Deaths everywhere, yet we are still going to work this morning. Why?

[TwirpingBird]

I am sitting here watching BBC breakfast with another harrowing video of ITU nurses at breaking point, ambulances lined up outside, 1800 dead yesterday, and headlines of 'lockdown isnt working', 'people arent complying' blah blah blah. Its all 'you need to follow the rules, you need to stay at home. I am seething.

My husband is leaving for work in an hour where he will enter 5 houses today to do completely non essential work because the government deem him a 'key worker'. My best friend will go to work in her office in a interior design company because she is a 'key worker'. Her husband will go to work giving quotes for kitchens in people's houses because his boss deems him a 'key worker'. None of my friends are on furlough. We are all seeing nobody outside of work. We are all sticking to the 'rules'. But how could we possibly expect the rules to work when everyone is still getting in their cars this morning?

I am raging angry. I am SICK and TIRED of being told 'follow the rules'. WE ARE!!! The rules make no bloody sense. And people are still dropping like flies, and experts are saying the lockdown isnt working, and the public are still being tarred as 'lacking empathy' because we are killing people. We are going to work! Kids are still in school! And then we come home and we do what we can but its never going to be enough. I am starting to wonder why I am bothering to hide myself away, managing a 2 year old and a newborn alone 5 days a week, naively thinking I am helping to manage transmission, when in reality its not helping at all because people are still at work.

Companies don’t want to pay rent for buildings, it costs them a fortune.

Fades into insignificance if they are less competitive than others in their industries.

@gongsr

It isn't my problem to resolve. Schools are not safe for children or staff.

don't forgot the families of those children.

Not sure why you quoted me twice. Bit of an odd thing to do.

I did make a suggestion later in my post, perhaps you missed it.

Companies don’t want to pay rent for buildings, it costs them a fortune

Companies will do what is best for ££££. Offices won't disappear but I expect them to shrink.

@TheKeatingFive

This is a massive issue if remote working is here to stay.

I do not think it’s here to stay

Some will keep their workers home. Many will not and still have offices.

There will also be a shift when competition means getting business face to face not by zoom.

Staff who are not client facing might be kept home.

Hard to say definitely what it will be but they’ll be a rapid shift once those who are can stop wfh

@DecemberSun because I posted too soon & had two points. Not sure why that is difficult 🤷‍♀️

I know someone who has formed a childcare bubble with another family when neither actually need childcare....it's just so the kids can play

Tbf it is incredibly tough to see children skip to school each lurking while the same half at screen based without friends

Even better idea keep the 60 plus at home instead of daily shopping trips and let people get on with there lives as this virus wont kill most people

Ahh, the “just isolate the vulnerable even further than they are anyway, so I can get back to the pub” argument.

It shouldn’t surprise me this attitude still pertains, people always did view those who are vulnerable as second class citizens.

Morning

Companies always had the option to not pay £££££ for expensive offices.

There are reasons why they did and those reasons haven’t gone away for good.

Why doesn’t your husband look for a new job if he despises his so much?

I agree. If lovelemoncurd's attitude reflects that of her DH, then he is in the wrong job, and it is important for the children in his care that he finds a different career.

I did make a suggestion later in my post, perhaps you missed it.

Nope I just didn't realise that was a solution.

I struggle to comprehend why someone wants a problem they have to be solved but thinks that any impact from that is not that problem. Very self absorbed.

So what are the suggestions on how all this will be paid for in the future?

People are already moaning that food prices are going up (combination of Covid/Brexit) - taxes are certainly going to be increased long term for all of us - presumably none of you insisting on total lockdown will be complaining about that? . And whatever we might like to think - just taxing Amazon, big Corporations, landowners, Footballers etc isn't going to bring in nearly enough.

There will also be a shift when competition means getting business face to face not by zoom

Companies are starting to see the savings made on business travel. Few are going to want to go back to that any time soon.

There will also be a significant shift in people wanting to work from home more. Companies who don’t get on board with that will find they are less competitive when it comes to hiring. It was already starting to happen, this has nudged it forward. Most of the people I am speaking to from all walks of life have suggested they will be looking for a balance in the future.

I think frequent business travel is now gone for good.

Companies who don’t get on board with that will find they are less competitive when it comes to hiring.

This will be strongly countered by young hires who want an office environment and to learn from more experienced people in person.

Plus the ambitious in any company will want face time, which will set the tone.

I think some facility for wfh will be provided, but those people will get quickly sidelined in most organisations in terms of promotions and so on. Which will be okay for some people and worth the sacrifice. Not for others.

I agree about business travel. It will be a loooong time before that’s back, if at all.

@MintyMabel

There will also be a shift when competition means getting business face to face not by zoom

Companies are starting to see the savings made on business travel. Few are going to want to go back to that any time soon.

There will also be a significant shift in people wanting to work from home more. Companies who don’t get on board with that will find they are less competitive when it comes to hiring. It was already starting to happen, this has nudged it forward. Most of the people I am speaking to from all walks of life have suggested they will be looking for a balance in the future.

It can pass as if I want to get a high budget job I may well make the effort as others do zoom. Competitive edge. Plus many companies have local city based offices even if global.

There may well be some shake up with flexibility but people charged with getting business won’t be slow about it.

Anyone I know in consultancy is lamenting how difficult business development is digitally and is chomping at the bit to return to office culture.

@Timeontimeoff

WOW how vile "lovelemoncurd My husband leaves for work and has done every single day since last March teaching SEN kids in a PRU. So my husband has to put his life in danger because others don't know how to raise their children and our useless government can't make decent decisions 😡"

SEN kids - parents don't know how to raise them.... what a nasty thing to say.

MY DS has a range of neutological developmental issues which we are currently investigating may have been caused by medical negligience.

I have been judged every which way for him and how he behaves. I (and not DH strangely, despite the fact we share the care, me because I am the mother) have been judged endlessly as a defective parent.

I can usually shrug it off as ignorance. But the quote from the poster whose DH is apparently at least some sort of specialist in the SE field has really really hurt me to the core.

Parents of SEN children go through a level of pain and anxiety and worry about their children that is hard to comprehend.

@MintyMabel

While I’m sure there are employers taking the piss, the bottom line is productivity often is better on site.

This is a really outdated view. There are benefits to being on site, especially if the work is team generated, or where you have less experienced team members who are being trained on the job. But productivity isn’t linked to an office environment. If you have team members who are less productive at home, they are just as likely to be the less productive members in the office environment too. That’s a management issue and if staff won’t work well at home discussions need to be had with them about why.

More enlightened employers assess their staff on an output basis rather than “hours worked”. We haven’t see any drop off in output in our team overall. The shirkers are still shirking. Unfortunately one of them is our line manager and he was crap when in the office so no change there. We actually have one guy who was really crap in the office, always arsing about on his phone, took forever to complete tasks. His output has really improved since he started working at home. Not sure why, maybe it’s because he lives with his parents and they are on him if he is slacking! In our business prior to Covid it was not unusual for people who had a particularly difficult task which needs a lot of focus, to decide to work from home so they had the quiet needed to complete it for the deadline.

I’ve worked from home for years and my productivity is far greater without the constant distractions in the office environment and without tagging on a commute at either end of the day.

I’m a lot more productive in the office, not because I’m lazy or can’t go the job but because the WiFi is much faster than my home broadband. I can download and save reports instantly in the office, at home each report takes a few minutes. I feel the only reason I’m more efficient at home is because I’ve been working extra hours, but I’ve stopped doing that now.

I wish people would shut up about the number of cars on the road. Driving your own car or being a passenger with a member of your own family is very very very low risk.

Many people will be driving rather than using public transport as it is safer.

There are still lots of reasons people are permitted to be out. Stop believing the divisive messages being pedalled that everyone is out on a jolly because they don't care. Start putting pressure on government to come up with strategies to enable schools, childcare, care homes and hospitals to operate safely. Start putting pressure on them to enforce covid safe working practices in businesses that are open. This is where transmission is happening but we're all to busy frothing about people walking round reservoirs!

So what are the suggestions on how all this will be paid for in the future?

I wonder whether anyone asked this during WW2.

@TheKeatingFive

Anyone I know in consultancy is lamenting how difficult business development is digitally and is chomping at the bit to return to office culture.

Yep same here there’s been a slowing with new business and part of that is this forced digital element

It’s funny, on here everyone seems to be loving working from home, whereas in real life all the people I know (mainly from corporate, finance type roles) are really missing the office. Maybe there’s a correlation between people who tend to spend a lot of time on online forums and those who prefer home working.
I hate working from home. I just feel like I live at work. I can see why flexibility is desirable, but I would be extremely hesitant to take any role that was full time home working.

@MintyMabel

So what are the suggestions on how all this will be paid for in the future?

I wonder whether anyone asked this during WW2.

Ffs were not sending people off to war and having our land/homes obliterated in the process...people comparing this to ww2 need to get a grip and realise how damn lucky we are to have never lived it!