When will this shit end?

[Henrik]

2 minutes ago, northernringo said:

Have you any experience with outsourcing?

I see comments like this thrown around quite a lot recently. I'd imagine most people who say things like this know very little about how it actually works...

No direct experience, no. 

I just know it happens a lot. And I know some of the biggest companies on the planet do it. 

[FestivalJamie]

6 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

EWouldn't be surprised if the guidance on wearing masks was expanded in the coming months, including wearing them outside in town centres etc...already seeing that abroad.

If cases rise as fast as they are in Europe I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the case.

I do wonder about the effectiveness of masks outside though, we know they play a big role in reducing transmission in enclosed spaces but what about outside when the risks of transmission are lowered anyway? I suppose you can never take too many precautions.

Perhaps in the winter when temperatures drop masks outside in busy town centres will be even more important when there’s risk of both coronavirus and flu transmission.

I always wear my mask in any enclosed space, and sometimes outside too, but not always consistently outside. I would wear it consistently outside if I had to, I just wonder on the benefits of wearing them outdoors compared to indoors. We know there are such huge benefits of masking inside, I just don’t know how that compares when wearing them outdoors.

I personally think the next step regarding masks would be mandating them for workers in enclosed spaces, pubs, restaurants, shops, cinemas etc. This is the next step the gov need to take regarding masks. Perhaps the step after that when temps start to drop, if cases rise then maybe they will be mandated in busy city centres.

Edited August 7, 2020 by FestivalJamie

[steviewevie]

2 minutes ago, FestivalJamie said:

If cases rise as fast as they are in Europe I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the case.

I do wonder about the effectiveness of masks outside though, we know they play a big role in reducing transmission in enclosed spaces but what about outside when the risks of transmission are lowered anyway? I suppose you can never take too many precautions.

Perhaps in the winter when temperatures drop masks outside in busy town centres will be even more important when there’s risk of both coronavirus and flu transmission.

I always wear my mask in any enclosed space, and sometimes outside too, but not always consistently outside. I would wear it consistently outside if I had to, I just wonder on the benefits of wearing them outdoors compared to indoors. We know there are such huge benefits of masking inside, I just don’t know how that compares when wearing them outdoors.

I'm sure it would only be in busy areas, town centres, some parks and beaches etc. Anyway, might not happen, but is elsewhere.

[FestivalJamie]

3 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

I'm sure it would only be in busy areas, town centres, some parks and beaches etc. Anyway, might not happen, but is elsewhere.

Yep it’s happened in France, Italy and spain(certain regions). Can’t rule it out happening here too, I would certainly comply to the restrictions if it did. I normally will wear one in busy town centres anyway, just wont wear one if going for a stroll around my local area as it’s normally a lot quieter.

But yes, for now, in enclosed spaces is the key.

[efcfanwirral]

32 minutes ago, FestivalJamie said:

That’s good! And in all indoor public settings from tomorrow!

It's very impressive. I was surprised at 100% compliance from shoppers at the supermarket the other day. Just one staff member wasn't wearing one.

31 minutes ago, northernringo said:

Have you any experience with outsourcing?

I see comments like this thrown around quite a lot recently. I'd imagine most people who say things like this know very little about how it actually works...

It's a worrying and growing narrative and I can't quite work out where it's coming from overall. There are clearly some paid bots at work and then its being reinforced by Kirsty Alsopp etc, but is it the government doing that? 

They do seem against anything that might improve people's lives while working - see the "excluded uk" situation - that seems to show their contempt for self employed people (many of whom work from home) 

Im a freelancer and work remote from my clients - I do worry that we'll see some sort of discouragement of this over the coming years, they seem solely to be there to support big business. 

Edited August 7, 2020 by efcfanwirral

[ghandi]

30 minutes ago, FestivalJamie said:

If cases rise as fast as they are in Europe I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the case.

I do wonder about the effectiveness of masks outside though, we know they play a big role in reducing transmission in enclosed spaces but what about outside when the risks of transmission are lowered anyway? I suppose you can never take too many precautions.

Perhaps in the winter when temperatures drop masks outside in busy town centres will be even more important when there’s risk of both coronavirus and flu transmission.

I always wear my mask in any enclosed space, and sometimes outside too, but not always consistently outside. I would wear it consistently outside if I had to, I just wonder on the benefits of wearing them outdoors compared to indoors. We know there are such huge benefits of masking inside, I just don’t know how that compares when wearing them outdoors.

I personally think the next step regarding masks would be mandating them for workers in enclosed spaces, pubs, restaurants, shops, cinemas etc. This is the next step the gov need to take regarding masks. Perhaps the step after that when temps start to drop, if cases rise then maybe they will be mandated in busy city centres.

I went to Bluewater shopping centre in Dartford yesterday, one of the biggest shopping centres in the country. Everything was well laid out with routes to follow, left and right paths etc, sanitiser at each shop front. BUT as approx 80% of people wore masks, i noticed that of the stores that i went in i reckon approx only 40% of store working actually wore masks. This can't be right surely? This was on a Thursday and i can imagine this weekend will be very much busier. With the footfall you'd expect it mandatory that employers be made to make their staff where protective masks.

[onthebeach]

19 hours ago, steviewevie said:

going to depend on who's getting it...if younger people than won't see much of a rise in death rate...this is what we saw in Leicester..

 

And so it continues here in Leicester. Considering at one point recently we had more tests carried out than the rest of the UK. Looking at the figures and our ‘peak’ some 6/7 weeks ago this thankfully isn’t translating into hospital admissions/deaths. There was a report out yesterday from our local hospital trust that there are currently 18 patients in hospital with Covid19 and 3 in ICU. This seems quite low and was much higher in the earlier days before our peak (though I do appreciate there was much less testing then so who knows what the infection rate truly was?). The obvious worry was that although the age of positive cases was generally the younger population, which doesn’t lead to mass hospitalisation, that this would lead to infection of the older/more vulnerable. I think with the time lag since peak this would have shown by now. I’m taking this as positive news and hopefully this trend continues here and in the rest of the country even though the infection rate is slowly rising.

[Ozanne]

1 hour ago, Henrik said:

Quite right! Why would any business waste money on office space when employees can do exactly the same job from home. 

But then the question will be why pay someone in London £18 an hour to work from home when someone in India can do exactly the same job for less than half the cost. 

Reputational risk will play a part, moving jobs from the U.K. will cause a lot of negative press. Plus there has been a drive in recent times to have more people on the U.K. on the end of the phone to customers. 

[zahidf]

 

[steviewevie]

[steviewevie]

 

[Crazyfool01]

Some good news for me ... our regional manager visited the store yesterday and amongst other things that were raised was the poor uptake on facemasks amongst colleagues ( don’t know if my emails have influenced this or not ) I had a meeting with my manager today and told him of my concerns .... and I was told that all colleagues that are not wearing them would be spoken to individually and either given a medical excempt badge or told to wear them  although my issue with 2 people I absolutely know just refuse to wear them have become magically excempt and I see many just following this line  as there is no way Asda will follow this up .... let’s see how things pan out over the next few days 

[steviewevie]

what a lame 2nd wave.

[zahidf]

2 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

what a lame 2nd wave.

Name of your sex tape 

[efcfanwirral]

 

23 minutes ago, onthebeach said:

 

And so it continues here in Leicester. Considering at one point recently we had more tests carried out than the rest of the UK. Looking at the figures and our ‘peak’ some 6/7 weeks ago this thankfully isn’t translating into hospital admissions/deaths. There was a report out yesterday from our local hospital trust that there are currently 18 patients in hospital with Covid19 and 3 in ICU. This seems quite low and was much higher in the earlier days before our peak (though I do appreciate there was much less testing then so who knows what the infection rate truly was?). The obvious worry was that although the age of positive cases was generally the younger population, which doesn’t lead to mass hospitalisation, that this would lead to infection of the older/more vulnerable. I think with the time lag since peak this would have shown by now. I’m taking this as positive news and hopefully this trend continues here and in the rest of the country even though the infection rate is slowly rising.

Admissions going down and staying down is a very good sign. Inpatients being diagnosed could be people who are in there for other reasons but test positive when in right? When my Mum was in hospital she got tested really regularly, so perhaps they're picking up a number of asymptomatic in that situation. 

2 minutes ago, crazyfool1 said:

Some good news for me ... our regional manager visited the store yesterday and amongst other things that were raised was the poor uptake on facemasks amongst colleagues ( don’t know if my emails have influenced this or not ) I had a meeting with my manager today and told him of my concerns .... and I was told that all colleagues that are not wearing them would be spoken to individually and either given a medical excempt badge or told to wear them  although my issue with 2 people I absolutely know just refuse to wear them have become magically excempt and I see many just following this line  as there is no way Asda will follow this up .... let’s see how things pan out over the next few days 

Good news though - and even if one or two don't wear them but the rest are forced to, it's still a win. Nowhere will get 100% compliance but if you're in the high 90%s that is surely likely to reduce risk of spread among the staff hugely. I do love a good management overrule of these sorts of things!!    

[Quark]

1 hour ago, Henrik said:

Quite right! Why would any business waste money on office space when employees can do exactly the same job from home. 

But then the question will be why pay someone in London £18 an hour to work from home when someone in India can do exactly the same job for less than half the cost. 

It is an interesting question, and worth looking at.  I work in a department that has one of our teams outsourced and based in India, with the rest of us based in the UK.  There are a few reasons why it works, and why it's (currently) less concerning for me that the whole thing will follow that pattern and leave me checking the classified ads.

• Skill levels are definitely a major factor.  That's not because outsource companies are inherently incapable of doing what I do, but they tend to operate on being able to fill the lower-skilled roles as it's more cost-effective and makes the whole thing affordable for us and profitable for them.  The more skilled (and therefore specialised) a role becomes, the less beneficial the overseas outsourcing gradually becomes.
• Similar to the skills piece, depending on what you do there are some peculiarities or localised specialisations that you can't get away from, whether it be local laws or a cultural differences in how you deal with other businesses. If you're predominantly working within one country for your suppliers then in order to get the best results it helps to have someone who's from that region to essentially "speak the language".
• The big advantage of having teams predominantly onshore is that, even if you're working from home 90% of the time, there is still the opportunity / capability to being people into the office on a semi-regular basis. As good as video conferencing and remote working tools are, there is no substitute for physical presence and collaboration at least some of the time. 
• What I do is also very stakeholder relationship heavy (sounds very corporate I know), and on a purely practical level those relationships are generally a lot easier and more efficient to build with people who have the same culture, language etc.  Accents in particular can be tricky over calls, and whether it's a conscious or unconscious bias people do find it easier to build those relationships with "us" rather than "them".

That's off the top of my head, and I'm sure there's loads more that can be added by others or if I gave it some proper thought.   I think there's this absolute view from people like Allsop that by WFH businesses will 100% move away from offices and face to face work, but that's really unlikely to be the case.  I think more companies will look at how much office space they have and how often people are in the building, but that still means there will be regular presence in the office. Just won't be Mon-Fri 9-5 anymore.

[Crazyfool01]

2 minutes ago, efcfanwirral said:

Good news though - and even if one or two don't wear them but the rest are forced to, it's still a win. Nowhere will get 100% compliance but if you're in the high 90%s that is surely likely to reduce risk of spread among the staff hugely. I do love a good management overrule of these sorts of things!!    

Oh absolutely ... I just hope the others when asked don’t make up the same as these 2 .... once word is out there is a way round it then I can see the others all doing exactly the same knowing it can’t /won’t be challenged ... but let’s see  

[steviewevie]

I want to see this in a proper cinema.

 

[Crazyfool01]

2 hours ago, FestivalJamie said:

Unfortunately maybe that’s what they’ve decided. 

With flu season coming this winter it will take even less than the first wave to overwhelm the NHS, there is absolutely no chance of any mass gatherings this Christmas. I think we will be honestly lucky to see our families on Christmas Day. 

The best I can see is live music/comedy/theatre happen with socially distanced audiences and everyone wearing masks. At the absolute best. There’s no possibility for outdoor live music in the winter and indoor standing concerts in cramped spaces just aren’t possible with the risks to the NHS, the health of the public, the wider economy and the impression of the government that they pose.

although it has been shown elsewhere ( was it Aus ) that the flu season is significantly better than previously because of measures taken to prevent covid ... so hopefully that will be the case here too and the nhs might not be as hard hit as we had previously thought with both impacts ..... I will be having a Glastonbury esque drought on Christmas Days as I was ill on the last one !!! 

[zahidf]

[Matt42]

1 hour ago, Quark said:

What I do is also very stakeholder relationship heavy (sounds very corporate I know), and on a purely practical level those relationships are generally a lot easier and more efficient to build with people who have the same culture, language etc.  Accents in particular can be tricky over calls, and whether it's a conscious or unconscious bias people do find it easier to build those relationships with "us" rather than "them".

 

Fantastic point Quark. Same as me. My job works well when the people above me really like me and know to come to me for certain favours. For companies where workers have internal and external clients the office is the best way of forming those relationships.

Yesterday in the office a senior member of the office actually came to my desk and asked me a few questions about a task in person. Something that just can’t really happen virtually. Sometimes going for a coffee with someone and brainstorming actually generates work that you don’t find elsewhere.

I love home working. I love office working. A strike in the middle is perfect for me. A hybrid working week is right up my street and I really hope we go for it.

[Quark]

1 minute ago, Matt42 said:

Fantastic point Quark. Same as me. My job works well when the people above me really like me and know to come to me for certain favours. For companies where workers have internal and external clients the office is the best way of forming those relationships.

Yesterday in the office a senior member of the office actually came to my desk and asked me a few questions about a task in person. Something that just can’t really happen virtually. Sometimes going for a coffee with someone and brainstorming actually generates work that you don’t find elsewhere.

I love home working. I love office working. A strike in the middle is perfect for me. A hybrid working week is right up my street and I really hope we go for it.

That's where we look to be heading.  My boss is quite similar to me, happy to crack on with head down but when it comes to thinking things through you can't beat being in a room with bottomless coffee and a big old whiteboard wall to draw on and stick post it notes to.

We're looking at a rotation system so that team members are coordinated to be in the office on the same days precisely so we can do that kind of work, then for the rest of the time everyone buggers off home to do the actual "doing".

[SwedgeAntilles]

1 hour ago, steviewevie said:

I want to see this in a proper cinema.

 

Kaluuya really has unbelievable acting chops. 

[efcfanwirral]

21 minutes ago, Quark said:

That's where we look to be heading.  My boss is quite similar to me, happy to crack on with head down but when it comes to thinking things through you can't beat being in a room with bottomless coffee and a big old whiteboard wall to draw on and stick post it notes to.

We're looking at a rotation system so that team members are coordinated to be in the office on the same days precisely so we can do that kind of work, then for the rest of the time everyone buggers off home to do the actual "doing".

This is the thing that made me make the jump into client side then freelancing after most of my career spent at a digital agency. There were so many pointless meetings to talk about the work I was going to do across multiple clients, that I didn't have time to do the actual work and was finding myself constantly stressed out about this fact.

That along with the general distracting environment that an open plan office brings (and it was BOILING all summer) meant I wasn't able to get my head into my work very often. But to do my job properly I have to, for many hours straight sometimes. 

The rigidity didnt help either - if my head is in something I'll just keep going into the evening and balance it out another day. Like today when I'm finishing now and going to sit in the garden with a couple of beers. The flexibility is good on that but I know that isnt always the case with employed working from home 

I'm a lot better at what I do now specifically because I work from home. One day I'd even consider a return to traditional work if the right job came along with a flexible home/office situation 

Edited August 7, 2020 by efcfanwirral

[Matt42]

9 minutes ago, Quark said:

That's where we look to be heading.  My boss is quite similar to me, happy to crack on with head down but when it comes to thinking things through you can't beat being in a room with bottomless coffee and a big old whiteboard wall to draw on and stick post it notes to.

We're looking at a rotation system so that team members are coordinated to be in the office on the same days precisely so we can do that kind of work, then for the rest of the time everyone buggers off home to do the actual "doing".

Yeah. So in short we opened the office a few months ago on a sign up basis but the sign ups have been extremely low. The only people coming in are the direct fee earners and client relationship lot who deal with clients and their “people” directly. After seeing my family I went and booked a few slots in the office because I felt like I’d “seen them” and I wanted to start moving towards some sort of new normal / change my scenery. 

I guess it’s frustrating where you miss out on certain things because they’ve come from conversations held in the office. There is definitely this weird there where they say “you will not be forced to come back to the office but if you don’t come back to the office you will miss out on various things.”