As a Key worker- dilemma re school situation

Two things.

1. The vast majority of government organisations are already set up for home working. It's really not a problem. They have a secure VPN connection between their laptop and the servers, which only allows specific devices to connect and encrypts all data between that laptop and the server.

2. I feel no difference about where someone is accessing data from. It's the same person, using the same device.

 

see above - i doubt if very many managers are making staff travel who could work from home - i know what my part of government is doing so I'm confident in that assertion.

cue all the sarcastic 'working from home- snigger' comments (already seen people slagging off council workers etc)

 

If the alternative is that they infect me my child or you let them look away. When I worked for local Govt as a fraud manager I worked from home and could access all personal information if claimants from home via govt gateway portal and that was nearly 10 years ago. The technology exists and is used all the time.

 

That's half the answer - I'll not go into the detail - but the majority is not all. And like I keep saying - most people who can are working from home.

 

the lovely fob it’s not that hard

 

key word there being 'most' to fully reduce risk to the country it should be the case that all who can work from home are at home working to avoid any unnecessary contact. No point having a lock down but still making admin staff etc go into work when they could be sent home to work.

 

How do you think a network purchased from the lowest bidder is going to cope with 10 or 20x the usual expected max number of users?

Again - People are homeworking - but not everyone can - we have offices full of hundreds of desktop PC's - they don't work if you stick em in the back of your car and take em home

 

You listed 3 jobs earlier as reasons that NHS admin staff need to be in an office. All of those jobs can be done from home.

 

depends what they need access to within the network surely? For example most admin staff would answer email queries and phone calls, this can be done from a personal PC and a basic handset provided by the trust/company at a small cost. They don't need VPN access etc. so little infrastructure is needed.

Also most businesses should have contingency plans in place in case staff cannot make it to an office. They should have planning in place for events where staff are off or where systems don't work etc.

 

I have taken my desktops home I usually work on 3 screens. Took me about 10 minutes to set up. Not a problem. Every one I work with did the same.

The jobs you listed earlier can all be done from gone and are not being. If your job is not a matter of life and death then you shouldn’t be attending. It’s that simple n

 

All the debate here is whether people should be allowed to work from home or not but TarnTyke has not said whether it is actually possible to do his work from home. He said his manager said he will not be paid if he stays at home with his daughter. If his work can be done from home then 100% that should be the solution and he should be paid, the fact he has not suggested that in any of his posts makes me think that it can’t be. His later post said his daughter is anxious about school and that is why he wants to keep her at home. In that case I sympathise and can only advise speaking to daughter and explaining how everyone has to be brave and that she can be proud of her mum and dad and herself for carrying on to help everyone else. If she still really is very upset then his manager has said he can have unpaid time off to be with her, despite the fact that he is a key worker. I’m not really sure what else he is expecting.

 

[QUOTE="Jimmy viz, post: 2447199, member: 55007"
If your job is not a matter of life and death then you shouldn’t be attending. It’s that simple n[/QUOTE]

It's not quite so simple though is it. So many things have a knock on to other sectors.

 

Jeez so people prepping food and packing it for hospitals are ‘false key workers’
People paying benefits
Emptying bins
Generating electricity
Attending to suspects in police stations

some people seriously need to give their heads a wobble.

I’m all for praising our frontline health staff but it takes more than nurses to keep a country running.

 

They can’t just connect a basic pc to the vpn, and most of us home working are using our personal phones, there’s hundreds of thousands of key workers the government would like to work from home but it’s impossible to magic thousands of pcs and phones out of thin air.

you’re talking like no ones putting any effort in and it could be solved simply.

the reality is that people are working their ******** off to implement government policy that turns on a sixpence.

I saw a screenshot today on twitter from someone who was 28,0000th in a queue to claim universal credit. Have a think about what this means to the people trying to help everyone affected by this crisis. Not all key workers wear nurses uniforms

 

I know all about working my balls off to help staff work from home. We have had near 1000 requests for staff to have vpns etc and have had to work like mad men to sort it, i know its hard. my point is not all staff need them but they all want them cos they have been given this key worker title when in reality then are not.

 

nope all those are key workers. The ones you mentioned earlier are not. It’s not that hard to grasp is it. Basically anyone doing any office job of any kind can do that from home. Of the people I’m responsible for the ones building the hospitals are key workers. The ones I am still having to send to sites to build apartment blocks in central London are not despite their employer designating then as such.

guess it depends what’s more important to you caring for the people who must work or inventing imaginary problems to justify those who could work from home but there employer will not let them.

 

It's not quite so simple though is it. So many things have a knock on to other sectors.[/QUOTE]

some do. Some don’t. I had to tell some construction lads to carry on working on some flash apartments in central London today as they can’t work from home and are designated essential workers by their employer.

 

The government have got their messaging wrong on construction workers.

 

I’ll write this slowly.
As a key worker who’s been working from home for weeks, amongst thousands of others who’ve been doing the same. I know for a fact that if the government could get more of their employees to stay home they absolutely would have.

I’m not defending something imaginary, I’m telling you from my personal experience and the experience of friends and family exactly what the truth is.

you can throw stones from miles away if it makes you feel superior, but I’m telling you what the facts are.

again; how do you shut down a 500 seat call centre that’s paying people benefit or sorting tax furlough and send those people to work from home? That kind of IT and phone infrastructure is possible to rebuild to work remotely, but it can’t happen overnight, and then, when you’ve succeeded with that, there’s another 30 such centres.

and in 12 months time when you hear the government spend millions on laptops for people who already had desktop computers you’ll be whinging about a waste of taxpayer funds.

 

The comments on this thread FFS. I can’t work from home means exactly that. The govt IT for the dept I work in is and always had been crap. The people in my office working from home have bee calling in with various teccy problems. If anyone thinks that govt depts have the best all singing/dancing technology, you couldn’t be more mistaken. The staying at home unpaid with my daughter would also attract formal and even disciplinary procedures. People in this thread have assumed all sorts of crap, I don’t want anything for nothing I’m more than willing to work through the whole crisis, but it’s not as simple as that. There seems to be attempts to even shame me for having the audacity to even raise concerns. To you people you can fek well off. Incidentally,I have been fortunate to be in relatively good health over the years and have not had a day off sick in more than 6 years. And I would get paid in full If I did. I won’t comment anymore on this thread so go ahead and post any ***** you want. I’m tired now, been at work all day helping to run a dept that’s depleted of staff and trying to run a vital Public service as normal as we can. Oh, and with the continued worry over my daughter