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.

I get it. I’m well past retirement age but members of my family WFH. One contractor goes in to the office more now than before Covid. Unfortunately the minority who misused/abused the privilege have made some companies less willing to support WFH as much.

Hybrid working has got to be the norm for tech based work, unless a physical presence, as in medicine, care, retail etc is needed, as long as output doesn’t suffer I can see the benefits to all.

…but no-one on MN reads the Daily Mail? 🤔

Yes, the Times is covering this too.

People (employers, newspapers, the Government) need to decide what they want!

As is well known, the hacks who write this bile for the Daily Mail mostly work from home too - nothing else to add

Not sure if he still contributes but that vile Richard LittleDick used to post his ‘everything that is wrong with the UK’ rants from his gated community in Florida whilst his audience lapped him him up, I am going back years now though.

It's not just the Daily Mail (or as I refer to it, the Paper that Supported the Blackshirts). Or even just those on the right of politics, the London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan wants people back in offices.

WFH is killing the newspaper industry. Fewer commuters mean fewer people buying newspapers or reading free ones like Metro (owned by the Daily Mail group). The papers are struggling to make money through online advertising, so they are pushing people back to the office.

We should be able to debate the WFH situation without people accusing others of skiving (it certainly does happen a lot) or insisting it works brilliantly for all. I have done both. I found during Covid the junior staff were sadly the ones who couldnt be trusted and the more senior people who were often more customer facing much better. I WFH now and did both in a big corporate for many many years.

You only have to see some of the threads on MN to know doing 'other things' for an unacceptable part of the day is rife and now the companies are fighting back. If it worked why wouldnt they allow it to stand? People never being available for an urgent client call at 1530 and if pushed on it the predictiable 'dentist appointment' was rolled out. Often due to lack of time the call went ahead without them. Yes, you could start a investigation about your suspicions but the corporate world is very often fast moving and the moment was gone. Companies are telling people to come back into the office because - yes - they dont trust them. A % of people have spoilt it for the rest. Its not a small %.

There is someone on MN who is obsessed with management sorting out the people who are doing other things whilst meant to be wfh but putting evidence together on individuals when they have a ton of other things to do is not fair on them and extremely time consuming. It wasnt a management task before. So companies have made a decision to get people back into the workplace.

I managed a couple of people who I knew were not working the way they were expected to. No calls before 0930 or early meetings at all, not being available for calls between 1530 and 1630 but of course taking their lunch hour. If they were told they would be expected on the call they sometimes came clean and said as a one off they needed to collect child from school or child was ill etc. Usual expected excuses.

There were various reorgainsations within the corporate before I could actually pull all the evidence together on a couple of people (and why shouldnt big corporates have re organisations!) so although I passed on my suspicions to the next Manager it often doesnt get addressed. I only had a team of 5.

I never had this issue when people were in the office.

WFH is killing the newspaper industry.

I would respectfully suggest it is crap newspapers that are killing the newspaper industry. I am of an age to remember when reading one actually left you better informed than before.

I hate the Daily Heil for many reasons.

I did not know they had an anti wfh agenda but I will add that to the list.

As if the DM ‘’journalists’ are in the office 😂

reason was- there was no broadband 100 years ago.. or even 10

WFH is killing the newspaper industry.

Even if this is true, along with killing the sandwich shop industry - this doesn’t mean we should scrap hybrid working!

They're more worried about their urban property portfolios losing money.

I hate the Daily Mail full stop!

But yes, this anti-WFH stuff is ridiculous. Especially as some of their columnists live partly or wholly abroad; I can't easily see Richard Littlejohn getting regularly to the office from Florida, or Isabel Oakeshott from Dubai,

This is exactly it. Alan sugar is pushing back to the office because he has huge investments in office real estate. They're crapping themselves about what they'll do if thousands of square feet lie empty 4 days a week and organisations choose to let them go.