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.

It is such a shame that the generations are being pitted against each other when nobody, for many reasons, had it easy.

My great grandparents had the Great War and 1930s depression
My grandparents had to raised children during the war and the poverty and deprivation of the post war period.
My parents were born of people who lost almost everything and many loved ones during the war. They were frugal to their own detriment and had very little of the employment and H&S law there which protects people now.
My generation started work in a time when there was no Equal Pay Act or legal right to equality at work or in education, housing etc.
Our children's generation face a desperate housing market, covid, war
Our grandchildren's generation are staring at a future blighted by global warming and economic chaos.

The real shame of this is that it is our leaders fault, not the 'boomer' or 'millennial' in the street who is to blame for 90% of our problems.

The DM/Telegraph/Whoever spend their energy and money stirring up intergenerational friction or hatred of the poor, those working from home, working mums, stay at home mums, benefit claimants, junior doctors, posties, nurses, railway workers, old people, the long term sick, single mums and those who crush avocados onto sour dough toast.

They do that to distract us from the key fact that the key issues are something we should all spend our time learning about (not infighting) that we should be angry, protesting and most of all voting.

That's true but it's very physically obvious so easier for people to manage.

And the worst piss taking I have heard of is someone "working" two different full time jobs simultaneously until they got caught out. Or people "working" with toddlers under their feet. That couldn't be done if they had to go into the the office physically

I work for a council and we have no network access abroad. I know this because I, like my equally lazy colleagues, have my work email set up on my personal phone in case something comes up out of hours, and it automatically kicks you out when your phone detects an overseas network.

Don't forget one of the Daily Mail's lesser duties is to bash local government - central government cuts council budgets first and hardest so that when people see their lives getting harder and their communities struggling they blame the council not the government. If readers catch on that council staff are normal, mostly hard working people rather than lazy bureaucrats who hold 6 hour meetings daily to decide whose bin to deliberately miss next, the ruse stops working.

This.

My late father was in hospital for a while. I suspended his Telegraph paper subscription while he was in there. When he came out, I asked him if he wanted to restart. He said to give it a longer break which became permanent (would get his news from BBC or Sky TV and pick up the odd local paper instead).

There was a very noticeable softening of his views over time (he was an essentially kind man) and much less single issue pro-Tory, pro-capitalism ranting. I think he was happier without it too- felt less threatened.

Yes, it's very physically obvious. That's exactly what it is. The knee jerk reaction comes from that specifically.

The worst I've ever known is someone who, over the course of years, spent about 25% of their office hours actually doing anything at all. The examples you give don't necessarily mean the work doesn't get done, although I presume you've mentioned them because it didn't in those instances.

@Zanatdy

Please could you explain your post:

"Our staff do more work at home, their stats are a bit lower on office days (we do 40% and so do most of government, or more) as they are encouraged to ‘collaborate’. "

What do you mean, we do 40%? 40% of what? That seems very low.

I assume she means 40% in the office (or 40% at home?)

I actually worked for the DM for a bit as a temp job (don’t hate me!) The offices have a floor to ceiling atrium up to the top however many storeys it is, with an indoor gold-coloured waterfall. The letters editor used to rock up mid-morning, laugh at a few of the mad missives (lots of green pen on the back of cigarette packets ranting that they were Prince Harry’s love child), hand the best of the bunch to me to type them up, then bugger off for his five-hour piss-up lunch before coming back to sign off on the page. But it’s WFH that’s lazy, obviously.

People are making good points about remote working as a cost saving option and the right wing rags needing to bash local goverment and civil servants as a point of principle.

I wonder if eventually, once there's more societal acceptance that people do not need and are not going to just go back to the office, the criticism might not go the other way. I could see the Mail in say 2028 going with a look at this profligate Labour government spaffing away taxpayers money on plush offices, make the entitled buggers work at their kitchen tables instead and not expect their electricity to be paid for.

Most banks have had office working mandates but it varies by role, seniority etc. Same for consulting, Civil Service, accounting, professional services in general.

I had a very interesting discussion with a partner at one of the B4 consultancies about WFH and real estate. During the pandemic, he was convinced that WFH would end once restrictions were lifted. More recently he has conceded that WFH is here to stay for Mon and Fri. At one point there were considerations for a reduction in real estate in the London office due to the lack of in-person attendance although that has turned around now, WFH is here to stay.

However, absolute LOL at the low footfall photo on a Friday. Have they seen it on a Friday at any other point, pre-pandemic as well? Friday has always been a WFH/half-day affair.

The waits and the backlog in the Civil Service are not caused by WFH.. it’s caused by an increase in legislation, more tasks post-Brexit (that either didn’t exist pre-Brexit or was light touch), and a decrease in departmental budgets.

Much easier to blame the workers, rather than incompetent Govt leadership

Or maybe I'm overthinking it and it is just bitter journalists having to pay a fortune to commute to fleet street and hating every second whilst everyone else can watch netflix whilst getting paid to WFH. It's so unfair..........😭

Agreed. It's so important to recognise this as propaganda being put out on behalf of those with financial investments in office buildings.

It is capitalism at its worst. We are in a climate emergency and these people want office workers back in cars for the daily commute to further their own short term financial gains.

Well the massive deterioration in customer services for pretty much every company or agency in the whole country is partly due to people WFH. People can’t ask their manager questions, so we’re often being given wrong information. You can hear kids in the background. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been told “I’m working from home today so I can’t answer that question, but I will try and get back to you” but they never do.

I think WFH should only be allowed in exceptional circumstances- disabilities, medical problems etc. Generally the reasons people give for liking WFH are all the things that make them less productive - I can walk the dog, I can speak to the washing machine repair man, I can pick up the kids from school, I can help the kids with their homework, I can get tea ready on time, I can get to the shops, I can make domestic admin phone calls etc. So when I’m 25th in a call queue, being told that they’re experiencing high call volumes, I know it’s because the employees are on the school run or in Tesco!

Prepared to be slated of course.

Not a fan of the Daily Mail in general though.

Please stay WfH, it makes my travelling for work much easier.

They answer the phones from home. Why does being at home make any difference to this? You’ve clearly lapped up the headlines that equate poor service to WFH. It was poor before WFH.

The DM is not the only one with an anti-WFH agenda. The financials are obvious though. If there is a permanent shift to home working then a lot of commercial property investors will lose out. In my own business we have ditched two leases in the last year as a result of home working- so vested interests here will be desperate. For most of us, this flexibility is now essential and most firms are very accomodating IME.

Perhaps, can't say I've experienced this myself though. I did work in a customer service call centre as a student and you don't have someone else on hand really to ask questions to, we'd put people on hold and speak on an internal line to them- this could probably be done remotely I imagine. I'd say the far bigger issues are cuts to the workforce in many private and gov organisations? I'm sure most people mean they do these things in the time they'd be commuting usually or at lunch etc? Surely managers should be managing this if people are absent during the work day, I don't see why everyone should have it taken away as some are naughty is overly fair?

Our business involves running large call centres (insurance). Our performance metrics have increased as a result of home working as has retention (which is also important in maintaining a good service). Providing staff are well equipped there is no difference between home working and office working in terms of functionality and it is much easier to people evening and weekend shifts when staff can get back to home life immediately after a shift.

Surely this is just sheer incompetence on their part. I don't see how the staff being in the office would make any difference.

The DM boils my piss on this. What about climate change ey? Mandating me to burn litres of fuel a month so my arse is in a chair in the office when I don’t need to be. If I’m a shit worker from home then sure as hell am still shit in the office, how does being in a location make you competent?

Working from home has been revolutionary for me. It appears I eat too much for some reason when in the office and working from home I lost almost 2 stone during covid. I get to drop the kids to school and then walk the dogs before I log in, I can throw on a wash in between getting bits done, I am much better and more efficient because nobody is talking or making noise and I go in to the office one day a week sometimes 2 for paperwork and I get to have a day at my desk with colleagues too so I miss out on nothing. I am an introvert though anyway and do not need many dealings with other people anyway.

When I was a single parent, wfh was a godsend. I wouldn't have been able to build my career without it - I used childcare, but the ability to whack on a meal as soon as my work day was done, be on hand for emergencies, etc, made me working even possible. The alternative was to stay on benefits, lose our family home, and become council tenants.

My story is like a DM bingo card! Which is worse? WFH or council mum?

This is the same for me. We've seen our productivity, resilience and progression really challenged since we moved from 2xpwk wfh (pre pandemic) to 1 day in the office only (and wfh completely during the pandemic).