Work from home if you can should stay in place, surely?

[Ninefeettall]

Just thinking about June 21st and Boris said as recently as yesterday or the day before that 'Work from home if you can' will be scrapped from 21 June. Surely if the Indian variant is a problem (which we don't know for sure yet) then this is a really, really, really easy win? 'If you can' doesn't have to include people who need to be in the office for mental health reasons or who can't work properly from home, but there are vast numbers of young, unvaccinated or partially vaccinated office workers who have now been working from home for a year, doing their jobs perfectly well if not better who could just keep doing that and not add to the commuters or office workers spreading the variant about.

If in future some of us stay home then the rest can probably get a seat.

Unlikely, because the number of services will have to reduce because fewer people are using them.

Well I’m not killing myself commuting for your sake!!!

There are other reasons working from home has been good for me and my family. So maybe I won’t get promoted? But it wasn’t happening anyway when knackered from commuting and juggling family. You only get one life.

I was thinking, perhaps if jobs go to India that's no bad thing globally, and how great it would be for the Indian economy. As others are saying, things adjust, and if globally there is more equality of opportunity and economy in the world, I don't think it's so very terrible...at all

You wouldn’t be doing it for my sake, I live 15 minutes commute from my workplace that I’ve not been allowed to enter since March 2020.

I didn’t take a job with a difficult commute because I knew I’d hate a difficult commute. I accepted a lower salary in return for better quality of life because, as you say, you only get one life.

The same option was always open to you, you just chose not to take it.

I didn’t take a job with a difficult commute because I knew I’d hate a difficult commute. I accepted a lower salary in return for better quality of life because, as you say, you only get one life. The same option was always open to you, you just chose not to take it.

This is overly simplistic and a privileged view. It is not as simple as getting a job close to where you live, there are lots of reasons a commute can be required and it's not always simply a case of chasing money and not willing to make financial sacrifices.

Yes, overly simplistic and smug.

Of course it’s simplistic. Yes I sympathise with London workers who get up well before dawn to take multiple forms of transport to get to their minimum wage jobs. They’re still doing that, they don’t have the privilege of working from home if they want it.

But I don’t sympathise with people who had to get the train from e.g. St Albans to their highly paid City jobs. They have choices, and they always had them. Sounds like they’re the privileged ones.

I don’t think it’s smug to say I took a career choice that meant I could have a better quality of life.

What’s smug is saying that because you’ve saved enough for a new kitchen, that means wfh should continue.

There are other reasons working from home has been good for me and my family.

Which is great and I hope you get to continue doing it. But the move to mass WFH is going to have negative impacts beyond what works for you & family too. You don't have to kill yourself commuting for the sake of other people's train fares to realise that we do need a functioning public transport sector, even if you're at home in your house, and it's not as simple as "oh well the economy will readjust."

It’s not about individuals deciding to go back for anyone’s ‘sake’, but government understanding what works best at a societal level and incentivising/pressurising employers accordingly.

Did I say I had saved enough for a kitchen? No, but I have savings as a safety net. My career was one where I had to work in London but lived out of town for the sake of my family’s quality of life. Now, thankfully, there is a choice and I hope it stays that way. Employers can pretty much order us back if they want though. I’ve not saved enough to be free of work!

@JeanClaudeVanDammit you're talking about one subset of commuters, there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of workers outside of the SE that are having to commute and not to "City jobs" on much less salaries for a myriad of reasons. You ARE privileged to be in a position to a) find a job that close to your home b) afford to live on that salary. That's not to say some commuters aren't privileged also.

So if ‘working from home’ stays, should those who can’t ‘work from home’ (as we have found out these are the really essential jobs in society) demand significant increases in wages to cover the fact that they have to waste time getting to and from work and spend money doing so? Should public transport be fully subsidised so they don’t have be penalised by rising costs and reduced timetables as there are fewer buses and trains running?

It very galling to hear about people saving enough money for new kitchens, cars and holidays whilst conditions have deteriorated for those who don’t have the option. Given these jobs ARE crucial, would people accept people in these jobs should be given a lot more money to compensate - or accept strike action (no rubbish collection, no schools, no home care visits, reduction of production in factories, no supermarket deliveries...) if it isn’t given?

[quote TorringtonDean]@Hardbackwriter I don’t stop your hubby slogging into town just because I don’t go in myself. The temporary timetable is/was due to covid to stop people travelling and to stop staff spreading the virus. If in future some of us stay home then the rest can probably get a seat.

Will my job go to someone in India? Unlikely, particularly with the way Covid has hit that country.[/quote]
I think that’s naïve. Commuters paying through the nose to be packed like sardines into the maximum number of trains between 7:30 and 9am was what made the sums add up for the whole system. If you take those away then it all falls to pieces. They’re not going to run the same number of trains in the future so that (say) 50% fewer commuters can have a guaranteed seat for the same price.

I work in London we are going back in September and I know a lot of people struggling with their mental health working from home !! Not everyone lives in a house etc I know of some in a bedroom in a house share !!! I can't wait to go back to the office !

@PinkSparklyPussyCat

If it does I’m seriously thinking of leaving my job and looking for something in retail or similar so I have to go to work. I just can’t do it much longer, it’s destroying me.

Exactly there will be variants we need to start living now jeez

@5usa

‘Secondly. People really need to remember that for anyone below fifty and not extremely vulnerable this is a totally benign virus.’

Yes @Bluntness100. Ffs! This thread! I cannot believe how happy some are to have their lives curtailed in such a way. You could get cancer tomorrow. Have a car accident. Trip over in the house in 5 mins time and have life changing injuries. We cannot stay in our houses indefinitely, it’s damaging people, culture and the economy beyond recognition.

In my circle the people coping the best are the ones who never stopped working out of the home or who had a mix of WFH and office. It’s those who have been at home since March 2020 who seem content to stay there forever, because of fear out of all proportion to facts.

Totally agree honestly people thinking locking down etc for ANOTHER variant !!! I was petrified last year and 15 months later I am going to live I am not going to live to be scared of dying, I drive every day , walk etc I could be run over tomorrow honestly !!

Excellent points bustopher. If this is the new normal then jobs where wfh isn't an option should be paid more, relatively

@nameme8746 yes there are and I acknowledged it’s simplistic. But the privilege is oozing from many posters on this thread and many of the decision-makers who are the ones deciding to shut offices for good because “isn’t working from home great!” It’s the height of privilege to say that because working from home is better for you you should get to continue it and fuck the consequences for public transport, the economy and your own customers or service users.

Lengthy and expensive commutes aren’t the preserve of City workers but it’s not the norm in many other areas of the country. If by privileged you mean ‘could have earned triple my salary and had many more opportunities in London but chose not to go down that road’ then yes, I’m privileged. But I’m not so privileged or naive that I think the economy will just reset itself without a huge amount of pain for hundreds of thousands of people, or that it’ll all be lovely because now I’ll get a seat on the train on the days I deign to go in to the office in person.

Funny how some people who want sardine conditions to return are not the sardines themselves but their wives! Those conditions were always shockingly unhealthy.

Let’s not forget people are WFH for a reason - Covid19. We are doing our duty by not spreading it, unlike those who unnecessarily go into offices for the brownie points.

It certainly has opened up a world of possibilities. I don’t need to be in an office to do my work, it’s just that the bosses didn’t allow it before - treated us like naughty kids who needed supervising.

There are other and better ways to live our lives. Better for the planet too.

Funny how some people who want sardine conditions to return are not the sardines themselves but their wives! Those conditions were always shockingly unhealthy.

I don’t want sardine conditions to return, but I do want a functioning public transport system for those of us using it. Am unsure how we’re going to save the planet by sitting in our houses on back to back video calls while a fleet of vans drive around all the time bringing us stuff.

We could probably improve train prices and travel conditions with more government subsidy for the whole sector, but if it’s only the poorer people commuting this seems unlikely to happen.

I’m not anxious at all for my personal sardine commute on the tube to recommence. But we need to be honest about the financial implications for public transport if it doesn’t, and the government will need to make a tough choice. Otherwise what we’ll end up with is the same sardine conditions with half the train frequency.

Let’s not forget people are WFH for a reason - Covid19

It certainly has opened up a world of possibilities

Well I think this gets to the heart of the problem. Covid 19 necessitated a wholescale move away from the office and it's fair to say that this worked out better than expected.

However, if it continues longer term there are a whole host of issues to be thought about in depth and managed, a dismantling of long term economic systems, a new social contract to be drawn up with those who can't, new expectations to be created for younger workers and probably a recalibration of remuneration approaches that were previously based on geography and the contribution people would be making to transport, etc.

I'm not sure the average Mumsnetter, sitting in their home office thinking 'this works for me, I don't see why it can't continue' has thought all of this through.

Particularly on the economic front. If our public transport system becomes untenable without much higher public investment and the commercial property sector loses significant value, that will have major implications for the average tax payer.

There are other and better ways to live our lives. Better for the planet too.

Well wfh isn't better for significant numbers of people. However they aren't as well represented on MN.

The jury is also out on the environmental impact. Heating all those individual houses can't be good.

Let’s not forget people are WFH for a reason - Covid19. We are doing our duty by not spreading it, unlike those who unnecessarily go into offices for the brownie points.

I don't go into the office for the 'brownie points', I go in because working from home is unbearable for me. I've lost count of the times I've cried about it over the last year.