To hate the Daily Mail and its anti WFH vendetta

[catsliketowearsocks]

There is yet another DM story doing the rounds today about people 'working from beach'. Apparently it's council worker this time rather than civil servants. I work for a council and we would not be able to live abroad as we have impromptu office meetings, but even if we wanted to for the short term (like, for a family emergency or flight issues) we would have to apply for permission due to cybersecurity rules.

The DM would like to ban WFH which is just nasty. There may be a small number who take the piss but I don't believe that's the norm. WFH has vastly improved my life and mental health.

I'm willing to bet many DM journalists work remotely.

Ah this explains why one of my mum's mega rants always included people working from home who need to get back to the office.

It's playing up to the capitalist business owners and MPs that would have employees strapped to their desks as long as humanly possible. The reporting also satisfies the "hard working" retirees that put their slog in down the mines/ in the cotton mills/ in the steel factories etc. Why should working people today have it better than them?

Oh god my FIL has this narrative about my BIL returning to the office.

It has not escaped my notice that he has benefited hugely from BIL being close by and dropping everything to help.

Doesn't stop the stupid comments and judgement though.

I bet the daily mail office is largely remote workers now. Sitting at home typing up articles about lazy home workers.

Another annoying thing about the DM, is their failure to understand/acknowledge hybrid working. This seems to be the norm now, rather than completely in/completely out.

You often see a headline, ie ‘Amazon workers forced back into the office’ but when you read the article it’s actually the case that they have all been asked to attend 2/3 days per week.

Hate the daily Mail. And also hate - and I can see that I’m not the only one - they create opinions that exacerbate inter generational tension. My ILs do the wfh rant too. And then are surprised when they visit us and I’m too busy to do anything with them because… I’m working from home.

Out of all the DM’s racist, misogynistic, xenophobic shit, this seems a comparatively minor aspect.

oh mine too, but she reads the telegraph
i can argue until i am blue in the face!

i agree, i bet all these so called journalists are also wfh

People don’t understand WFH unless they’ve done WFH

If they try to get the public sector to drop hybrid working, then they should not be surprised to find fewer people want to work in the public sector as hybrid working is popular and companies that offer it have an advantage over others.

And then they will complain about a lack of public sector workers.

In this case I think it's more of an anti-council agenda.

my dm scoffed that you can do things when you are home which is why people liked it, when pushed, all she could say was put the washing on the line!
her own grandchildren and son in law work from home!

sigh.

Exactly. I’d probably trade hybrid working for 5 days in the office if I was given an occupational final salary pension and could buy a family home for 3x salary as they were able to.

The DM wfh workers will be trawling this thread to post on their Internet site to talk about how lazy mumsnetters want everyone to work ftom home.

Yeah, I hate the guardian and the independent for exacerbating intergenerational tension. Most newspapers are at it unfortunately.

Maybe don't read it and just get on with your life

The Tory party receives a lot of money from the property industry, which is for obvious reasons, very anti WFH. Hence the Mail's stance on the subject.

I think it's fairly clear where this is heading.

I hate the DM, but kind of agree about WFH.

Every employment contract should be about a trade of skills and effort for money and conditions, so if you are so good that your employer still wants you if you WFH, fair enough. However, WFH is not the same as being in the office and has many negatives from an employer’s perspective.

The downside is most apparent for young people at the start of their career. You just can’t informally mentor over Teams effectively. And young people lose out on the social aspect of work, which is also really important. The spontaneous Friday night pub outing after a bad week is so helpful.

I do think some flexibility in being able to work from home sometimes is important, especially to facilitate childcare issues, and allows many able people to work who couldn’t if it was 100% office based.

Offices were invented for a reason and the internet has only partially changed this.

It's so transparent that all the newspapers revel in spreading fear and causing intergenerational wars of opinion. Retired people do tend to be more susceptible to it as they are the ones who will buy their paper as part of their routine and absorb every word. It's often their only link to the wider world if they are not mixing with working people or kids. I've seen it with my grandparents how reasonable they used to be and how intolerant they have become.

Isn't that the propaganda piece from the Tax Dodgers Alliance? I'll start giving more than a nanosecond of thought to their opinions when their owners start paying tax in the UK.

The DM is a hate-filled rag and is always whipping up a storm against some group or another.

And they're talking bollocks, too. The councils here have made significant savings in premises since moving to hybrid working, as they need a lot less office space and are selling/leasing some of their buildings. The organisation I work for (3rd sector, but running services commissioned by NHS/ASC) has leased a quarter of the space at its head office.

I can't speak for the whole organisation, but my team is now managing a caseload double its pre-Covid size, and with no loss of performance. A job that would have taken my whole 6-hour day pre-Covid and involved a 90-mile round trip can now be done in a couple of hours from home.

And the reduction in traffic because of WFH and hybrid working can only be a good thing.

I think a lot of the anti-WFH sentiment comes from those who have financial interests in commercial property that is now half empty, tbh.

And young people lose out on the social aspect of work, which is also really important. The spontaneous Friday night pub outing after a bad week is so helpful.

I wish people who cited this as a benefit would also acknowledge how many people it disadvantaged.

I think another reason the DM hates WFH is that it makes it easier for women to be something other than their two pillars of motherhood - the SAHM or the full on high flying career woman. Their journalism can't cope with that.