Lockdown is where middle-class people hide and working-class people bring them stuff

[havanacabana]

I’ve seen this quote on twitter a few times and realised there is actually a lot of truth to it. IRL most of the people I know who are truly able to ‘hide away’ are the middle-class, privileged ones who are currently on furlough or working from home. People I know on minimum wage are the ones having to go out and mix at work in supermarkets, takeaways, warehouses etc. to keep everything going.

So maybe there should be a private versus public sector debate?

I think I am middle class and I go out of the house to work every day .

It's true for the most part.

I work in a factory, production. Minimum wage. Obviously we can't WFH. What I find most irritating is people berating others for going out for non essentials but are quite happy to order non essentials online. I go out to work in a high risk environment every day to make sure people get their non essential online shopping so if I want to get a takeaway coffee on my way there I bloody will do.

Despite everyone’s anecdata examples on this thread, I do think this is broadly true and agree with a pp that the eventual class-based analysis of deaths will show stark differences. But it’s about a range of interconnected issues as well as work - housing, family location etc.

Working class people are more likely to have larger, geographically closer families. Perhaps that also means more like to mix? If my mum and dad and sister lived on the next street then I’d probably have gone against restrictions and met up with them.

@WorraLiberty

For example, none of the bar staff, hairdressers, waiting staff and hotel staff I know are middle class.

Yet they've all been furloughed. My SIL is a cleaner in a University and she's been furloughed for the 3rd time.

As the main definition of being middle class is being a graduate, and many graduates are bar staff/hotel staff,/waiting staff/ cleaning staff/caring staff etc for many years throughout Their education and early working life, this distinction between this sort of worker and ‘the middle classes’ is entirely false.

And it is also very silly to call someone ‘privileged’ after they have worked hard at school to get qualifications to go to university, worked hard at university to graduate, lived on a financial shoe string for years and done all kinds of low paid work to get through.

That is not being privileged, that is earning the status of ‘professional’ and therefore ‘middle class’

And many professionals are still out at work, and many low paid workers are at home.

So no, it sounds incredibly silly and shallow thing to say.

Possibly said by people with a bit of a chip on their shoulder?

Examples of (broadly) working class people not working - pub and restaurant staff, retail staff, hotel cleaners and porters, those who work in theme parks etc,

Examples of (broadly) middle class who are working - doctors and other medical staff, scientists, teachers, dentists, farmers

I don't think that's necessarily fair. A lot of nurses and teachers I know are middle class (why do we even call it that anymore?! ). I also know quite a few 'mc' people who do supermarket/Amazon deliveries having retired early to keep them busy etc. It's not a competition, I really dislike the way people keep trying to identify groups that are having it toughest. For some, furlough is far less than they would usually earn and so they may be struggling on it. For others wfh may be tough with home schooling and non furlough options. Others will be having to go out to work despite being scared. In reality, it's pretty rubbish for everyone!

@Rowenasemolina that's too broad a statement. Not everyone who goes to university works hard and has to live on a financial shoestring. Some people ARE privileged, and denying it is very naive.

It’s a nice little sound bite but agree with PP that plenty of middle class professions are still in the workplace (I’m a teacher and DH is a police officer and we’re both at work). I also don’t resent the people ‘hiding’! They’re making the community safer for those of us who have to go to work.

So...people doing working class jobs are working class?

The statement is redundant.

If your problem is with the class system or the principles of lockdown, just say that.

I think it is mainly middle class people who are going on about how well they are doing lockdown and how badly everyone one else isn't.

I'm glad I'm going out to work and I don't resent people working from home who can. What I do resent is people berating others for going out for "non essentials" but happy for us in warehouses/factories to work so they can buy non essentials online.

I get what you mean but I know a number of working class people who are on furlough so not really accurate. I also know a number of middle-class people who have lost their jobs. This has affected everyone and threads like this are not helpful to anyone.

Yes sick and tired of seeing the middle class getting their takeaway daily coffees on their daily walks . They have nothing else to do. Also hate the fact that most of them work in very flexible work from home jobs so will be getting paid to do those coffee trips and claim to be working but perhaps log on for 1-2 hours all day. Lazy .

@Sleepyblueocean

I think it is mainly middle class people who are going on about how well they are doing lockdown and how badly everyone one else isn't.

This, for sure.

@HappyTimeTunnelDinosaur

I don't think that's necessarily fair. A lot of nurses and teachers I know are middle class (why do we even call it that anymore?! ). I also know quite a few 'mc' people who do supermarket/Amazon deliveries having retired early to keep them busy etc. It's not a competition, I really dislike the way people keep trying to identify groups that are having it toughest. For some, furlough is far less than they would usually earn and so they may be struggling on it. For others wfh may be tough with home schooling and non furlough options. Others will be having to go out to work despite being scared. In reality, it's pretty rubbish for everyone!

This. However, I do think disposable income and location play a part e.g. if don't have access to a car/parking, then more exposed to more people due to public transport; have to do more regular trips to supermarket etc. Also, many companies aren't letting people wfh, claiming it's essential they're in office, when it isn't really. True about Amazon deliveries, but that's from all "classes". For the PPs in jobs that could be made safer, I think a lot of people do give a shit and would help campaign for safer practice with petitions etc. The reason teachers get so much mention on here is it's a parenting website!

There is certainly a divide between those able to continue work from home, able to get most things delivered, and able to avoid much contact with other people, and a second group who have to travel to work, often by bus, have a risky job in terms of the possibility of Covid 19, and may be vulnerable in other ways. I would not put it as middle class v working class though.

There is no question that, statistically, this is true. I did laugh about people saying Heads and SMT were in schools-yes, but in offices, with very little contact. Healthcare are the big exception to the rule, but that does not make the rule untrue.

The proof is who is hospitalised and who is dying. The statistics are all there by income and profession.

Having said that it is true, however, does not imply that it is morally wrong. ‘White collar’ jobs can, on average, be done from home, physical jobs cannot.

I think it's telling how many people support teachers when they have to work in unsafe conditions but on threads like these people are basically denying there's an issue. 19 people tested positive for Covid at my workplace this month alone.

I’ve been working from home since the first lockdown, I’m not middle class but there’s prob a lot of middle class doing the job I do. My dp works in a warehouse so gone to work throughout (essential goods). It is better for everyone if as many people thst possibly can do work from home, some jobs just can’t be done from home thsts just but transmission rates overall would rise if we all go to work just to make a point. I never got the whole “I’m not sending my kids back to school until mps are back in parliament arguement“ that was common earlier in year.

This is interesting.

www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/whichoccupationshavethehighestpotentialexposuretothecoronaviruscovid19/2020-05-11

Broadly speaking true, yes. Though of course there are exceptions.

Ocado deliveries sure help the lockdown experience.

I read it on here months ago btw. I wonder who coined it?

And for what it’s worth, any working class people I know who are furloughed are chomping at the bit to get back to their jobs. They want to be working, not kept ‘safe’.

Who is and is not working from home is far more complex than class, but class is a lovely little divisive description that brings resentment to society so thus the tweet.

Yes - and then to add to that divisiveness there's the word 'hide', neatly implying cowardice, when actually it would help no one if the people who can wfh were actually out mixing. There's nothing brave about going out if you don't need to in a lockdown, especially if in doing so you risk bringing the virus with you to the very people whose jobs mean they don't have any choice but to be out.

This.

Yes of course it’s more complex, but as a rough marker it’s pretty accurate.

Most of the services that facilitate people staying in their houses (delivery and so on) are done by those on low pay and poor conditions.