Key workers WFH vs Non Key Workers WFH

[ChickenPot]

Is there a difference?

Have seen a few threads of key workers WFH mentioning sending their children to school. However, having been WFH since March but not classified as a key worker this hasn't been an option.

Surely there's no difference? I assumed a key worker was someone who had to work on the frontline, aka not able to do their job from home and therefore allowances had to be made.

But if not, what constitutes as a key worker then?

Doesn't seem very fair on those who have been struggling to juggle keeping down a job alongside home schooling throughout the lockdowns. It's as though your job is important enough that you have to keep working throughout the pandemic, but not important enough for any help.

@ChickenPot

Based on that list, my husband and I are both key workers. Yet according to the School, as we work from home, we are not. Frustrating!

I agree with pp, can your employer(s) not give you a letter to give to the school? Mine were doing that in lockdown 1 and I presume will again this time around - I work for a government body.

I'm a probation officer working from home. I've accepted the key worker school place. Would you rather I kept my kids at home and lost concentration on making life changing decisions and a service user commits a further offence because I've been home schooling my children. I wish people would stop with these posts it's driving me mad.

I'm a key worker, mental health practitioner. I WFH half the week (seeing patients virtually) and I'm in clinic the other half (mostly seeing patients virtually but a few face to face also). Even when WFH I cannot have my 4YO in the room with me as I am discussing sensitive and confidential information. DH and I are playing tag team looking after her but it's tough and I might have no choice but to send her back to school unfortunately!

I’m a nurse, private sector and community based, mostly WFH now but some face to face assessments etc. I also do bank shifts as a clinical contact tracer for test & trace. That’s home based too. I could not do any of this with my youngest child at home, it would be impossible. My older ones are at secondary and can self study at home.

I feel incredibly guilty that I’ve taken a place for my youngest and that I’m dropping off and returning home most days to work. But I have no family nearby to provide a bubble and I really would only get bare minimum done if she were with me, I’d have to cancel the test & trace shifts entirely. My neighbours have no idea what I do for a living and I do wonder if they judge me when we set off for school and then they see me return again. I wish I could stop feeling guilty about it!

I find it odd that no one in the social housing sector is a key worker. You’d think with the levels of redundancy and poverty, keeping housing associations running to house people in need would be key. Apparently not.

I'm classed as a key worker because I run a nursing programme. However I decided not to send my daughter to school because she's 15 and not interrupting my work. She's also working away quite well. If I had smaller children I would have had to send them.

Council office staff are key workers who can often wfh

If you can work from home you shouldn't use key worker child place imo. My husband is a cancer research scientist performing innovative clinical trials in patients who are terminally ill. I work in the regulation of diabetic medicine. Neither key worker roles but considering the rates of cancer and diabetes in this country most people will benefit from our kind of work in their lifetime. We are juggling high pressured full-time jobs whilst homeschooling. It's an utter nightmare but everyone has to play their part.

@Scottishgirl85

If you can work from home you shouldn't use key worker child place imo. My husband is a cancer research scientist performing innovative clinical trials in patients who are terminally ill. I work in the regulation of diabetic medicine. Neither key worker roles but considering the rates of cancer and diabetes in this country most people will benefit from our kind of work in their lifetime. We are juggling high pressured full-time jobs whilst homeschooling. It's an utter nightmare but everyone has to play their part.

This is a very bitter post on your part. I'm sorry to hear that you aren't classed as keyworkers or that the school cannot accommodate your children. Both of your jobs sound very challenging and extremely important.

Countless posters, however, have given examples of how their work is not suitable to the point of inappropriate to do within earshot of their children - even you must agree this makes sense.

Additionally, if the school have a criteria, and you don't fill it, a parent who is WFH keeping their child home doesn't mean yours gets a place. So it sort of reads "well mine cant go, theirs shouldn't either / well I have to struggle, they should too"

The definition of ‘critical worker’ is very broad and with a bit of wide interpretation many people can interpret their own roles as ‘key’ when actually if you look at the spirit of the ‘critical worker’ provision they are not. Unfortunately with all rules you get pisstakers but despite that it’s still important that the children of our nurses doctors and emergency services and all other roles that are essential to keep the country on its feet are looked after so I think we have to put up with the pisstakers (and internally judge them!)

I’ve worked through March lockdown, from home, with three young children, doing a really demanding intellectually challenging job. But it’s not a job that is critical to anyone except my clients who could easily pay someone without kids to do it and me, because I need to get paid. So it’s my choice to get furloughed for childcare or carry on working, however difficult, and I’ve chosen to work.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz I'm very bitter, not even trying to hide it. We're exhausted on about 4 hours sleep every night and our children now know all about the horrors of cancer patients, including young adult patients :-(

I'm bitter as I am seeing the system abused, even from friends in our kid's classes. Yes there are examples of at-home roles that are inappropriate for children to overhear, but these are probably fairly limited. There is so much abuse of the system and this will cost lives.

And what about non key workers who cannot wfh? They’ve been thrown under the bus totally.