Those of us who were ‘cannon fodder’- how do you feel?

[Onandoff]

I went to a gathering the other day with people who were privileged enough to still be working from home in highly paid city jobs. Their experiences were a stark contrast with mine. It was interesting to hear how protected they’d been, many still getting shopping delivered and only just resuming socialising. They hadn’t been on public transport at all. There was a general air of resentment at being asked to go back to offices and commute. They’d all saved money and were very worried about covid exposure despite being vaccinated. Apparently many workers have completely refused to return.

DH and I were the only key workers there and it brought home how exposed we’d been. Literally all of our family and colleagues caught it and some died or were left disabled. My mum died. In the hospital where I work 80% caught it in the first wave alone.

It’s been interesting to see through this that the jobs essential to society are (generally, appreciate some exceptions like medics) the worst paid. If we’d refused to go in or been redeployed we’d have been sacked. While the privileged middle class are still being pandered to despite vaccination.

I feel that those who went out to work should be financially compensated for the risk we took. At the very least we should be given tax breaks and not be expected to cough up for furlough costs.

You sound really angry op.
Some of it rightly so some of it not souvh or at the wrong people.

The inequalities in our society definitely need tackling. I'm not sure it helps anyone but yourself to have a go at people who also made significant sacrafices either through job loss or home working (ie not going out to work).

I think like a lot of people you need some mental health help coming out of pandemic.

You're not wrong OP.

There's a lot of bitterness on this thread

So is it the case that Gavin Williamson, as minister for Education, is entirely responsible for telling the DfE that they should be working from home, writing guidance about how schools should only be seeing advice on opening windows when 10% of the school population have covid, unless that makes it too cold?

I’ve not criticised teachers at all, except that specific one who wants my colleagues to ‘feel ashamed’ of themselves for doing their jobs properly in the conditions they’re permitted.

If you think the DfE have been doing their jobs 'properly' you haven't been paying attention to the shitshow. Trying to hide it all behind 'but Gav' isn't going to wash with people on the ground have actually been dealing with the fallout.

Is there any other government department that is just actively contemptuous of the workforce it governs? Health and social care maybe.

@Pinkandpink

My cousins partner has just returned to the office and put a picture on fb of him returning. Then about 20 comments saying, oh you must be so stressed going back in or how daunting, those sort of comments. Wtf plenty of folk have been working right through in supermarkets, warehouses, hospitals and so on. My cousins partner has been on holiday abroad, socialising and going about day to day as normal apart from returning to the office.

But lots of people who have been wfh HAVEN'T been doing those things. Personally I have been glad to get back to the office but can see how some people find it daunting going back. Those who have been "working right through" (translation: carried on as normal) (as if those WFH whilst homeschooling have been sat twiddling their thumbs FFS) really REALLY don't seem to get how isolating staying at home alone is (and don't forget there were no support bubbles for parents with young babies in the first lockdown either)

@Howshouldibehave

So is it the case that Gavin Williamson, as minister for Education, is entirely responsible for telling the DfE that they should be working from home, writing guidance about how schools should only be seeing advice on opening windows when 10% of the school population have covid, unless that makes it too cold?

I think it is probably Nick Gibb.

@Hercisback

There was thousands of pages of guidance. Someone somewhere must have thought "this is a bit shit" surely?

I get that ultimately the minister is in control. Civil servants on the whole haven't been treated brilliantly. But the DfE have been an absolute joke.

Yes, quite a lot of the time we think the guidance we’re writing ranges from ‘a bit shit’ to ‘totally morally reprehensible’ - an absolute crucial element of our jobs is our willingness and ability to put that aside. That’s what a civil service is, and it’s pretty essential to a functional democracy.

People are annoyed about going back to the office because for some it's not a necessity to fulfil their job role. Therefore the risk of covid to them, however small it is in comparison to a frontline worker's risk, is an unnecessary risk.

I feel like I'm in a unique situation because until very recently when I left on maternity leave, I actually have two very different part time jobs. One is in accounting where I could work from home and still do, and the other is a frontline retail role. I was serving customers for most of the pandemic, except for the first two or three weeks of the first lockdown.

If my employer for my accounting job was dragging me back to the office, I'd be infuriated. My work is demonstrably more efficient when I work from home. Nothing in my job role actually requires me to be in the office. So I'd be very cross to have my quality of life worsened and to be exposed to extra covid risk for no real reason other than micromanaging bosses. Luckily, my company are sensible and forward thinking, and are sticking with work from home going forward.

On the flip side, I have worked facing the public during this whole time too, and I've experienced the total lack of regard the public, government, and retail bosses have towards workers' health and well-being. So I understand your feelings to an extent. I had rather hoped there'd be a reckoning after all this, and we'd see changes in societal attitudes and workers' rights. Sadly this has proved not to be the case.

But at the end of the day, how would dragging people back into offices and unnecessarily exposing them to risk, however small the risk may seem in comparison to that of a retail worker, actually help me in any way? It wouldn't. Let's not get bitter about other workers, let's focus our attention and discontent in the right direction: the government and employers.

YABVU. I worked frontline in healthcare for several decades. If there was a terrorist attack then we had to deal with it, a natural disaster then we had to deal with it, a pandemic then we had to deal with it. I spent a few years in my youth in Africa where dealing with pandemics was an everyday event. If you have trained in frontline healthcare and that’s your job you can’t complain or hide under a bed when a pandemic comes along ffs. Big person pants and no complaints.

@noblegiraffe

I’ve not criticised teachers at all, except that specific one who wants my colleagues to ‘feel ashamed’ of themselves for doing their jobs properly in the conditions they’re permitted.

If you think the DfE have been doing their jobs 'properly' you haven't been paying attention to the shitshow. Trying to hide it all behind 'but Gav' isn't going to wash with people on the ground have actually been dealing with the fallout.

Is there any other government department that is just actively contemptuous of the workforce it governs? Health and social care maybe.

Civil servants don’t govern anyone. I’m aware I’m being quite repetitive, but the whole exchange is going to remain circular if you just willingly refuse to understand what the civil service is. And yes, lots of government ministers are deeply contemptuous of the sections of the population they’re meant to serve - the people to take that up with are the ministers (and the people who vote for their parties), not the public sector employees who draft the contemptuous policies for sign off. If there was a snap election today and we’d a labour government tomorrow, it would be the same civil servants drafting the opposite policies.

@SnoopyLights very powerful post. I think you demonstrate very clearly how someone working from home is also (sometimes) a key worker.

I agree it's probably best not to fight amongst ourselves as that way we get distracted.

I really pleased that they were so protected, that they were able to do their job from home and are not now unemployed or that they didn't have to expose themselves to covid or take higher risks making my job harder.

I have absolutely no gripe with people who followed instructions and are better off for it.

I'm gonna throw in another 'what about me'

I work in a bar/restaurant. Yes I was furloughed, I got 80% of minimum wage (who decided that when minimum wage is the minimum someone needs to live on, that it was ok for people to live on 80% of those), not to mention losing out on 'benefits' such as staff meals on shift and not having to pay for gas/electric when out of the house on 12 hour shifts, so as my pay went down my expenses went up. So from your POV in lockdown I was protected.

However I was one of the first to go back to work (back to 100% of minimum wage) with absolutely no protection. When the pubs reopened there were 0 measures to keep staff safe. Even when masks became mandatory indoors customers only had to wear them from the door to the table and not any of the (very long) time they were sat there. Not to mention masks were suddenly made mandatory for us but we had to provide our own, the company covered nothing. We had to work through the shambles of the tier system with no form of protection. I cause covid in October, 2 weeks off work, no sick pay, that's 2 weeks without any money coming in. And for some of my older colleagues it was more than 2 weeks as they were really quite unwell (no deaths thankfully, but again, that's pure luck isn't it). So do we deserve danger money/compensation for that?

Yes it very much annoys me now when I hear people's who've wfh throughout the pandemic moan about how unsafe it is to get back to the office. Even more so when I know they're otherwise living their life normally, happy to come in and be served by me but not go to an office. But it also very much annoys me when people like OP say I should be responsible for picking up the furlough bill as I benefitted from it - I wasn't allowed to work, we were forcibly shut to protect the nhs. And that I've never once put myself in danger for my work - I did, time and time again, with even less protection than many healthcare workers and for something deemed to be completely 'non-essential'. So I was put at risk purely for middle class (because they're the ones that can afford to go out, right?) frivolities.

So what about me OP? Do I deserve danger money? Should I shut up about the risks I've been put at at work because yours are greater? Should I be responsible for the furlough bill because I got furlough? Even though furlough put me at below minimum wage income? What's your answer?

@Flatdisco

You sound really angry op. Some of it rightly so some of it not souvh or at the wrong people.

The inequalities in our society definitely need tackling. I'm not sure it helps anyone but yourself to have a go at people who also made significant sacrafices either through job loss or home working (ie not going out to work).

I think like a lot of people you need some mental health help coming out of pandemic.

What condescending and unpleasant individual you are. And it’s interesting that if WFH was ‘significant sacrifices’ how many are agitating to continue it. I don’t have an issue at all with those who want to go back out to work or are doing so.

@opaleyes2

and where do you suppose the money to "compensate" people for doing their jobs would come from? Tax payers. So effectively you want money from other hard workers who have been doing their jobs throughout the pandemic just like you have. Or do you propose to tax just the rich people? Sounds an awful lot like discrimination when you go down that route. I'm sorry you have had a hard time of it but you can't possibly assume all middle class people have got off scott free. This is a very bitter post.

Agree.

OP wants to punish people who were furloughed or told to WFH and also to take money from them for herself.

@Flatdisco

You sound really angry op. Some of it rightly so some of it not souvh or at the wrong people.

The inequalities in our society definitely need tackling. I'm not sure it helps anyone but yourself to have a go at people who also made significant sacrafices either through job loss or home working (ie not going out to work).

I think like a lot of people you need some mental health help coming out of pandemic.

Unfortunately Staff like the OP aren’t ‘coming out of the pandemic’ though. They’re still being asked to go above and beyond filling in gaps and working extra shifts. There’s still covid wards in hospitals, in many areas numbers are increasing, there’s an enormous backlog, staff off sick with covid or as family contacts and all vulnerable groups are going to have to be re-vaccinated soon. Deciding to drop covid prevention measures unfortunately doesn’t just make covid go away.

Middle the DfE have been consistently criticised for poorly written guidance, released at stupid times, which has needed instant updates and an overwhelming volume of it.

They have been objectively bad at their jobs. It is contemptuous of the workforce that they are writing the guidance for to be so shit at it and to think that's ok.

If they're happy writing guidance that they find morally reprehensible, then that's their lookout, we're not going to see eye-to-eye on that.

@Tumbleweed101 i absolutely agree. I work in childcare too and I too would just like a decent wage for the job i do. I dont think many people realise exactly whats involved and the huge responsibility it carries.

I agree completely about people moaning about going back to the office from the point of view of not wanting to take the individual risk. DH is a doctor who was redeployed to the covid ICU, and caught covid at hospital and brought it home to all of us.

I don’t begrudge anyone that worked from home or got furloughed. As PP have mentioned, keeping at home those who could be at home was necessary for society. Many of those people would have happily kept going out to work rather than being trapped inside for 3 months. It wasn’t anything to do with indivisible risk at that point.

The issue now is different, it’s not about people needing to stay wfh for the benefit of society, it’s about those who say it’s not “safe” to go back to the office so they want to stay at home. That sticks in the craw somewhat as so many didn’t have that privilege.

The “financial compensation” point is embarrassing though.

@Mojoj

Sick to the back teeth reading yet another post about "poor me". So you had to go out to work while others didn't. That's life. I am sorry for your loss but you're not alone in that, sadly. Suck it up. Life is slowly returning to normal. Everyone who pays taxes will be contributing to the cost of this pandemic, whether they went into work or wfh. It is what it is. No point whinging about it.

Yeah and I’m sick of the back teeth with these sort of posts from arseholes who likely have no friends in the real world- for good reason.

@Howshouldibehave

So is it the case that Gavin Williamson, as minister for Education, is entirely responsible for telling the DfE that they should be working from home, writing guidance about how schools should only be seeing advice on opening windows when 10% of the school population have covid, unless that makes it too cold?

Department for Education civil servants have been working from home some of the time since Gavin Williamson was in nappies - so at least two years ago and prior to that. They still work from home some of the time, and in an office some of the time. Then separately to that, he is entirely responsible for the policies in his portfolio and, for example, the relevant guidance to stakeholders. I couldn’t tell you what thought process is behind the cold vs ventilation decision, but he (or Nick Gibb or whoever - I don’t know the specific policy) will have had one, whether it was ‘I’ve done some stakeholder engagement and voters will boot off too much about their kids being cold’ or it could be ‘ooh I hated being cold at school, no way will I tell them to open the windows’. That’s the perils of democracy.