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.

I'm NHS and was so relieved I got to continue going to work and my children to school. There's no way I could have coped with home schooling/wfh - short bursts of it during isolation periods were more than enough for me. And I really dislike wfh anyway, other than odd days when convenient for me. The restaurant and cafes at the hospital I worked at stayed open throughout so I could still meet friends (albeit colleagues only!) for coffees, lunch etc. That made life feel a lot more normal. And just the chance to dress up for work and get out of the house.

I also feel relieved that as a result of continuing as normal I didn't ever get a chance to start feeling anxious about Covid on a personal level. I really sympathise with those people who are now finding it difficult to re-enter society/go back to the office.

It's been grindingly hard in terms of work, but on balance I would still rather have had it this way round than stuck at home. So swings and roundabouts I guess.

Yanbu. And yes, I agree all those people who kept the world running should be financially compensated. Big time.
And thank you

I'm so sorry about your mum OP And about the family and colleagues left disabled. It's horrible. I well understand too that when you had absolutely no choice but to take those risks and live through the awful impact of them that it must be beyond hard to hear complaining from those who were able to work from home and keep themselves and their loved ones safe throughout.

I didn't have to go into work, because as well as being disabled, I am a carer for my two disabled children. Does my £60 a week Carers Allowance make me one of the "privileged middle class"?

You think you shouldn't have to pay for furlough? Who should?

It's not just the middle class working form home though. I have been working from home now since march 2020 and have a low paid charity job.

@DearFrutti

Yanbu. And yes, I agree all those people who kept the world running should be financially compensated. Big time. And thank you

No they shouldn't. No one had any choice in this.

I’m not sure how financial compensation would work. Public sector would be straightforward enough if expensive. But so many absolutely crucial workers were low paid, private sector. Carers in nursing homes. Food production staff (who continue to fly under the radar, despite the fact every one of us would have been fucked if they hadn’t turned up to work). Supermarket workers, etc, etc.

@OnwardsAndSideways1

I think what is probably very upsetting is that you were genuinely risking your health and your lives at that point, and that has been very quickly forgotten. Many many people in jobs like hospital cleaner or taxi driver died way before their time. There was no vaccination, and proper PPE was not available except to those engaged in particular procedures in hospital, so cleaners were walking around with a tiny paper mask on which we now know does very little.

People want to forget and move on, and that's very very hard when so many people made genuine sacrifices. It must have been terrifying going in every day OP.

We are still wearing those ‘little paper masks’ with Covid patients you know… the full on FFP3 things only come into play for certain reasons. I also haven’t caught Covid yet so maybe they do something after all….

I worked from home (and am still WFH) on £19k a year.

Yes, I was in a privileged position to do that - to continue to work and to do so from the safety of my home. It had it’s downside though - my mental health took a battering, I undertook difficult, new work that was related to the CV19 response. Not everyone who worked from home did it from spacious homes with generous salaries.

I agree with @Waxonwaxoff0. I don’t expected to be compensated for doing my job, I just wish we hadn’t been vilified in the media and on here for doing that job.

It was really scary seeing many school colleagues fall ill after contracting the virus and all the deaths in the community as the children brought it home to their families.

As a teacher I wasn't eligible for a vaccine and I had to wait several months to receive mine, working without any protection. My friends who worked safely from home were all vaccinated before I was.

Our "reward" for working on the frontline and being in school every day since March 2020 was to have our wages frozen. Not to mention the ongoing criticism and abuse.

@motherrunner

I agree with *@Waxonwaxoff0*. I don’t expected to be compensated for doing my job, I just wish we hadn’t been vilified in the media and on here for doing that job.

are you a teacher?

I stayed home "for the greater good", to because I wanted to or was particularly worried about catching it. It has been bloody difficult at times.

Many people have had a shit time, whatever their situation. It's not a competition.

For me, it comes down to how much you hear people saying "time to get people back to work" or on the local radio they've had lots of discussions about the stay-working-from-home-or-go-back-to-the-office debate, or in March they had phone-ins about "how do you feel about schools reopening next week?" and the constant warnings everywhere to stay 2m from everyone.

Like no-one was ever going out and working during the whole thing, like schools weren't open to many key worker children and those with EHCPs, like its possible to stay 2m from everyone when you're at work in a supermarket or whatever.

The whole narrative has been focused on wfh and clapping the NHS (even those wfh) and forgetting that for vast amounts of people their working lives were normal. With no vaccine prioritised for those in-work at any point.

Yes, I was out at work as normal the whole time and yes, I'm bitter. I'm just fed up of hearing people whine about going back to the office and I want to say "suck it up".

@Waxonwaxoff0 Yes. I didn’t expect the ‘claps’, ‘the freebies’ but priority vaccine and not being labelled as ‘lazy’ and ‘work shy’ would have been good!

I do eye roll at people who go on about not wanting to return to work as it's "unsafe" and bleat on about how them WFH is protecting key workers. I'd have more respect for people if they admit they enjoy WFH and it's more convenient for them than acting as if it's a selfless act to protect others.

Agreed. I love WFH, hasn’t always been easy but the benefits outweigh the negatives.

Hearing my holiday travelling, pub going colleagues bitching about how it still isn’t safe enough to go in x2 a week from Oct is pissing me off.

On second thoughts to my earlier post, I do support a one off payment to those who still went outside while we WFH-ers were putting a mask on to open the front door.

And before anyone complains re expense, the govt has been wasting money hand over fist I rather it go to normal people and circulate here rather than the Cayman Islands via the likes of Serco.

@motherrunner

I agree with *@Waxonwaxoff0*. I don’t expected to be compensated for doing my job, I just wish we hadn’t been vilified in the media and on here for doing that job.

I agree with this. The hardest part about the last year and a bit has been the awful way some professions have been vilified in the media, and how quickly public perceptions have shifted from realising how difficult those jobs are, to thinking those who work in them are nothing more than shit on their shoe.

And everyone who supported lockdown as a policy benefitted from furlough.

It would not have been possible to shut down vast swathes of businesses without financial compensation. People wouldn’t have complied with that.

But the whole thing has been shit for most people just in lots of different ways.
My DH has WFH since it started. He didn’t bad set foot outside our house for months.
I’m a teacher and had to go to work as normal pretty much.
I’m SO glad it was that way round. I would have been utterly miserable if I’d been stuck at home all this time. I’ll take the Covid risk (just like I take the risk of catching multiple other diseases everywhere I go) to be allowed to go out and do my job.
People forced to WfH have different issues and potential long term health problems that arise from this.
You’re angry, that’s understandable. The trouble with it all is that there’s not really anybody to blame. The pandemic is not really any one person or groups fault. Decisions were made in the moment, hoping they’d been the right ones. Mistakes were made, some people had come off worse than others. That still doesn’t make it the other people’s fault.
Unfortunately the thing we should be most angry at is a microscopic organism that doesn’t even know we exist.

@PastryLlama

It was really scary seeing many school colleagues fall ill after contracting the virus and all the deaths in the community as the children brought it home to their families.

As a teacher I wasn't eligible for a vaccine and I had to wait several months to receive mine, working without any protection. My friends who worked safely from home were all vaccinated before I was.

Our "reward" for working on the frontline and being in school every day since March 2020 was to have our wages frozen. Not to mention the ongoing criticism and abuse.

Headteacher colleague didn’t have a single day off work from March to October. Not only missed usual Easter, may and summer holidays but had work related emails that led to typically 5 hours of calls and reporting usually about positive cases every single weekend

I was grateful to get out of the house and go to work once I could get DS into the (limited) school provision. I don't think it does anyone good to be sitting at home - I don't care how much they earn or how nice their house is. I always feel better for physically getting out into the world.

I was in work the whole time, and there was no clapping for us. In fact I was told by a company rep (who was working from home, natch) that we weren’t key workers and therefore I wasn’t allowed to buy my usual supplies of hand sanitiser from them. We are a food manufacturer.

as a result of continuing as normal I didn't ever get a chance to start feeling anxious about Covid on a personal level. I really sympathise with those people who are now finding it difficult to re-enter society/go back to the office

Yes, I have the same feeling about the first bit. I don't however have any sympathy, I just think they are wet.

It's really interesting reading different perspectives.

DH worked all the way through (first couple of months from home but then back to work as normal) and I will feel resentful if his taxes are increased to pay for furlough because we personally know several people who thoroughly enjoyed furlough as they were not financially impacted at all due to the company topping up the pay. They were effectively on full pay but doing whatever they wanted (within the restrictions we all faced of course), while DH was working full time with two 3 year olds for assistants!

However the tax increase can't be put on only the furloughed people as his wasn't their choice, and if I were one of them I would feel that was totally unfair.

With regard to rewards I'm not sure what this could look like, pay increases for key workers? Where will all the money come from?

@speakout

I agree.

I dislike the idea that we are " all in this together".

It's simply not true.

Same ocean. Very very different boats.