Anyone else's employers determined to ignore the request for social distancing?

[letsstayhappy]

My workplace are trying to best to follow govt advice as loosely as possible. We're a high street retailer (NOT food) and capable of WFH.

You wouldn't know it from the office. WFH needs signing off by a senior manager and notifying to HR. So far barely anyone taking advantage of this - there's a huge presenteeism culture and WFH has always been frowned upon.

Car park was marginally less busy today but not much. Vulnerable people have NOT been reassured they can stay home.

Is it just my employer who's this shit?!

Mine was but finally been told today we can WFH as of Monday, the worst part of it was that in a company of 7 teams we were the only team still being made to come in (all other teams have been WFH since Tuesday).
I'm an accountant so incredibly easy for us to WFH as all we need is our laptop!

Sadly not.

I work in a job that could be done easily from home with the most urgent deadline being 48hrs and it doesn’t matter whether it’s done in office hours or not. Data protection might require use of their equipment or allowing an IT bod to remotely access my equipment to sign off but it’s completely doable.

I may as well asked my manager for her office the reaction I got. Obviously I just want to skive. Never mind the fact I’m already isolating due to a dd picking up a cough (that is already better) last week.

It’s hard working for an organisation that treats you like a work shy shister even in the midst of a global pandemic

Or is it shyster?

A friend has been told by his employer that he can only have time off to look after his 6 year old son (school closed) if he takes unpaid leave.
His wife is a paramedic.

Nope mine too and I work for the NHS. I'm not front line. I work in admin and have a laptop and a work phone. I have asthma bad enough to need to use a steroid inhaler every day but our managers are insisting we come into the office even though there is nothing I can't do at home that I do at work.

Alton Towers were doing this until the head of Merlin (who own AT) announced this afternoon they were closing for "the foreseeable future ".

I'm so sorry there are others in the same position. And particularly the NHS for goodness sake!

The trouble is, whilst people keep going to work when they could be working from home, it just keeps that sense of normalcy! So they're less likely to change their routines outside of work... it's ridiculous.

Ikea closing

Boden stores closing

Zizzis closing

Bills closing

I applaud all the retailers and restaurants taking steps to protect their staff and customers' health and hope they will do their best to continue paying staff wages during that time.

My employer.... "let's keep on keeping on!" 🤦🏽‍♀️