Why are certain newspapers so against WFH?

[Circlesandtriangles]

AIBU for seeing a persistent agenda in The Telegraph against working from home? It also has a completely misogynist undertone. Not everyone has to be a massive fan of it, but why work so hard to stoke up opinion against it??

Example headlines from November:

"If you want to lose your job, work from home"
"Just one in ten women working from home plan to return to office"
"Take it from a mother, working from home is a disaster for women"
"HMRC spends millions so staff can abandon offices"
"Afghan allies ‘left at the mercy of Taliban’ while civil servants worked from home"
"People working from home do half an hour less each day, study finds"
"It's high time staff returned to the office"

That inevitably comes with a pay cut though, which not everybody wants.

I left DH in bed half an hour ago. I’m not bitter

Thanks everyone, Great explanations!

@olivehater

Get off my arse. Wow. I’m never in my arse because a have Job that involves non stop work from The second I get to work till the second I leave home. A job that I haven’t stopped at throughout the pandemic. It’s a career and I am proud to work hard and not take the piss. If you want people to do the kind of job I do then we are going to need to be paid to attract us into it. Let’s be honest a lot of these work from home job could be done in the half the time they are claiming for. People are taking the piss left right and centre.

Nurses and midwives work really hard. Let's argue for raising everybody up, not bringing everybody down. Let's make your pay and conditions better, not make other people's' worse.

The Telegraph also writes frequently that:

• autism in women is being over diagnosed
• domestic cats (not paving over gardens, massive construction projects and industrial farming) are the cause of a decline in our bird population
• that the part of the country I live in is full of hateful unwelcoming people (I see you Katie Glass)

As an autistic woman living in Cornwall with multiple cats, I can’t help but feel slightly targeted . They’re going after the witches, it seems

So I’m unsurprised they are going after WFH too. Everything I value they seem to hate.

More broadly as well, if people starting wanting workplace reform, they look to Labour. There's a lot of effort going in to keeping the Overton window from moving just now on all sorts of issues. The vaccine rollout will not win the next election, Churchill learnt that gratitude fades fast.

@olivehater

As someone who has never worked from home it pisses me off. I am still paying out childcare, petrol etc. I choose to work part time and take the equivalent pay cut that goes with that while I see people on the school run that then nip to activities/coffee shop/playground with their kids. Sure there are some that put all the hours in later but their are plenty more who don’t whilst taking a full time wage. Civil service appears to be the worst for it. If this is going to carry on then this that those that have to travel to work need to be paid a premium or no one is going to choose these careers going forward. And why the hell would you when this jobs that allow working from home have it so cushy?

How do you conclude that the civil service are the worst for it? Also I don't see how that's anyone else's problem that you don't work from home.

UK has very low productivity currently, we are not a high-performing economy currently. A lot is propped up on property values

yep

Oh I don’t doubt the Telegraph have an agenda, but all newspapers do. The Guardian isn’t automatically right and good because it’s left wing.

But I do wish a more general discussion about wfh could take place without people (on both sides of this) being defensive.

@olivehater

Right then the ones that have to go to work should be paid a premium. We don’t get to have any of this lovely flexibility and most parents in my sector have to work part time so that they can be their for their kids at least a little bit. We are also the ones having to fork out childcare. If you want to have nurses and midwives in the futureetc then you need to make that attractive too. Just saying change your job then to someone in and established career is thoughtless.

I will never understand how you WFH haters have the cheek to bring childcare into the debate, your kids are no one else's responsibility but your own, that goes for their childcare too. You chose to have children, don't shit on other people bacuse of your choices. Those that dont WFH should be paid a premium? Oh please, you think a cafe worker should get paid more than someone with a finance degree in a post graduate job ? The sense in entitlement from people these days 😂

the vaccine rollout will not win the next election

Do you honestly see Labour getting in?

Pret saw great success in their "local" outlets & are driving ahead with that business model.

A lot of these articles forgot remote working did exist before the pandemic

@Theluggage15

WFH is very niche middle class. As for the comments about a burnt out workforce, it’s as if some people aren’t aware that the majority of people can’t wfh. And wfh is great for older people with nice houses, not so much for many others, especially youngsters.

And no city centre landlords aren’t bothered, there is a huge need for housing, offices can be converted.

And silly dismissive comments about Pret really piss me off, people are employed by Pret, their jobs matter just as much as yours.

There are plenty of low-paid office jobs like admin and data entry that can be done from home.

We are also the ones having to fork out childcare

So you think everyone who wfhs doesn't pay childcare? 😆

I agree with the analysis that they are automatically opposed to anything that is not the status quo. They are conservative with a small c (and a big one.)

The papers with this attitude are writing for an audience of bitter, hateful whingers who want younger generations to have a hard time, because in their eyes we all have it so easy compared to them. They detest positive change that might make people's lives better if it doesn't benefit them.

@olivehater

Right then the ones that have to go to work should be paid a premium. We don’t get to have any of this lovely flexibility and most parents in my sector have to work part time so that they can be their for their kids at least a little bit. We are also the ones having to fork out childcare. If you want to have nurses and midwives in the futureetc then you need to make that attractive too. Just saying change your job then to someone in and established career is thoughtless.

I work in a team with many parents and all of them use childcare, none of us have children at home bar if they're having to isolate and then we take the day unpaid, annual leave, or if there's vital work that is time sensitive we make the hours up over 24 hours; so we, and everyone I know who works from home, still pays for childcare. People who need flexibility or want days off in the week still work part time. Public sector jobs being more attractive to people is on the government's shoulders, not that of other workers who happen to be in jobs they can achieve a better balance.

I wfh and as a lone parent it means I can work much more flexibly than I would be able to otherwise, it's a real life saver. It's very much a standard expectation in my field, wfh is here to stay.

Also just for the record: I WFH 3 days a week and go into the office 2 days. I'm far more productive WFH. Many fewer interruptions and I start earlier and finish later. My colleagues say the same.

And silly dismissive comments about Pret really piss me off, people are employed by Pret, their jobs matter just as much as yours

There are tonnes of prets in London, they swooped into many areas and took out a lot of the family owned small businesses. If they actually reduced their estate to a reasonable size they would be fine, as is they over stretched themselves and pay people shite wages on shite contracts, hardly something to aspire to. I used to walk 10 minutes to work and passed 3 prets, ridiculous.

Let’s be honest a lot of these work from home job could be done in the half the time they are claiming for. People are taking the piss left right and centre.

How on earth can you generalise like that?

I’d be inclined to think that young people would be missing out from wfh.

Even DH has commented that he doesn’t know how new people would be trained at the moment.

How many people are actually still 100% remote working? of those that are was this the case pre pandemic?

Id wager most are hybrid.

@olivehater

Right then the ones that have to go to work should be paid a premium. We don’t get to have any of this lovely flexibility and most parents in my sector have to work part time so that they can be their for their kids at least a little bit. We are also the ones having to fork out childcare. If you want to have nurses and midwives in the futureetc then you need to make that attractive too. Just saying change your job then to someone in and established career is thoughtless.

I've got some sympathy with this view. When schools were closed and I was WFH, I required less childcare for my baby because I could pre record some lessons in the evenings and then be available off camera for support or marking.

I also wasn't starting until 8.30am and could log off at 3pm, whereas now on my working days I leave the house at 6am and rarely get home before 6pm.

Despite this, I still hated it and was working late every night. But i was saving a lot of money on travel and could have saved on childcare if i hadn't had it in place anyway.

I’m going to go with the theory the owners friends own commercial office space.

About 14-15 years ago a relative was paying £12k a quarter in a shitty backwater town for an office space. It’s a huge amount to find each year.