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Covid
Help me calm down - DH's work.
mrjellyisnotscary · 09/03/2020 10:55
I'm so cross and really anxious! My DH works for a large company. He WFH two days a week as standard. His job can be done entirely remotely. As can those of the rest of his team.
His organisation has decided to trial "split working" to help manage the CV risk. So teams will be divided in two, one stays on the original site, one is moved to another, and they stay entirely separate. No physical meeting with each other whatsoever.
He's been assigned to the office team. So to go into the office every day. Operationally this is utterly unnecessary. No-one in his team needs to go in and be physically present. There are many teams within the organisation where there do need to be people in the office, but his is not one of them.
So he will be travelling on packed London transport 5 days a week instead of 3. He'll be in a massive office building 5 days instead of 3.
We have school aged DC's who still need wraparound childcare. This is planned around our work hours and the fact that DH works from home 2 days a week. We have no am or pm childcare booked in for those days as we don't need it. Our school ASC is tiny and full.
But if schools close, I will have to take unpaid leave from my work. I'm frontline health care. I can't work from home, in any form. DH was talking about working in the evenings so that he could engage with the DC's in the daytime if schools do close.
Oh bloody hell. I'm so pissed off. Not only are his workplace putting him in a position where he's more likely to catch CV, but they are also screwing up our childcare arrangement COMPLETELY UNNECESSARILY!!!!!!!!
I've asked him to speak to HR but he won't until he's had a meeting with his boss about it later on today.
Help me calm down!!!!
(And I feel like I need to say, I haven't been hugely anxious about CV up to now. I'm realistic and sensible. But this has sent me over!)
Frazzled2207 · 09/03/2020 10:59
he definitely needs to speak to HR and probably best for him to highlight the childcare problem first and foremost.
also make it clear that other companies are encouraging home working as much as possible and they should follow their lead. For example my dh works for a major multinational when the homeworking % at any time is probably about 60% and they have now been specifically told to only come into the office for the most important face to face meetings.
mrjellyisnotscary · 09/03/2020 11:08
Thanks. I think an issue will be that WFH is discretionary, not part of his contract, so they may say that he shouldn't have relied on it for childcare. But then he's had to work from home the whole time he'd been there as they do not physically have enough desk space in his section for everyone to be there at once. And he doesn't have to actively look after the DC's until I get home in that they are big enough to get on with stuff while he works in a different room. So it doesn't impact his productivity.
It just feels like his boss has implemented the strategy because because that's what's been cascaded down from above, when in actual fact the team has an even better way of avoiding infection (which is the point of the exercise) as they can all stay away from public transport and the office!
mrjellyisnotscary · 09/03/2020 13:35
Ffs he's been told he needs to go in. He's said he can only do short days at the office on Thursday / Friday because of childcare (obviously he'll make up his hours at home)
I was hoping that the outcome of the Cobra meeting would give him some ammunition but it appears not.
It's so fucking irresponsible 
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