / food the list is much longer than NHS ... and what about those who if they cannot get to work cannot afford to put food on the table

What about engineers who have to repair infrastructure - if the roads aren't fixed ppl can't use them, loose your electricity /water/ gas - can you survive? All those that can WFH what will you do if your internet breaks and the engineer can't get to you?

DH has cancer, one of our babies has epilepsy, I am running low on fuel and beginning to worry. TBH, for me, the stress over the fuel crisis is almost the straw that broke the camel's back, we heard on Friday that DH's tumours have grown (a lot) in the last few weeks and I am at breaking point mentally.

@Cuddlyrottweiler All people don’t need to get to work though. In my village the vast majority of us are still working from home. If the petrol station wants to lock me out so that doctors and teachers can still get to work, that’s ok with me…

I'm a key worker who works in a petrol station so I think I'm entitled to have a moan! 🤣 I've had people screaming at me cuz I wouldn't let them fill a zillion Jerry cans and swearing at me cuz we had to close due to the petrol station being drained dry.

This isn't meant to be oneupmanship between different keyworkers - I imagine the palliative care nurse and the dying patient alike are going to be struggling if there's no food in the shops either

You can't be serious typing this, surely! The palliative person who doesn't receive daily care will likely be in significant pain and dying even sooner.

How can you compare this with getting an urgent food shop? Most people have some food in their cupboard. If not, their neighbour will. There is some way before we all have to worry about starvation.

Why is it with people obsessed with the need to do their weekly shopping and filling up and thinking they will die if they don't!

Even if we could define 'Key Worker' (and the term is used too loosely in my opinion), it shouldn't be up to forecourt attendants to police those trying to get fuel. I imagine a lot of people in the queue would consider their roles vital to the running of services and want to be prioritised.

Then there are those who need their cars to care for sick relatives, attend hospital appointments, blue badge holders....I could go on! Where do we draw the line on who deserves fuel more than the next person?

@Lalliella

YABU. Key workers need to get to work. Other people may want to but don’t need to. Key workers should be prioritised. After everything they’ve done for this country during the pandemic, being able to queue-jump at petrol stations is the least they deserve.

I think the problem with this is that many non-key-worker people DO need to get to work, and these people need to be paid.

Many businesses being entirely unforgiving about absence. Many requiring a return to the office. Many people have used up all holiday to deal with endless school closures.

Take - for example - a research scientist. Not a key worker. Can't be done from home. Often has benefits for wider society. Why should they take a pay hit because they can't get petrol instead of (say) an administrative NHS role that could be done from home.

What about taxi drivers? They need petrol and cars to make a living. They provide transport for people who otherwise may not be able to get around.

What about people with caring responsibilities such as for elderly parents or grandparents. What about people who need regular cancer treatments and don't gave public transport access.

So many people genuinely need fuel for all sorts of reasons and I'm not sure being a key worker automatically qualifies you to need to drive more than others?

Emergency vehicles should have fuel priority IMO but I don't see why a key worker doesn't have the same public transport options as any other worker. (I believe emergency vehicles don't typically use public petrol stations though).

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

Key workers keep the country running, they should PE proritised.

No supermarket staff-no food
No teachers/school staff- no schools
No nurses, doctors- no healthcare
No emergency workers no fire/ambulance/ police
No care workers- no one in care homes.

They absolutely should have priority. Including school ‘admin’ some of them might be attendance or safeguarding staff and not just ‘work in an office’

Your argument is pointless. The country stops without key workers.

But everyone is a key worker in the big scheme of things. If they weren't doing a job that needs doing, why would they be employed to do it in the first place? Every worker is related to every other worker in the big scheme of things.

Yes, in the immediate/short term, some are more important than others, i.e. the ones doing "immediate" things, but as we keep seeing with the supply chain, whether it's a ship blocking the Suez canal, a shortage of wood, or a shortage of lorry drivers, very quickly lots of things start to get clogged up, in fact, often within just a few days.

How about trains. You'd say drivers and guards were "key workers", but so are the small army of support staff, who are often "office based pen pushers" such as the signallers, operations room staff, station managers, etc. Trains can't run without the "back office" desk based staff.

Same with lorry drivers - no doubt at all they're "key workers" but what about their back-office controllers? Someone needs to be liaising with their customers to plan where to pick up/set down loads, planning for back loads at the end of each journey, each of their customers will have back-office planners working the logistics of when factories/docks have goods ready to be collected and when the end users (retailers, other factories, warehouses etc) want and will be ready to receive the lorries full of goods. A lorry driver doesn't work in a vacuum, just like a nurse doesn't - all front line/key worker staff need "back office" support and that goes a lot further than the direct manager/administrator as there are so many aspects "behind the scenes" that need as much immediate attention as the nurse tending to a sick patient or a lorry driver picking up a load.