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.

The owners of the Daily Mail also thought Hitler was a top bloke and that Britain should take a leaf out of his book. Although I understand you can now be threatened for knowing history in the UK. Maybe I should check my thinking.

The world has changed and people's wants and needs and attitudes have changed.

It's not a case anymore that online interaction is bad or inferior to in person interaction. It can be equal or better for some people.

The paradigm has changed.

WFH is so good for diversity and inclusion. But the DM is on the side of the rich office landlords, I suppose. They’re losing money if people don’t need to be in offices. Alan Sugar was awful during Covid, for instance, with regards to his property portfolio.

Also it enrages me that so many people transformed their homes into offices in order to successfully do their jobs during covid and keep business running as normally as possible and now they’re trying to retain some work life balance and being call lazy piss takers for not wanting to go back to the office every day for jobs that they have proven can be done remotely.

If you read the article it’s civil servants people who are paid with tax payer money. I agree I’m not paying taxes for people chilling around on the beach! Or in bed!

I also think my workload and the general culture and balance has much improved as a result of lockdown.

I remember walking to the office in February 2020 and feeling like I was about to cry and give up.

I was exhausted and burnt out. I'd arrive at work and my manager would start asking me questions before I'd taken my coat off. I'd get hammered from all sides, he would agree to get someone from the team to do something for someone else, and our to do list would snowball. We'd be so tied down with extra ad hoc tasks that we'd finally start to do what we'd planned to that day just before 4pm.

People would come over to your desk and tell you they needed X Y and Z ASAP because it was critical to their whole team's work. And they hadn't thought of requesting it in advance - why should they when they can just waltz over and demand you drop all your deliverables for them?

We'd all regularly work an extra 2 or 3 hours a day just to get through everything. We'd log in every Saturday morning from home.

And then COVID hit, and a few things went pear shaped for a few teams. Not because of a drop in productivity, but because the disorganisation and lack of structure which had plagued their teams couldn't survive WFH.

So things changed, and now things go through the proper channels. Of course there are still ad hoc tasks, queries that arise etc. But these are quantified and requested in writing and funded where funding is required.

Things have improved, the workload has improved and the conditions are much nicer.

The thought of going back to that rat race fills me with dread. Everything is so much more managable now. I don't know if I'm more productive, but I do know my work is of a better quality, I can breathe, that I can freely plan to take on more responsibilities and that its rare now for me to be stuck at my desk at 8pm dealing with something that came in at 4pm that's needed by 10am the next morning.

I think the bubble here is assuming that remote work for a handful of central London firms will have a seismic impact on the UK economy because they aren't sat in overpriced real estate and buying overpriced sandwiches not that a few hundred or so regular commuters from my city to London will have a huge impact on the local economy of a city of several hundred thousand people.

Our economic woes are so much bigger and so much more structural than the fate of a few long distance commuters. It is the myopic view that what goes on in London is the only thing that matters that is why we are lacking in any economic resilience in this country as well as fuelling huge inequalities across the country.

Most of our news media is owned by billionaires and pushes their agenda.

The kind of easily manipulated bloody idiots who parrot the Daily Mail don't know what they think about anything until a billionaire's mouthpiece tells them but they do often have a vague sense of grievance. And point it in all the wrong directions.

Like Silas Wegg in Diickens' Our Mutual Friend. Anyone else being happy or fortunate vaguely disgruntles them.

Ugh, I hate it too and the stupid way they've decided that it's 'woke'.... usually retired people who have no clue how modern work operates. Or out-of-touch autocrats like Jacob Rees-Mogg who think hoi polloi need their 'Betters' breathing down their neck or they won't get anything done.

I'm a knowledge worker and could do my job 100% remote, in fact I worked the harderst 3 months of my life during the pandemic, shifting a hard copy publication to online only with no notice, so no one can tell me people can't be working hard from home. As long as people are meeting their goals, no problem.

I do go in to the office twice a week because it's actually a really nice office, and I think most people do like to go in for some time, but gosh, some people really can't handle change. And are worried about their commercial property investments.

Yes, this, all day long 👏🏼 👏🏼 👏🏼

Careful, you'll be accused of ageism.

Even though it largely is retirees complaining about people WFH.

Because the boomers have engaged in and supported an over decade-long campaign against my generation and refused to recognise the hardships we face. This is the outcome of that - that millennials don't have any sympathy for boomers at large and why we are not turning to right-wing politics as we age.

I am fed up of my generation being labelled as lazy, coddled, avocado-toast eating wasters and being labelled as a"bigot" for giving someone a taste of their own medicine.

And yet you still haven't actually engaged with the fact that your "example" of having it tough was not actually that bad compared to my example.

Why do you still read the Daily Mail?

Why do you expect that rag to be anything other than a vile propaganda machine for rich parasites who live abroad and don't pay any tax but think they can tell us what to do with our lives?

The Daily Mail are doing this to try to protect the interests of landlords who own commercial properties/office spaces and businesses that rely on workers being chained to their office desks and buying their coffees/newspaper/sandwiches on their way to work.

They have zero interest in your wellbeing...

I think this is whataboutery.

People are unhappier these days it seems, but when I visit my grandparents I'm faced with a prolonged rant about WFH, climate change, Labour, the council, Corbyn, people on benefits, young people not working hard enough, young people wasting money on phones and holidays, young people spreading covid etc etc. My parents receive this too. And I know others who say the same.

I don't hear the same rants from my peers. There might be some whinging about interest rates or paying 60% of their take home on renting a bedroom in a shared flat, but by and large their blood pressure remains constant.

I do find it funny when the "go back to the office" narrative is pushed based on people apparently not working when at home.
In previous roles when I was fully in the office, there were people scrolling the internet all day, watching YouTube or sports on there phones etc. If someone doesn't want to work, they won't work. Be it in the office or at home!

My current role is hybrid but I struggle with the office days as colleagues want to chat all day. The other day one colleague had an hour long rant about how much work she had to do and I couldn't help but think that if she hadn't wasted an hour ranting, she could have got some work done 🤣

And yet you still haven't actually engaged with the fact that your "example" of having it tough was not actually that bad compared to my example

I haven't given any examples of me "having it tough" on this thread @Eleganz , which would explain my lack of engagement with you? I can if you want, although I don't think it's helpful.

I am a very late Boomer on the cusp with Gen X and I do actually think younger people have it tough right now. It is very wrong to treat Boomers as one amorphous blob. I probably have a lot more in common with you than you think, unless you are a Tory Millennial of course. But you carry on with your spite and hate. That's exactly what the likes of the Daily Hate Mail want.

I think training is so important in person than virtually. One of my colleagues are training up the new graduates and she is refusing to do it virtually as she can see physically whether someone is overwhelmed, can read their notes, easier to shadow.

However there are definite benefits for hybrid work.

Ah, fuck it. 'Tis pointless trying to make some people what the Mail is up to. A trick as old as time.

@Pigeon31 you’re right, it is an issue for their managers but it’s also an issue for me, the end user.

Why am I not allowed to be angry? I am bloody angry at this government and the manipulative, divisive shite that the Mail spews out. I am angry that people fall for it.

@PinkCherryBlossoms you’ve been very fortunate in the offices you’ve worked in then.

Civil servant also pay tax too and taxes have risen unlike their salaries.

If that person is getting the work done in bed what does it matter?

Does it make you feel better to know the email was typed or application was processed etc in an office?

Do you mean unfortunate? Because I'd have said it was pretty rose tinted to think everyone who was arsing around in offices and generally using the environment to be unproductive was getting support and structure!