Covid is a gift to the lazy, and it's turning people against restrictions, vulnerable, etc

[tfresh]

More of a rant than anything, but I think most people would agree at this point many private companies, and the vast majority of the public sector are now acting a total disgrace when it comes to covid.

Passports now take 2 months to turn around, the reason.. covid.

Bins still not regularly emptied ... covid

Ring up any government service, sorry we're not answering the phones..covid

None of it makes sense anymore, there are no restrictions, we have a vaccine, etc.

Certain jobs cannot be done from home, it's time to go back to work or move job. Why are companies putting up with staff who are refusing to work? It's crazy.

What makes matters worse is, this is turning people against the genuinely vulnerable. Now when someone says they can't come into the office because they're vulnerable, it's treated with suspicion and eye rolling rather than care. As always the piss takers ruin it for everyone.

If you can get down the pub on friday night, you can get down to work.

Yes, those teachers who worked and did wrap around care for free as well as working through their unpaid holidays, GPs, in fact all medical staff, they’re all lazy. They just sit around all day twiddling their thumbs pretending to be busy.

Dont blame people

Blame the companies who after two years have failed to bring in proper measures and work from home policies that allow people to do their work remotely.

@NOTANUM

I agree to an extent but don’t think it’s a public/private divide. We can’t get repairs done to our car and the insurance company aren’t picking up the phone, both because of Covid. I can’t get a doctor appt. Covid. Planning is taking forever, Covid. The potholes on the street are just getting bigger. Covid.

Yet those services that only get paid if working are back to normal: private building, shops, sales, dentistry..

It has become the perfect excuse for many.

Fully agree with that. Small businesses in particular were some of the first to get back to offering a nearly normal service, and many continued to provide services by alternative/unusual means during the lockdowns/restrictions.

I've had extensive dealing with HMRC, DVLA, NHS, insurance firms and banks during the restrictions and quite frankly, their lack of support, inability to do even basic things like answer a phone, are shocking.

Same with my DS who is at Uni - he and his cohort have been treated appallingly - entire office/teaching blocks left locked and unused for over a year. Staff car parks empty all day, every day for months at a time. It wasn't just that staff weren't seeing students "face to face", they weren't even on campus and virtually non contactable. Even the Uni's "student support" weren't on campus, weren't offering telephone support, just email support that often took many days, if not a couple of weeks to respond to emails sent to them.

I agree and have done from the start - and anyone who doesn't think covid bhas been the perfect excuse for some to be a lazy sod is quite frankly very naive.

It's not a popular view on MN - but in RL everyone seems to feel the same.

Of course there are those who've been genuinely ill and needed time off but do people really think there aren't plenty who've used it as a convenient excuse - a week or two off work with no questions allowed to be asked - and used it to their advantage?

I'd love to see accurate numbers of private v public sector sick leave in the last two years. I'm pretty sure which sector would be monumentally higher!

It is peculiar how small companies/hospitality/sole traders absolutely busted a gut to keep working and adapt with expensive-to-themselves measures. Whereas larger firms and, from personal experience, my local council, are still in the thick of March 2020….

@bluepeacock

I agree and have done from the start - and anyone who doesn't think covid bhas been the perfect excuse for some to be a lazy sod is quite frankly very naive.

It's not a popular view on MN - but in RL everyone seems to feel the same.

Of course there are those who've been genuinely ill and needed time off but do people really think there aren't plenty who've used it as a convenient excuse - a week or two off work with no questions allowed to be asked - and used it to their advantage?

I'd love to see accurate numbers of private v public sector sick leave in the last two years. I'm pretty sure which sector would be monumentally higher!

I don't know anyone in RL who thinks this way. And I know plenty of people, myself included this week who are working with COVID because I can wfh. I think I should be in bed really but we are really short staffed because of COVID. I think it's exposed very horrible views in people & we've forgotten how many lives it has claimed because it's a nasty virus.

@ItWorriesMeThisKindofThing

Always surprised at these people who believe so many “public sector” are sitting at home paid a large wage to do fuck all. Why don’t you just get one of these many thousands of jobs and do the same if you truly believe that?

Is it because it’s bollocks?

One can critique without wanting to do the job, as a public service, surley you should be held up to accountability?

The same way the private sector is, the only difference is in the private sector, people have choice, so adapt, evolve or fail. Sadly, the public sector does not need to evolve due to their captive market.

Agree - not just public sector tho. Small businesses run fine: funny, that.

@Duracellbunnywannabe

Yes, those teachers who worked and did wrap around care for free as well as working through their unpaid holidays, GPs, in fact all medical staff, they’re all lazy. They just sit around all day twiddling their thumbs pretending to be busy.

Have you tried to see a GP over the last 2 years!!

@DottyHarmer

It is peculiar how small companies/hospitality/sole traders absolutely busted a gut to keep working and adapt with expensive-to-themselves measures. Whereas larger firms and, from personal experience, my local council, are still in the thick of March 2020….

Not peculiar at all. Small businesses/sole traders would lose their businesses if they didn't do everything possible to keep their customers happy. Most don't have the same "captive audience" as a council, hospital, bank, etc., so simply don't need to make the effort to keep their customers happy, especially when they see other large organisations shutting down and offering next to no service too.

In my small village, every single shop continued "trading" even when they weren't allowed to have customers in the shop. Some did home deliveries, some served through the door/window, our fish & chip shop created a pre-order app and had a serving hatch with drawer put into their shop door, all within a couple of weeks. The non-food businesses all beefed up their online shopping apps/websites exceptionally quickly to turn from bricks n mortar trading to online trading.

Meanwhile lots of employers from big organisations were sat at home either on furlough or working remotely, saving money by not having to commute etc and having a much improved work/life balance. that suited themselves, but not their customers/clients etc.

Im covering my job as well as out till supervisors job this week. On Sunday I was called to the tills to deal with a screaming customer shouting at staff to get all the screens down, covid is over we should get rid of all traces of it!

Hmm

He wouldn't have it that the staff feel safer and maybe quite like them. As it happens, they were put up by a professional company and we have to wait our turn for them to be removed safely.

Ah @tfresh you've fallen for the Government's Jackanory that it's all over now, haven't you?

Yesterday there were over 126,000 cases

see here

The number of reported cases has been creeping up daily - at least when they bother to release the number now. They're starting to not do this on a daily basis any more.

@user1497207191 My saying “peculiar” was ironic!

Do you not think staff may be off ill with covid? Not everyone has a mild version!

@fromdownwest yes I have. As an adult it’s difficult they have always managed to fit in the kids. GPs are seeing demand for appointments increase by 40% due to the pandemic. Lots of reasons cause this, massive increase in ‘bugs’, mental health issues, people awaiting operation or other delayed treatment are struggling with pain or other knock on issues.

Well. I'm a teacher and half the staff in the school (albeit small) are off with covid currently. We're barely able to keep the school open due to safeguarding.
We have to isolate for 5 days and get two consecutive negative tests across two days.
I'm on day 6 and still testing positive. I don't feel great either.

It's still causing a lot of problems with staffing. If there's nobody to do the job, it doesn't get done.
So yes, the 'excuse - covid' is still valid.

@BIWI

Ah *@tfresh* you've fallen for the Government's Jackanory that it's all over now, haven't you?

Yesterday there were over 126,000 cases

see here

The number of reported cases has been creeping up daily - at least when they bother to release the number now. They're starting to not do this on a daily basis any more.

Cases, cases, Cases

How many deaths though?
And how does that compare to the daily death rate for hear attacks or cancer?

Yesterday there were over 126,000 cases

So what? How many cases of flu are there at the moment? Or colds, or norovirus?
I guess we don't have numbers on that because people don't test for it and report it.

As long as vast numbers of people aren't dying and needing hospital treatment the numbers don't matter any more.

I can't believe people are still checking the numbers daily ffs.

I was watching the news last night about the refugees not been able to get visas and my first thought was that it’s probably more incompetence than anything else because those that should be working on granting the visas are off sick with long Covid…

That may be, @BIWI , but it doesn’t alter the fact that some organisations seem to be disproportionately affected by covid. I don’t know why people can’t admit that there have always been and always will be lazy slackers, and they tend to gravitate towards jobs where they can fly under the radar, be tolerated or even accommodated.

This is not unique to the public sector. The laziest person I know bar none was eventually made redundant from a very large business after years of doing nothing. Had they still been there you betcha they’d be “wfh” or suffering from long covid. Some people spoil things for everyone else or get others tarred with the same brush.

@bluepeacock

Yesterday there were over 126,000 cases

So what? How many cases of flu are there at the moment? Or colds, or norovirus?
I guess we don't have numbers on that because people don't test for it and report it.

As long as vast numbers of people aren't dying and needing hospital treatment the numbers don't matter any more.

I can't believe people are still checking the numbers daily ffs.

It's irrelevant. People aren't going to go to work if they're ill. That and also many companies still have a policy of self isolating if you catch it. Omicron is very, very contagious. It's like norovirus. Once one gets it, loads get it. The only way out really is to not test anymore.

@bluepeacock

Yesterday there were over 126,000 cases

So what? How many cases of flu are there at the moment? Or colds, or norovirus?
I guess we don't have numbers on that because people don't test for it and report it.

As long as vast numbers of people aren't dying and needing hospital treatment the numbers don't matter any more.

I can't believe people are still checking the numbers daily ffs.

Exactly this.

If people want to stay locked at home, in fear of Covid, then crack on. However, we are all now going to get on with life.

@GCAcademic

Sorry but covid STILL means staff are off ill

This. I've had more colleagues off sick with Covid in the last month than at any other point in the pandemic.

This! Myself included. Never had covid before, but caught it this year

I ordered a new passport in Jan and it came in about 9 days. Happy with the service.

I agree in part that covid is a convenient excuse for poor service, but, imo that's down now to money saving rather than anything else on behalf of the organisation/company and not necessarily because people are refusing to go to work.

Some places have realised that by making customers wait longer, reducing service and taking longer to do anything means they need less staff for less time, and that saves them money. Many people were made redundant due to covid - how many have been replaced now we're returning to 'normal'? Or are companies expecting their existing employees to shoulder the workload and customers to put up with it while they save money?
And are customers actually thinking this through, or shouting at the first person they do encounter (who is one of the ones working twice as hard to save on wages for the company) and still using the service anyway? Because that means nothing to the people making the decisions, they're saving money and someone else is getting the shit for it and being inconvenienced, they're not going to change that are they?

That said though, unfortunately most services are run by humans, and humans get sick now and again, it's unavoidable. And when you have something like covid which is highly infectious and makes people sick in various degrees, at the same time, still circulating, despite restrictions ending and vaccination, then there's going to be an effect on service levels.
Add to that the backlogs created by restricted or shut down services that already exist, and the above about companies saving money by not employing enough staff, and I don't see that there'll be much improvement in the near future, no matter how much people moan and call others lazy.

Restrictions may have ended but people are still people and unfortunately they may get sick, it might not be life threatening for the majority of people now, but there's a gulf of difference between life threatening and being well enough to work effectively.
And then what of those that it is life threatening for? They're going to do even less work if they're dead.