When will this shit end?

[stuartbert two hats]

1 hour ago, efcfanwirral said:

I've mentioned my old company before because I'm completely unsurprised but very disappointed in their actions.

They are a marketing agency who's work can 100% be done from home. Zoom/Teams etc are all available and collaboration can happen remotely. It's the most forward thinking industry for this sort of thing - there are even fully remote agencies now doing well. 

But they've always had this complete aversion to anything other than time in the office. They clearly don't trust staff and put a HUGE importance on face to face meetings (which is why I left, I spent more time talking about work than doing it). 

But they're reopening the office this week to show clients they're open, and because they're missing the face to face collaboration. 

They are saying people can choose to come in or not, but obviously with an ingrained attitude like that people will feel pressure to do so. 

And it's a poorly ventilated open plan office. The meeting rooms are enclosed booths ffs

It's highly unnecessary and sums up everything I hate about presenteeism and old fashioned working values 

"Work from home if you can" eh...

Well Parliament has been setting an example.  That's what the Rt Hon member for the 19th century wanted.

[Zoo Music Girl]

48 minutes ago, EasyUserName said:

The whole issue of working / companies during this situation is very complex. 

I sit on the opposite side to you, to a degree - I am responsible for organising work, managing schedules and staff. 

I'm not commenting on your personal situation, but I thought it might be interesting to add my feedback into the mix.  We have mostly shut-down, with only a very limited amount of work being carried out.  This could comfortably be said to be "essential" work and cannot be done from home.  This has clearly reduced the turn-over to around 10% of "normal".  Much of the company is on furlough.  There are a few people who did not qualify unfortunately, and some who are "needed" due to their skills. 

The first thing to note is that most of the people at our company on furlough seem unaware that there is a cost attached to the company, and that it is not "free".  Aside from the holidays being accrued (an unrecoverable cost of around 13% of a salary) there is a company national insurance issue for us too.  Due to the size, this cannot be claimed (for reasons that I can go into if people want but it is very technically boring).  We also pay pensions in a way that is slightly higher than the minimum, meaning that for us there is an unrecoverable cost of about 25% of a salary.  This is running at around £3,000 per month in unrecoverable costs to have people on furlough.  This has to be paid for on the much reduced turn-over, meaning the company is making a loss each month currently (of course there are all the other fixed costs to add to the mix here). 

 

Some of the work that we do is restarting, and it is an essential part of the restarting process of these other business that it is carried out.  I am finding some resistance from people about coming off furlough.  I do understand about the risk of exposure, but it is a bit of an unsolvable problem here.  This work must be done.  There is no way to make it 100% exposure free as it involves leaving your house to do it.  I have no doubts that some of the people I manage feel that they are battling me.  I understand some people have specific issues, but I can say from personal experience that others in the company I work for are not so charitable about having to go to work whilst others are not.  We have a childcare issue with one person, and it is causing some resentment on a level I've not heard of before. 

 

I know this doesn't relate directly to your situation but I can see how someone would say that we're uncaring, and that they're fighting us.  I contrast this with the people who did not qualify for furlough, who due to their economic situation are unfortunately desperate to work  even at the risk of exposure, and I can't help but generalise that I find people's attitude depends a lot on if they are getting government support care of furlough, or not.

 

At the end of the day, the situation is rubbish for everyone, but as this business slowly goes under (some £10,000 in unrecoverable furlough costs soon + the other losses) it starts to drift into that morally difficult area of what value does risk to life have?  When does the human cost really run up against the economic costs?  (I mean really and not just cosmetically, as in economic costs mean no jobs and all that entails).

 

I didn't mean to hijack your comment, as your situation seems unfair, but who knows what is happening in the company unless you're on the other side of the desk. 

 

 

 

 

 

The situation you describe is very different to what @blutarsky is saying though. You're talking about people who cannot work from home, not people who can but are being forced back. This despite the government advice that people who can work from home should do so. 

Also what do you think people should do about the lack of childcare if told to go back to work? Bring the kid along? 

[squirrelarmy]

45 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

Starmer only been an MP since 2015, he quickly rose up the ranks and was the Shadow Brexit Secretary up till March. The main issue with what you suggest is that he was a lead player in Labours Brexit plan. 

I thought Neil said he is anti Brexit?

It’s also quite clear why he rose through the ranks quickly. He seems to be the only one who knows what they are doing. 

[Ozanne]

1 minute ago, squirrelarmy said:

I thought Neil said he is anti Brexit?

It’s also quite clear why he rose through the ranks quickly. He seems to be the only one who knows what they are doing. 

Sorry mate by saying he was a lead player in their plan, I meant he was a lead player in a 2nd ref becoming policy. 

[stuartbert two hats]

1 hour ago, squirrelarmy said:

Where was Starmer a couple of years ago? It’s clear that Corbyn was far too disliked by the general public to ever have stood a chance of being elected. You have to wonder if Starmer was in charge pre election then we may well have a different government in power right now. 

Maybe.  There was a massive problem in the wedge issue of Brexit, which wouldn't have helped the clearly pro-remain Starmer with all those traditional Labour voters who abandoned the party.  For various reasons, it's no longer an issue on people's minds.  It may just be that Labour could never have positioned themselves to a majority given the circumstances and the mixed natural inclinations of their voting base.

There's certainly plenty of Lexiters who see Starmer as being more or less responsible for the big losses as the increasingly remain outlook of the party.  Now there's an argument that if Labour had a clear remain message all along, rather than the hugely frustrating feeling that the leader was being dragged and cajoled by his party to a position he didn't want to take, then things could have been different - but we'll never know.  Personally, it felt like Labour was stuck between a rock and a hard place with Brexit and there wasn't really any satisfactory way to resolve the schism in their voting coalition.

But with Brexit and Corbyn out of the way, I'm fairly optimistic about the prospects of Labour in the next election.  As I've said before, despite the return of ideology to British politics, perception of competence is still important, and I don't actually think the British public are massively opposed to a fairer society, they're just not going to vote for stuff they think is unworkable.  Projecting competence seems to be Starmer's key strength, which is already paying dividends in the leader polls. 

[steviewevie]

Passed 40000 deaths. Didn't someone once say 20000 would be a good result?

[WestCountryGirl]

7 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Passed 40000 deaths. Didn't someone once say 20000 would be a good result?

I remember that everyone (including me) thought that prediction of 60,000 deaths for the UK to be wildly inaccurate and unfair next to the predicted deaths of other countries. Doesn't look so outlandish now...

[blutarsky]

2 hours ago, Zoo Music Girl said:

The situation you describe is very different to what @blutarsky is saying though. You're talking about people who cannot work from home, not people who can but are being forced back. This despite the government advice that people who can work from home should do so. 

Also what do you think people should do about the lack of childcare if told to go back to work? Bring the kid along? 

That's exactly it. There are parts of my job I can't do from home, but there is a significant chunk of it which can, and which I have been doing from home since March. I still have to work from home, but was being forced into physically go in to do the other parts of the job on a rota, which could easily be covered by other staff. We're literally talking about 50 hours work over the next five weeks which was being covered by a team of six people. Of those six I am the only one with a legitimate healthcare concern meaning I was reticent about going back. My colleagues supported me, and they are now going to work 10 hours each, rather than eight, yet the employer was insisting I physically go in. That's not being a compassionate or flexible employer. 

[shoptildrop]

3 minutes ago, WestCountryGirl said:

I remember that everyone (including me) thought that prediction of 60,000 deaths for the UK to be wildly inaccurate and unfair next to the predicted deaths of other countries. Doesn't look so outlandish now...

We're unfortunately nearly there based on ONS data, excess deaths up to 22nd May are just shy of 50K, but if you split that data between week 1 and 13 which had under 5K deaths less than average and week 14 to 22 then excess deaths for the 2nd period if over 56K  

This is based on only a small % of the population having Covid and our lockdown, as we open back up there will inevitably be more excess death but supposedly at manageable levels - Gov is only managing deaths not trying to stopping them

[shoptildrop]

On other news I live in the North West so not happy with R number revisions announced today  

[Crazyfool01]

Just now, shoptildrop said:

On other news I live in the North West so not happy with R number revisions announced today  

or the south west 1 

[shoptildrop]

Just now, crazyfool1 said:

or the south west 1 

yep, I'm sure all those tourists had nothing to do with it!!

[Crazyfool01]

Just now, shoptildrop said:

yep, I'm sure all those tourists had nothing to do with it!!

might be related  to the outbreak at weston hospital ... but they aren't saying 

[Cream Soda]

25 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Passed 40000 deaths. Didn't someone once say 20000 would be a good result?

[shoptildrop]

2 minutes ago, crazyfool1 said:

might be related  to the outbreak at weston hospital ... but they aren't saying 

most likely a contributor but doubt it will be the only thing....

Here all the hills and scenic places have been really busy plus apparently we have a lot of care homes here, add increase of working and traffic it's bound to go up unfortunately  

[steviewevie]

8 minutes ago, shoptildrop said:

On other news I live in the North West so not happy with R number revisions announced today  

yeah, but london's ok and that's the important thing.

[shoptildrop]

1 minute ago, steviewevie said:

yeah, but london's ok and that's the important thing.

apparently because they are all spritely youngsters not us old farts up North

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

This covers the regional changes in the R number, not much of an issue in the context of infections still dropping overall:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/05/covid-19-infections-fell-sharply-in-england-in-late-may-ons-finds

Specifically:

Experts say that as the overall number of cases reaches low levels, outbreaks will still be seen but R will become less important. That is because in a local outbreak the R value would look high, but the number of infections would be low and the outbreak would be in a small area, and therefore controllable.

Edited June 5, 2020 by Deaf Nobby Burton

[Ozanne]

5 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

This covers the regional changes in the R number, not much of an issue in the context of infections still dropping overall:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/05/covid-19-infections-fell-sharply-in-england-in-late-may-ons-finds

Specifically:

Experts say that as the overall number of cases reaches low levels, outbreaks will still be seen but R will become less important. That is because in a local outbreak the R value would look high, but the number of infections would be low and the outbreak would be in a small area, and therefore controllable.

So the previously important R rate now isn't important if it goes up. Convenient. 

[Crazyfool01]

Matt Hancock on his own ? !!

[Ozanne]

They don't care about these briefings anymore.

[Crazyfool01]

no weekend is dropped its a clear we are getting back to normal message they are trying to portray 

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

1 minute ago, Ozanne said:

So the previously important R rate now isn't important if it goes up. Convenient. 

Not with such a low level of infection no.

Infections are dropping nationally which is the main thing, our behaviour as a population as a whole is not driving infections up.

The R number is important across the country, but locally we’re going to get breakouts now, this will drive the R number up in those places, but the actual amount of extra cases could still be very low.

Those regional R numbers include care homes, so a breakout in a care home could push the R up in that region but it’s not an issue at a national level and easily dealt with at a local level.

[Ozanne]

357 deaths recorded in the last 24 hours, still far too many in my mind.

[Zoo Music Girl]

Just now, Ozanne said:

357 deaths recorded in the last 24 hours, still far too many in my mind.

A lot higher than yesterday. Seems very up and down at the moment.