Coronavirus

[geoffbeaumont]

5 hours ago, Bowie69 said:

Is it socially unacceptable? I've been doing it for 17 years now....

In many organisations (most?) it's still seen as skiving. If you aren't present at your desk you're basically taking a holiday on company time. The fact that you're probably more productive than you would be with the distractions and commuting - and that half your co-workers are frittering their time away at their desks because they know they're largely judged by how long they are at their desk, not by how much they produce - is ignored in favour of plain, simple presenteeism (or however you spell it). I don't miss it!

[Bowie69]

It's a shame, let's really hope companies begin to trust their employees after all this.

[Daan]

39 minutes ago, geoffbeaumont said:

In many organisations (most?) it's still seen as skiving. If you aren't present at your desk you're basically taking a holiday on company time. The fact that you're probably more productive than you would be with the distractions and commuting - and that half your co-workers are frittering their time away at their desks because they know they're largely judged by how long they are at their desk, not by how much they produce - is ignored in favour of plain, simple presenteeism (or however you spell it). I don't miss it!

I suggested working from home in the past, but this was always regarded as rediculous; now all of a sudden, it appears perfectly possible. I am enjoying the experience.

[Daan]

2 hours ago, Ozzy50 said:

 I noticed in the news that Gordon Ramsey had laid off 500 staff , I know he’s had to shut his restaurants but he earned £51 million last year , you would think a bit of that could have gone to keeping his staff in a wage until he can reopen , thousands have been let go from their work , some unavoidable, some down to pure greed and selfishness by the business owners . Sad times 

Especially when he could have kept them on and let the state pay their wages.

[Bowie69]

Just now, Daan said:

Especially when he could have kept them on and let the state pay their wages.

Quite.

Many Muppets out there just looking after themselves.

[monkie]

The one thing I hope this experience teaches a number of people is to not take things for granted that have been in the past. I'm probably hoping for too much there. 

[Ozzy50]

1 hour ago, monkie said:

The one thing I hope this experience teaches a number of people is to not take things for granted that have been in the past. I'm probably hoping for too much there. 

TBH I think a heck of a lot of people , for a while at least , will have a new found appreciation for all the things we take for granted . 

[davie]

Not wrong there, we are all used to jumping in our cars etc to go somewhere to get stuff done.   now we risk fines or worse.     The day will come we can crack on again and it will seem weird for a little while at least to just go places freely.

 

[Eightpot]

It's going to be wierd when all the noise gets turned back on - aside from the background niggling fear over contracting a potentially lethal virus and as long as the cash holds out, I'm quite enjoying the lack of traffic, not going to the shops every day,  going for walks and only hearing birds, turns out I'm naturally socially distant and I'm doing twice the work without getting interrupted by customers and people dropping in to chatter. Petrol less than a quid a litre to boot, shame we can't go anywhere! 

[L19MUD]

9 hours ago, Ozzy50 said:

TBH I think a heck of a lot of people , for a while at least , will have a new found appreciation for all the things we take for granted . 

I agree with this and things that seemed important before have now dropped to the wayside. Instead of saving up to replace the Range Rover with a newer one or replace my wifes car, that money is going in the bank in case she gets made redundant (company could go bust - they have dropped from £6m turnover a month to zero overnight).

With my Defender off the road the only vehicle we have used to go shopping/collect logs is the transit tipper. I don't think we will be rushing to spend thousands on newer cars for quite some time

 

[L19MUD]

12 hours ago, Daan said:

I suggested working from home in the past, but this was always regarded as rediculous; now all of a sudden, it appears perfectly possible. I am enjoying the experience.

I work in finance for a big insurance broker and working from home is common and not discouraged. I work with people from India, the US and other UK locations daily so my location is fairly irrelevant. I never chose to work more than 1 day a week at home though. It is only a 20 minute commute each way and I prefer actual human interaction. Weeks of sitting in my study on my own is going to drive me insane

[monkie]

My job is a mix of going out and about to hospital labs to visit customers (always viewed that as the fun part of my job) and then working from home catching up on paperwork, filling in tender responses etc.

I have to admit it has always irritated me that many of my neighbours have made sarcastic comments about me "working from home again" if I pop out to the shop at lunchtime or go to post a letter as if I'm just sat indoors watching TV or playing computer games. They don't see that I started work before many people would have got to the office and if I have a deadline to meet I can continue work when they would have left the office.

Maybe now people will realise it can actually be quite productive working from home with no twice daily commute to and from the office as well as less sick days because you aren't catching and spreading other people's colds added to the fact you might still be able to work from home if you feel under the weather a bit where otherwise you might not have bothered to go into the office because you can't face sitting in traffic or sitting in a room with a person you don't really like very much. 

[Gazzar]

5 minutes ago, monkie said:

My job is a mix of going out and about to hospital labs to visit customers (always viewed that as the fun part of my job) and then working from home catching up on paperwork, filling in tender responses etc.

I have to admit it has always irritated me that many of my neighbours have made sarcastic comments about me "working from home again" if I pop out to the shop at lunchtime or go to post a letter as if I'm just sat indoors watching TV or playing computer games. They don't see that I started work before many people would have got to the office and if I have a deadline to meet I can continue work when they would have left the office.

Maybe now people will realise it can actually be quite productive working from home with no twice daily commute to and from the office as well as less sick days because you aren't catching and spreading other people's colds added to the fact you might still be able to work from home if you feel under the weather a bit where otherwise you might not have bothered to go into the office because you can't face sitting in traffic or sitting in a room with a person you don't really like very much. 

Precisely.

 

Not to mention that many commute options may not be available in the future.  I can't see our local bus company surviving, if the empty double decker going past the house every hour is anything to judge by.

[ThreeSheds]

9 minutes ago, monkie said:

Maybe now people will realise it can actually be quite productive working from home with no twice daily commute to and from the office as well as less sick days because you aren't catching and spreading other people's colds added to the fact you might still be able to work from home if you feel under the weather a bit where otherwise you might not have bothered to go into the office because you can't face sitting in traffic or sitting in a room with a person you don't really like very much

Excellent little rant there... You should carry on while you have the momentum   

[Cynic-al]

Not with 3 ankle biters at home. Most overused phrase in our house is "dad can I have..." 

Working with the machines is less stressful! 

[monkie]

30 minutes ago, ThreeSheds said:

Excellent little rant there... You should carry on while you have the momentum   

Yeh, I don't think I'd be good at working in an office with "normal" people. I'd soon be put in a room on my own! Oh hang on, that's already happened - they gave me a company car and told me I can't use my mobile phone when I'm in it

[Gazzar]

29 minutes ago, Cynic-al said:

Not with 3 ankle biters at home. Most overused phrase in our house is "dad can I have..." 

Working with the machines is less stressful! 

If you inlist, so you must soldier.

[Nonimouse]

Today, working from home, stopped me form committing murder. My line manager, not a bad chap in anyway, can get quite OCD when all is not as is it should be, With the whole team working 'from home', things are not normal. Today, he annoyed me so much, if we had been in the same room, I would have beat him to death with my laptop, slowly. So well done 'WFH'

To be honest I don't mix well with people. Being forced to become a public servant three years ago, was not on my list of final jobs. Within weeks all was clear as glass as to why all the government departments are in the stinky stuff. Although having worked for The Client for so long, I should have realised what I was getting into. 

[Ozzy50]

TBH the lockdown hasn’t altered my day to day much at all , obviously I’m paying more attention to what I touch , how close I get to people etc etc but on a day to day it’s pretty much the same but then I suppose farming can be a pretty lonely job at times but it suits me ! Of course my daughter is home all day with the school closures , the wife works at the ambulance service so is in the thick of it so to speak and even the corn merchants have got their doors closed (park up , phone in your order and they bring it out to you ) but in general I could almost forget that it’s all going on !

[monkie]

Well here we go. It's nice to see it in official print on the BBC explaining a little more eloquently than I perhaps managed to but still similar to my thoughts I posted on this thread earlier in the week on the coronavirus death toll. 

Warning, read with caution if you are aged 80+. You've been warned!! 

Stay safe all. 

Edited April 1, 2020 by monkie
Make more sense in English!

[Gazzar]

It's worrying. I'm still lurching between terror and scorn.

The deaths attributable to Corona are now at 1% of the total deaths for the year, but what it will be like at the end of April if we don't lock down, I don't know.

Still. What cost the economic depression that will follow?

So hard to weigh these things up, I'd hate to have to.

[mad_pete]

2 hours ago, monkie said:

Well here we go. It's nice to see it in official print on the BBC explaining a little more eloquently than I perhaps managed to but still similar to my thoughts I posted on this thread earlier in the week on the coronavirus death toll. 

Warning, read with caution if you are aged 80+. You've been warned!! 

Stay safe all. 

I had a little trouble following it but I think there is still some quite big numbers of people who die from it who wouldn’t have died otherwise in there. I think taking a really big number and saying maybe a third of that didn’t need to die is still a lot of people that don’t  need to die.  

 

[monkie]

This is by very nature a sensitive subject so I think it is important to prefix this post by saying each death is not trivial and nearly always a grieving family and friends are left behind; I am mindful that over the coming months someone reading may well have lost a loved one due to coronavirus or other cause.

I don't mean any analysis, fact or opinion to come across as callous or crass; my aim is to try and reduce any anxiety in anyone troubled by the ever increasing reported death toll due specifically to this epidemic. Daily reports of X hundred more people having tested positive and then said to have died is enough to unsettle most, particularly if you see the news just before going to bed.

As I understand the facts so far, someone suffering with a serious illness and/or who is at a great age and therefore statistically is very unlikely to see 2021 will be a in far greater danger from coronavirus than someone not in their position. For the sake of our hospitals however, we need to spread this number out as much as we can rather than have it all at once in a sudden, unpredicted surge and overwhelm our system which then really would put people in grave danger who otherwise need not be put at risk.

[elbekko]

9 hours ago, monkie said:

For the sake of our hospitals however, we need to spread this number out as much as we can rather than have it all at once in a sudden, unpredicted surge and overwhelm our system which then really would put people in grave danger who otherwise need not be put at risk.

Yes, exactly. The "flattening the curve". What has been dawning on me over the past few days though, is that it may not be preferential to flatten the curve "as much as we can". We need to flatten the curve to fit the capacity of the health system. Which could explain why different countries go for different approaches to lockdowns etc. It could very well be that a country that has lots of healthcare capacity chooses to let people mingle a bit longer so they can get it over with more quickly.

It's all a trade-off. Healthcare capacity vs panic vs economic damage.

[geoffbeaumont]

19 hours ago, Cynic-al said:

Not with 3 ankle biters at home. Most overused phrase in our house is "dad can I have..." 

Working with the machines is less stressful! 

I work from home normally - but home schooling two kids means I'm getting virtually no work done at the moment.