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

Hammer hit firmly on nail.

So many sectors are going to be hit. I expect unemployment to be around 6 million by Feb / March. The loss of those jobs kicks on to others. You only have to look at Barnsley pre & post the pit closures to see this, also the loss or SR Gents, Slazenger, etc.

This time it's not manufacturing / primary industry, it is retail, services & hospitality.

Massive recession ahead & shift in the economy, that may well have been coming, but not at this pace. A lot of profitable businesses in the long term will be lost, never to return.

 

And that’s why I didn’t support it at the time. Because even if I’ve found benefits on a personal level during all this, I knew back then it wasn’t going to end well.

Appreciate the response anyway, helps me understand things better.

 

The irony being that without increased footfall - which they rely upon - two out of those three wont be around in 6 months...

 

If enough people order online they will be.

 

The amount of Tories on sicial media / news channels this morning suggesting we office workers must go back to work makes me more convinced. We are at work, whether in the office or not. Even Lord Blunkett (how did that happen btw?) from the comfort of his home telling office workers they need to go back to the office as it's better for them. Jeremy Hunt the cünt saying you don't get the 'fizz' by working from home. Whatever the fizz is, I'm quite happy to continue doing as I'm told, even if that means working half my week at home and missing out on said fizz.

Off for lunch at a local independent cafe again shortly.

 

If they do but the problem is they don't.

 

I’m perfectly content with my level of fizz.

 

Saw a tweet in response to the Richard Littlejohn article the other day. Someone posted ‘I’ve worked in the same office as RL for over 15 years and I’ve never seen him in the office’.

but I bet he still succeeded in getting millions of DM readers to see me as their enemy and him as the voice of reason.

 

I worked exclusively from home for the last 6 years of my career, during which time I didn't have a single face-to-face meeting. I got used to fizzing on my own and found I preferred it. Fnarr fnarr.

 

It's been years since we've had a 'fnarr, fnarr' on the BBS. Thank you for bringing it back, old mate.

 

I think it's daft for them to tell you you must go back or tell you what you're missing out on by not being in the office. As an adult you know what you're missing out on and you know whether you prefer to miss out on that in exchange for the benefits of working from home or not, you don't need a politician to tell you that.

They'd be far better off encouraging employers to open the offices up to allow the employee to return if they wish. it's pointless begging you to return to the office if Dane Murphy won't let you yet.

 

My employer has said they expect to get to a point where most people go into the office for some of the time. And the idea of people being in 5 days a week, just for appearances isn't feasible. There will be plenty of reasons for getting into the office, some wont have the a decent setup at home and teams with new / younger people will need to be in to help with training, but Govt needs to look at what city centre demand for office space looks like post pandemic, and what they need to do to avoid a hit on economy.

In the immediate term, there a some things that they could do to get people back in, rather than just trying to bully people into it via media. Opening theatres would get more people into city centres, as would allowing crowds into midweek games. Probably the biggest thing that would help would be a level of confidence in getting on public transport.

Of course, the one thing that was meant to underpin all opening up of society again was a fully functioning test, trace & isolate system. The performance of what we have now is best summed up by the fact that some people that tested positive and couldn't be reached by the system, actually worked at a contact tracing office!

This Govt want to force things by saying it is safe, without doing the necessary work to make it so. The unwillingness to deal with detail is the constant theme of Johnson / Cummings Govt.

 

That would be the Richard Littlejohn who is currently working hard in the office... at his beachfront villa in Florida.

 

Yeah, I thought that was a weird stance to take, people know whether they like going into the office or not. It feels a bit like he's addressing children saying 'it's fun, honest, you used to love it, remember?' whilst they're shaking their head violently and staring at the floor. I saw a thread by the Times listing different incentives the employers could offer which made more sense (although I'm not sure it made it clear why they would want to), I'll see if I can find it again.

 

I've said it a few times, but they are encouraging you to return to the office, while still maintaining social distancing. Most offices are too small for everyone to return to work until they change the guidelines. So we can't all return to the office (or do alternate days/weeks, etc), so footfall and trade in the associated services is going to be down. They need to extend furlough for these affected sectors to reduce the financial pressures on the affected businesses.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...er-Therese-Coffey-hints-taxes-CUT-Budget.html

Sir David Ramsden talks sense. He would be a better PM than Boris. He makes a lot of good points about offices, retraining, and the retail sector.

 

I won't click on that, naturally, but a fücking pebble would be a better PM than Johnson.

 

I work at the Leeds Uni. Very unlikely I'll be asked to go back before the end of the year (all teaching is remote unless it absolutely has to be face to face) and I suspect there will be more cases then, than now, so I can't see me being offered the chance to return before end of the flu season.

It's been shown my job can be done from home and on balance I like it more. I live 4 miles away and a car trip would take 40 mins in heavy traffic. I cycle when I can but dark nights are not really my idea of fun when cycling. I'm rubbish at winter too, hate the constant darkness so won't miss getting up in the dark, sitting in a dark office that doesn't have natural light, before going home in the dark. Rinse, repeat. Euk.

If Covid disappeared tomorrow I still doubt we'd be made to return full time. The canary has left the coal mine.

 

http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-a...le-towns-and-the-environment-the-political-op

Decent article here.