Literally why am I a key worker?

[Esmerelda01]

I'm feeling so frustrated today.

I work for a large multi national retailer which is currently classed as an essential shop as we sell predominantly food.
My role is absolutely not key, I dont contribute to feeding the nation, to getting the food on the shelves, to checking the quality or assisting in the logistics of it arriving. However the entire company has been classed as key workers, all 16,000 of us which just seems crazy.
Dh is a key worker and cannot work from home (he works in Fire protection predominantly in care homes).
There's so much pressure coming in rom all angles regarding not sending dc to school if you WFH. I wfh 80%, of the week but work will not allow me to look after / home school my 6yo as they say there is no requirement due to my KW status.

I feel like such a fraud. The worst thing is the school know what job I do at the head office and that I work from home and I feel pathetic.

Work have now told me I am to lie and say I've been moved to one of the teams that feed the nation if my status is queried.

I feel physically sick all the time, like im putting dc and his teachers at risk, at what the school must think of me and at the fact that my company are being so inconsiderate.
They told me if I really want to have him off I can take unpaid leave - what for the next 3 months?! We have a mortgage and bills to pay.

The whole key worker thing needs a massive review. It's just a massive joke the whole thing.

FYI - schools have been told they cannot set limits

True but they also have to do risk assessments and where a risk assessment places limits because that's the way to limit risk to the lowest point they need to set a capacity.

It's another way the HSP guidelines are contradictory!

The government needs to put pressure on businesses to stop this crap. They won't though because they need the tax revenue of course. The economy will recover from this. Lots of peoples loved ones won't.

This is so different from the first lockdown (which did work) because so many peoples have a 'get out' and ' have to' work outside home or 'have to' send their kids to school. You can tell by the amount of cars on the road.

In my area we now have way more people in hospital with COVID than the first wave and the hospital has cancelled even cancer surgery.

We need to be taking this way more seriously.

I am seeing similar. Back office staff were really encouraged to homeschool last time around "even though we are classed as key workers" with front line staff obviously getting full key worker support or furloughed if at risk.
The health situation is much worse now but we are being firmly told that we are all key workers now, sample letters for schools etc. Nothing blatant as yet but you get a feeling that any excuses around productivity/flexi hours will be met with less tolerance.
I'm ignoring it and encouraging my team to do whatever worked for them the last time around.

Op I’m wfh and two kids home with me
They barely do any homeschool
But they are safe
How
Old are kids , could you explain situation , and wfh
This is a terrible example of a business not even trying to flatten curve

Why can't you just say that you can work from home all of the time and that is what Government advice is?

I don't get the impression you have put your foot down.

They can't sack you and if they did you would take it to a tribunal.

@CovoidOfAllHumanity

The government needs to put pressure on businesses to stop this crap. They won't though because they need the tax revenue of course. The economy will recover from this. Lots of peoples loved ones won't.

This is so different from the first lockdown (which did work) because so many peoples have a 'get out' and ' have to' work outside home or 'have to' send their kids to school. You can tell by the amount of cars on the road.

In my area we now have way more people in hospital with COVID than the first wave and the hospital has cancelled even cancer surgery.

We need to be taking this way more seriously.

well no, because if the work can be done from home, their income/ tax/ payments to the government will be the same.

It's employees who need to be assertive.
The businesses can't recruit their replacements and they will have to accept people saying they can work from home.

work will not allow me to look after / home school my 6yo as they say there is no requirement due to my KW status.

Even with ‘key worker’ status lots of schools aren’t giving children places. How would your work know if your school is currently full to capacity? How will your work know if you don’t tell them?

Sorry for keeping coming back OP but I'm really confused.

Your employer cannot force you to send your child to school any more now than if you were working pre-Covid.

Your priority is to do your job.

If you child is 6, they ought to be able to be out of earshot or screenshots while you WFH.

what's the issue?

I do wonder if the OP was male would they have even thought to ask about school/childcare arrangements?

Our school have their hands tied by the guidance but they have refused a few requests that they felt were unreasonable and have reminded parents that the government say everyone should 'stay at home if you can' and that includes DC.
They have 30-50% of kids in which is way way more than last time.

Just because you can send children to school doesn't mean you should. We do not take up keyworker places for our kids because DH wfh

@Mrsemcgregor

I do wonder if the OP was male would they have even thought to ask about school/childcare arrangements?

The OP might be male.

Can you give any clues about who these shysters are OP, as I would gladly boycott them too.

well they can't be M&S because their profit comes from food sales, not their crappy clothing.

Tesco?
Sainsbury?

But the fact of the matter is they won't allow it and no, I wouldn't expect a 6yo to go undetected as I have teams calls with my colleagues and managers regularly throughout the day.

They can’t dictate that to you.

Unsure why a fire safety officer can’t do some work from home. We have plenty of H&S inspectors who are working from home when they don’t have to visit sites.

All seems a bit “woe is me” frankly.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz that’s true, but I took a punt on “esmerelda” who has a dh on a largely female forum, on balance is likely to be female. I will however apologise if I am wrong.

@Esmerelda01 they sound like cunts to be blunt.

Why should they be party to your domestic arrangements? Who’s to say you don’t have family support or some other provision in place?

It sounds like they’re using loopholes to keep you off furlough in the interests of their own profits rather than because your role is genuinely that of a key worker during a pandemic.

This whole situation has shone a light on many exploitative employers who don’t give a shot about their workforce. I no longer buy anything from ASOS since the revelation in March they were forcing their warehouse staff to keep going over the first lockdown in what is quite clearly a non-essential business, and not only that but with compromised distancing and crap protective measures.

Can you give any clues about who these shysters are OP, as I would gladly boycott them too.

Unsure why a fire safety officer can’t do some work from home. We have plenty of H&S inspectors who are working from home when they don’t have to visit sites.

Exactly.

A friend of mine has a sister whose work as a senior H&S adviser for their local authority is now 100% from home unless there is an incident that needs a site visit.

You are paid to do a job, why do you think that you should be paid not to do it?

Plenty are desperate for work right now, I'm sure your employers won't struggle to fill your position if you want to quit

I’m in a similar position; my industry has been classified as a keyworker but I’m totally not; my work are “encouraging” me to get keyworker places but the school has been very hard line and said they will only allocate places to keyworkers working out of the house (and no, I know they’re not supposed to do just that, but I don’t blame them at all).

Soon enough all the bubbles will have burst anyway and we’ll all be doing the juggle...

[quote Tumblebugsjump]@WorraLiberty she dosen't have to explain anything, working from home at full capacity and having children at home dosen't mix. Her work will suffer, her kids and her mental health. Also I expect her work will want to talk to her or teams/zoom, how would you suggest that she deals with her kids walking in? Shouting? Generally being alive and doing things kids do. Can't you understand she's extremely stressed and feels really under pressure from her work, and idiots like you. [/quote]
Yes, I can understand because unlike some 'idiot' I've actually read the thread.

Why don't you read it again (or at least the OP's posts) and 'explain' where all the other children are coming from, considering the OP only has one?

It's no one's fault but I suppose it's an inevitable consequence of a pandemic situation lasting nearly a year

The virus may be noone's fault but the incompetent management, particularly in education lies absolutely with the cabinet.

Gavin Williamson has widened the definition of key workers to be utterly meaningless. The definition of "vulnerable" includes any child without a personal laptop or their own room. He has told schools they can't impose capacity limits whilst failing to provide financial support for more staff in schools or the costs of the constant changes and reorgs. Teachers are supposed to produce commercial quality home learning with neither the training nor the expertise (its a different skill from classroom teaching).
The £100m handed over to a Tory party donor has shown precious little improvement across the country whereas that money used by school consortia and LAs to expand their existing contracts might have helped.

Then on top of this incompetence he encourages parents to complain to ofsted if schools juggling proper teaching school, teaching for out of school and rotating sicknes and isolation don't meet "standards". He doesn't even know the schools complaints processes and procedures.

In my area the mythical laptops. have appeared at a couple per school in large schools with high FSM percentages. Schools are between 50-70% full and one local primary head has had MC parents who have no key worker eligibility demanding that little Tarquin has a place because the 7 yr old doesn't have his own laptop (hence under Gavin's rules they are entitled).

Heads can try to push back on this nonsense but without Gov support they are on dodgy ground legally.

Businesses are no better, demanding people take up school places or attend offices unnecessarily - seems to be a combination of companies with incompetent management layers or still cliinging ont to being told to get people into the offices all through Summer and Autumn to protect rental income for city centre landlords (plenty of them in the cabinet).

Its not surprising the lockdown isn't working and needs tougher restrictions - its being bypassed wherever possible by businesses and the government is rendering school closure largely non existent.

Please keep your child at home if you can in order to protect teachers/TAs etc and to reduce rates in the community.
Teachers are getting COVID at 3 times the rates of the community.

www.tes.com/news/exclusive-coronavirus-schools-teacher-covid-rates-333-above-average

This is crazy. Keep your child at home, if they ask say your dh is working from home/different shifts whatever.
Move your work set up somewhere in the house with a door you can lock. Ideally use headphones/mic to pick up your own voice more than background noise. If anyone in your company gives more than a passing thought to why you have moved seat they don't have enough work to do.
Do you really want posters just to tell you to send her in, your hands are tied, blah blah? I think England is going to be in this lockdown for 100 years at this rate.

Have people missed that OP is pretty certain that she can do her job from home if she works flexibly ie some evenings and weekends and the employer have continued to pressure her to request a (non-essential school place?)

It's not that she thinks that she should be paid to do a job that she can't do - it's that she rightly thinks that she should be paid to do a job that she can and is doing.

It seems that OP has one six year old.

With most jobs that can be done from home, that sounds perfectly manageable.

I bet if OP's child was off sick from school in ordinary circumstances, her employer would only be too happy with her wfh rather then taking dependency leave.

I work in a food factory and weve all been given letters stating our keyworker status.
Difference is every person that can work from home is. Office staff are limited to absolutely essential only.