To think that since covid happened some businesses have 'got lazy and stayed lazy'

[Ilovechocolate87]

DH and i used to have an expression a couple of years back 'because covid' which we used when we thought a company was just using the virus as an excuse for not doing something properly or making unnecessary cutbacks.

But even now it seems that this is STILL continuing, but for no legitimate reason!

Some examples include;
-Our local bank shutting at 3pm...every day of the week.Crap for 9-5 working people like DH!

• No fireworks display at center parcs, which is a shame as it was really good and atmospheric over the lake.
• Soft play at our local sealife centre sitting there unused and wasted...such a shame as there is nothing wrong with it.
• Fitting rooms have been scrapped at sainsburys and asda (maybe elsewhere too?) so there is nowhere to try on clothes, resulting in either having to order online and have the expense and bother of posting it back if its not right (which it often isn't) or travelling to return it, neither of which are very good for the environment either, with all that plastic packaging and fuel!)

Has anyone else noticed that it just seems like SOME businesses/companies 'can't be bothered' anymore and are just doing the minimum possible? And the most frustrating thing is that as usual, they make the cutbacks, but the prices keep on going up!!

Its not just because it’s minimum wage. Organisations only want part time contracts so they aren’t tied in to expensive problems when employees leave. No one can live on 4 hours work at NMW.
Or they want 45 hours a week ( you get an unpaid hour for lunch lucky you) in return for the absolute legal minimum entitlements.

And everyone else on a decent whack still considers these jobs as failures.

It's interesting how many posters are using language like people not wanting to work, that employees need to do this and that to make things work better. There's an idea that we should be able to have people doing certain things for certain wages, that it's an entitlement. As though the rules of the market don't apply.

Now certainly there are examples where particular employees or organisations are just behaving badly, that's always going to happen. But the overall picture is that we don't currently have enough workers to do all the things our society needs or would like doing, and that those who are working often have more choices.

Yes, i think a lot of business will go under in the next year or so. I suppose the remaining ones will be able to staff themselves properly, if there is anyone leftvwith spending money.

It's a bugbear of mine that all public services operate on a 'fix-forward' basis, ie your issue may have been going on for years, but the person that you speak to considers the previous failures/errors/delays to be irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether it's a child falling behind at school and not having needs properly recognised, symptoms ignored until it's more serious, police refusing to record crimes - always the same, the issue didn't start today, I'm just having to chase it up (again) today.
In the private sector, if I buy a car that has lots of problems, the whole history is at least acknowledged.
Taxes are about to rise, services will be cut, but there is no sense of value for money - if my local library is only open between 10 and 2, two days a week, it's not a library, if there is a three-week delay for a GP appointment, it's no longer primary care.
Thatcher separated the rolling stock from the tracks and stations so that there was nobody to complain to - the platform staff blamed the train company, the driver blamed the tracks or signals - we need an objective way of comparing what we pay for services and what we receive. As it would seem to be in Labour's interests to collect such information, I can only assume that they have no intention of changing much.

Very hard to get tradesmen too, had to sit the other day with a list from Yell and so many seemed to have jacked it in during the pandemic and their details are still on these online sites. Ended up joining and using a Facebook group for my local area to get recommendations and booked one using FB messenger, but can imagine how hard it must be for the elderly or people who just don't 'do' social media.

People are saying that WFH should stop and go back into the office

Only trouble is, the office has gone, as it was found to be cheaper with staff WFH I.e. No rent for office space, no heating etc so the lease was not renewed

Bean counters extatic as money saved

Our office is 30% manned during the week post Covid

Guess what? More Office space is in the process of being downsized as why pay for office space which is not used and waste money running a big building when one floor will do 😳

Oh and staff are not being replaced when they leave as no one wants the jobs or not applying for them

I now stick to my hours and watch as the work keeps backing up

Sad really but welcome to the new Post CV 19 world 😳

It’s easier for management. It means they have to spend less precious staffing hours either manning the fitting room or clearing it up/cleaning it. That’s what it comes down to. The staff will no doubt hate that part of the job too (people do foul, disgusting things in shop fitting rooms). But yeah, it’ll be to save money.

I think some of it is more Brexit than Covid - places just can't get the staff; although Covid has made people understand those jobs are worth more than they pay, so some of the remaining people with that experience are going elsewhere.

Our local Tesco has got really crappy because of staff shortages. There are barely any tills open so often the queueing takes longer than the shop, especially if you're just popping in for a few things. I thought it might be policy to try to get more people using automated tills, but DH spoke to someone there and they said it's because they don't have staff.

So I can see people avoiding things like opening changing rooms or soft play that probably need extra staff resource.

Surrey County Council school transport team. Never, ever answer the phone. They claim they answer between certain times, but no one has any experience of this.

So I don't think people are being lazy - more like employers are trying to keep underpaying people, and those people are in shorter supply thanks to Brexit.

Are you are sure that’s correct and the school aren’t fobbing you off. It costs the school around £500 for a child to get an Ed psych assessment, when my son was waiting for one due to issues at school back in 2015 I kept getting told he was top of the list but it was reason after reason on why he wasn’t being seen yet. Eventually a teacher let accidently slip that the school wouldn’t be paying for it and I paid private, I just wish they’d been more up front in the first place

Unfortunately it’s as a consequence of having so few staff - they’re needed to do the work rather than train - people are stretched beyond belief, many graduate roles require a lot of investment in time and money with little short term return. Everyone is firefighting. Yes it’s short term thinking and Storing up many future issues, but realistically it’s hard to do much else.

Something to consider is the type of job, eg if I was looking to recruit (tax) I would prefer say a history graduate/anything involving critically analysing large amounts of text/requiring an empathetic approach and ability to deal with subjective matters in a balanced way. I would consider an arts graduate over STEM all other things being equal. I think STEM subjects are great if you’re going into that field of work but IME arts degrees graduates seem to have a broader skill set of transferable skills where they haven’t got a vocational degree (mostly our grads have law degrees) If your son wants to enter a non-STEM field, ie don’t require the technical knowledge of his degree it might help to get some volunteering experience working with people. Eg St. John’s ambulance, youth organisations, Samaritans, police specials etc. hope he gets himself sorted

No make up or perfume testers. If I go to a shop rather than buying online this is because I want to see what the item is like before I buy. If I can’t I may as well save the fuel money and stay home

Educational psychologists didn’t come into schools for years because Covid. Now they have a ridiculous waiting list. We need 13 children to be observed/assessed but our school has been allocated time for 3 . Children can’t be diagnosed and therefore receive funding until the Ed Psych sees them. Those with money are paying for a private Ed Psych but what about the others? These chn will get to year 6 or beyond before they get the support they need. It’s appalling.

@Allsnotwell
this exactly! Teachers give up enough of their time unpaid for many things, stick to daytime nativity performances.

Because it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that hospitals are still over run with Covid. The media has stopped reporting it but it's not over, it's not gone away, there are still deaths and there are still people with long term health issues! And media do however love a bit of NHS bashing because the 'my tax pays your wages' brigade thrive off it. It's a combination of Covid AND staffing issues.

While I am not a fan of Brexit, immigrants emigrating in last 2 years is a combo of Brexit and covid, not just one or the other.
Both of these showed certain issues in uk and combination made it clear that grass can be greener elsewhere for real for many.

I think many schools/colleges have become less focused upon students and pupils and more on staff wellbeing. I know of a couple of places where half term was two weeks -as it was good for staff well being. No thought for students and exams it seems.

@ElBandito - Cornwall school transport team have always been dreadful. If you ring they don't answer and have now added an 'out of office' to emails with response times from 4-8 weeks depending on the issue. Then they just don't respond.

I agree my son had an appointment in January referrals were supposed to be made its November they haven't been done two complaints have gone in not about the lack of appointment but the lack of REFERRAL he isnt on the umbrella pathway list yet from January he is 14 soon and will age out of the system before he gets help I swear

I agree! And their cake counter, which used to have the most gorgeous, freshly made cream doughnuts is now peddling plastic, pre-packed Patisserie Valerie crap.

With the trades, I reckon a lot of non essential building work is simply not being done due to the rocketing cost of materials, and some tradesmen are taking early retirement. My home extension plan is on hold indefinitely because the cost of materials has gone up so much.

@Rosieisposy
I hadn't read her follow up post when I made my post! 🤷🏼‍♀️

I do think its a reasonable excuse to say covid / Brexit tbh. For indirect reasons.

The UK lost a lot of its workforce in various different ways.

Many left because of Brexit. And many left the workplace due to covid - there's been a large number of people taking early retirement, and population demographics don't favour the workplace with this, many people found they had to give up jobs because of care responsibilities and if they returned to work often used it as an opportunity for career change and many were simply sacked as businesses couldn't stay afloat otherwise and are now struggling to recruit.

The lost of skills to the workplace shouldn't be underestimated. It means that experienced staff are tied up with training and new staff simply aren't as quick and efficient. Fewer staff have more responsibilities too.

Add to this that backlogs now mean that a lot of problems take longer and more resources to resolve. A customer complaint that might have taken 5 minutes to resolve takes a lot longer. Especially if it's an angry customer who is venting first before getting to the resolution stage.

Covid wasn't a free event. Combined with Brexit, profit margins are down. There is an issue that previous levels of service simply cannot be maintained without prices being driven higher. Many firms racked up huge debts they are now having to repay alongside increasing costs. So they £x every month to pay for that before even thinking about the increased overheads with things like heating. Heating costs really are a big deal for hospitality in particular.

Then there is issues with loss of volunteers in some areas. Many volunteers have stopped. Particularly older ones. This is indirectly affecting a lot of things you don't necessarily see particularly in health care. Add in a dip in charity donations and a bad situation gets worse.

There is on poster up thread ranting away about the lack of GPS and saying we shouldn't accept it and tbh i just don't think a lot of that attitude. The reality is we had a long term demographic issue that we knew was coming and wasn't planned for in terms of training enough people. It's not something we can fix over night. For all the demands of 'we shouldnt accept it', what exactly do you think can be done to mitigate it any time soon? The idea is nonsense - you can't magic trained staff out of nowhere. And that's a universal problem regardless of the political party in charge or if you throw money at the problem.

Not only that but people are turning up at the doctors with more chronic issues due to the closure of GPs over covid. Two years of prevention and early intervention have been lost and that has a massive impact on the services. Even with the retention of every single GP we would STILL had a problem. Sicker patients means they need more appointments. So the same number of patients are needing more appointments. The lack of blood test availability? Same thing. People are sicker so are needing more tests. We know that there has been a massive increase in the number of people who are off work on long term sick leave, which takes us back to issues with staff shortages.

Then there's greater need for care services and things like cancer support and less volunteer and charity support for that, which blocks beds even more. And the chronic issues that are backlogged continue to be backlogged. It make take years even in a best case and motivated scenario to resolve things.

As for many barriers going up with service / customer facing rolls. The lack of customer service over covid has lead to a normalisation of abusive customers and a lack of patience increasing. And thats also driven people to leave these rolls. And companies / services being keen to protect themselves from it.

Schools are facing increases in load due to poor behaviour, missed opportunities to spot learning difficulties and loss of learning. On top of facing increased costs which may have led to loss of staff. I know teachers and TAs at our school are having a really rough time of it and having to put in extra hours. Maybe that's why things like the school play are being lost - it's extra work for staff and the kids need the classroom time. There just isn't the slack to do. Plus there is other stuff like not wishing to place pressure on parents to magic up a costume when they are on their arses with bills. Even at our better off school, they are doing second hand swops for costumes which NEVER would have happened previously. Schools are possibly trying to protect kids and parents from the embarrassment of that which is probably pretty reasonable.

There are an awful lot of people on this thread who seem to think that covid was something that only impacted day to day life during restrictions and haven't grasped that it was always said that there would be a much longer term impact on business debt, on service availability, on staffing, on volunteers and its compounded by inflation just at the wrong time largely driven by the Ukrainian war

Its a mix that is catastrophic and made worse by Brexit issues filtering through.

Genuinely I think there are many on here who are unreasonable in their demands. I get them. I think they have valid concerns but honestly the expectation that things would just return to pre covid is just so unrealistic and out of touch with reality I struggle to deal with it. We have no choice in a lot of cases but to be patient, as lengthy complaints further tie up staff from actually getting on with resolving issues. Where it's hardest is in healthcare as prompt access to treatment really is life and death but I just don't know what else can be done without burning existing staff out even more. It was always said that there would be indirect deaths from covid measures and thats going to play out for years and that's deeply troubling in the short term but also in the long term in terms of public response to another pandemic.

There are no easy solutions anywhere and there are few forthcoming in the immediate future either. For very legitimate reasons.

And I do think this is incredibly hard to hear and deal with. It's not a question of whether we 'just accept it' or not. It's a question of a back log of problems hitting the fan at the same time with devastating effect and solutions only being available in the long term.

And! Bloody bus passes children go back September its not a suprise so why do I have to wait for a code sent in the post last week of August pay online and wait for it to show up no-one answers the phone due to covid and they are apparently running on less staff due to covid I asked them can we please have a more efficient system they were like ermmm ermm we don't understand what's the problem? Well it's September my son has no bus pass my code hasn't shown up (they were sending it that week he was already at school by that time) and I had to keep paying weekly tickets despite having paid for a yearly pass

Due to covid