Workers that don’t have to go into an office are £480 billion better off.

The world changes. I've no interest in who's seeing who, or having to grit my teeth while some bloke from Derby who's never been to Anfield tells me how amazing Jurgen Klopp is. Having to pay for the 'privilege' of travelling to the office, to have said bloke stop me working whilst he drones on about 'The Red Men' for ten minutes isn't something I miss.

 

Exactly. I, like your husband, never buy lunch out (I take my own), I'm not part of the fancy coffee brigade, and I walk to work. If anything I cost my company money through them paying for office rental space (100s of employees in a premium spot in central Bristol), electricity and internet, water rates (coffee in the kitchen, bathroom usage) etc. Also, I imagine mental health will be better for many, especially those that dont have to commute 2 hours per day (London-based etc). On the flipside, mental health could deteriorate due to lack of physical interaction. For the time being I'm happy to continue working from home. And I wholeheartedly agree with you in that it's no-one else's business other than the enployee/employer.

 

I always like to play the game of 'what if it was always like the proposed change and people are proposing to change it to how it currently is now for the first time?'

E.g. when some Candians got annoyed at the talk of changing the line 'True patriot love in all thy sons command' to True patriot love in all of us command' and I thought imagine if it had always been 'all of us' and they were proposing changing it to 'all thy sons', would that seem reasonable?

Imagine if people had always worked from home but people were now proposing making it so that you had to spend thousands of pounds, get up early and lose 10 hours a week travelling into work and when you ask them why they give the reasons 'so you can buy a £3 coffee and £5 stale sandwich meal deal' and 'so you can hang out with that annoying guy who always talks about Klopp for 8 hours a day IN PERSON'.

 

Like many aspects of Covid, a move to permanent remote working will hit the younger generation harder. It’s much harder for more junior staff to learn on the job remotely. In most jobs people learn best through watching others close at hand first, then gradually taking on responsibility themselves.

 

I have always been an advocate of working from home.

There were a group of us who tried to make it happen, because the job we were doing from an office involved using a desktop and a telephone, and there was no reason why it couldn't be done from home.

Apparently, not being sat in front of the boss, face-to-face, for 40 hours a week made us 'impossible to manage.' We even offered to take a two grand pay cut (I'd have still been 'up' on the deal) but it was made clear: shut up, the conversation's over, now get on with what you've been tasked with.

I personally am not bothered whether my absence from the office means that some sandwich shops or coffee shops or whatever have to close. It isn't my problem.

And, yes, your thought experiment sums it up nicely. There is no way that it makes sense to get up in the dark, travel on a tram full of coughing, sneezing deedars, to then go and sit next to someone for eight hours a day so that I can do what it is possible to do from home, and it would be rejected as lunacy had we always been used to doing otherwise. Hopefully a permanent change in the expectation to commute is the one good thing that will come out of Covid.

 

How do you watch someone type something close at hand on a computer though? Unless they are standing behind them watching (which you can easily do with screen sharing software) then I don't see how it applies to office workers. I can definitely see how that is a thing in practical jobs but not in office working.

 

There's nothing wrong with companies allowing someone to work from home if that person can do so properly and their productivity doesn't stop but getting rid of the offices completely and forcing people to work from home is a terrible idea.

For those choosing to work from home it can have great benefits, if you don't like to see other people then it's good for you, save time on commuting etc. Brilliant.

But for others it is catastrophic. I know that if I didn't have to go into work I simply wouldn't see anyone at all for days on end, sometimes for weeks. That can't be good for anybody's mental health.

How do you train new starters if there is no office? You can throw all the books in the world at them or all send over all the pdfs but you will not replace on the job training. Being able to pop over to Lisa's desk and ask her to physically show you how to do something. That's fine for the older generation who already have experience in a similar role but imagine being a 20 year old sat at home without a clue about the specific job you've just been hired to do.

Then there's the really big issue that it creates a class divide. If you are well off and have a large house then you're lucky, you can apply for any of these work from home office jobs as you will most likely have a spare room or office that you can work in. If you're living in a one bedroom flat then you best apply for a manual job because you can't realistically sit on your sofa with a laptop on your knee for 40 hours a week. The well off will have the nice comfortable seated jobs, those from poorer areas will have manual jobs. Even more than that divide is now.
For all those saying 'we work from home now and it's lovely', yes you do but how did you afford that lovely big home? Im guessing you did it by working in an office (or other place) and getting paid while you saved up to buy it. There's a reason small homes are described as starter homes.

It may not sound like much having to get up and go to work but for many that's the only form of exercise they get. The short walk to the car or bus stop, walk from car or bus stop into the office, walking from desk to desk etc. It's not a lot but it's something. Replace that with getting out of bed and shuffling to the office in the next bedroom. It won't affect everyone or even the majority but the health of a minority will suffer by being forced to work from home

Then there are the issues surrounding small businesses suffering. I do get the point that it's not good for everyone to spend money on eating out at work and buying a coffee. It definitely isn't and I've said in the past how much money you save not doing so but for me there's a balance. For those who can afford it there's nothing wrong with it, for those who don't have as much disposable money like at our place then the usual protocol is once a week if you want, if you don't fancy it you don't have one.

I could reel off the names of around about 500 people I know who have lost their jobs because of people working from home in the last few months and that isn't an exaggeration either and that's all in one industry. Replicate that across all industries and across the country and that is an absolutely huge hit to the country.

Let people work from home if they prefer to but there has to be some way of stopping companies making it mandatory as it causes way too many problems

 

Why should workers prop up the economy when the government have screwed us through ten years of austerity, stagnant wages, allowing people to live and die on the streets and being content with families relying on food banks? Perhaps the tory voters could come up with a viable solution for their government to intervene? As @JamDrop says, ordinary working people are criticised for not being able to afford to get on the property ladder, criticising those that cant and patronising them, citing a love of takeaway coffee, falafel, sourdough and avocado on toast. And then when people arent willing to fork out on stuff to restart the economy they're criticised again. We live in a country of increasing selfishness with the gap between rich and poor greater than ever - the buck stops with this government. Vote tory, fek the rest.

 

Has anyone suggested doing that? I've only seen people arguing that people shouldn't be forced to go in if neither they, nor their employers, cared about them doing so. There should be a choice.

 

It's definitely a thing in office working. Just this week I've been in the office at work learning off a lady. She had paperwork on her desk and was pointing at them and then at the screen explaining how they relate to each other which I know technically you can do on a screen but it's much much easier to do with real life paper and a screen. Plus the main thing was how she was able to look at me and my facial responses and body language and knew when I was grasping it and when I wasn't, I could look at hers and understand exactly what she meant from her tone and body language too. It's the real physical connection that helps in the learning process.

 

I'm not talking about the government forcing them to but if the employer closes it's office for good then the employee is forced to and capita have just announced closing almost 100 workplaces permanently. That's 100 workplaces where the choice has been taken out of the employees hands, where poorer people without spare rooms have been excluded from employment.

When I said there needs to be someway of keeping it optional I meant for the employee not for the companies

 

I think people who are used to technology could quite easily manage through a video chat and screensharing but even if I agree with you that in person training can be helpful then I don't think there would be anything wrong with an employer asking the new person and some staff to go into the office for a week or two to do some training. It's people saying that people should have to be there day in, day out when you could do the exact same thing at home with no detriment that I think is wrong. I 100% think it should be a choice for the majority of the time, I would be as against full forced home working as I am against full forced office working.

 

Completely agree with you. Forcing both is wrong when there's no need. What I was getting at is if the office is closed down and sold off then how do you do the in person training?

 

I think the training could be done online quite easily but I'm not advocating for the office being closed down, I've said right from my second post on the subject that I think it should be a choice. What I am arguing against is making it mandatory for people to have to go into an office, I don't see how that could be legal anyway but I keep seeing people arguing for it.

 

Well said, it's down to the individual and individual circumstances and motivations. I take exception to criticising individuals for choosing to budget and save a bit more when they can due to the current situation. If anything, my community where I live has probably (cant say with any certainty) seen a boom in local business trading, because people are staying in their communities and investing in the local economy. I would rather buy a coffee from an independent on a weekend that put money into pret a manger.

 

I've been arguing for the middle ground all along though. Look back at my second post (on page 2), I said then that it should be a choice. My point is that no-one should be *forced* to go in and spend thousands of pounds, waste hours every day and wreck the environment to save an overpriced coffee shop and a commercial landlord's rents (because to be honest, that's really why the Conservatives have launched this whole crusade).

 

I pity them for a lot more serious things than a bunk up by the photocopier. There’s plenty of things to get far angrier about

 

I’m not sure what you’re advocating for?

You want a law that states companies must have an office? That they must have a desk for each employee?