Prime Minister Boris Johnson has urged workers to “get back to work in the normal way”, warning them that if they continue to work from home, “you’re going to be gossiped about and you’re going to lose out”.
Oh well, that’ll do the trick, I’m sure 
2 Likes
People don’t want to go back to the office if they can work from home do they? The rents for office space have plummeted while house prices away from the city have rocketed now that people realise they can work from anywhere
1 Like
And these are the best reasons the blond idiot could come up with, really?
3 Likes
That is discrimination against Postmen/Women, Bus Drivers, Builders, Emergency Service Workers, Gardeners, etc, etc, etc…
1 Like
Also something that your country seems to be well aware of is the ‘work / life’ balance, this also is now taking priority. Why travel great distances and lose much of the time you could spend with family or just living your life? We are here only once after all. Here in the UK many people were leaving for work at 05.00 or 06.00 hrs to work in distant cities, usually ‘where the money is’, then not returning home until 18.00 or 19.00 hrs that evening. It often seems to me that some are ‘living to work’ rather than the Australian way of just ‘working to live’.
That cannot be good for anyone, working people, families, employers or the country generally. What negative ways I wonder does putting in all these hours generally affect people and families, and for nothing more than just to live their lives?
1 Like
Oh for goodness sake, he really is a dumbo, isn’t he?
I don’t think people will ever go back to the office as much as they did before Covid. And that’s partly down to employers, because the saving on office space is huge. If employer and employee both prefer it, why should Johnson interfere?
Gossiped about? Like that can’t happen on calls, emails etc! Lose out, why, because they might gossip about you? Talk about trying to make people paranoid to manipulate them
I think the people who really lose out are the people who can’t work from home because they lack IT skills or their home isn’t suitable They really do get left out because everyone else’s uses IT to work as a team
But the answer is to upskill them and provide a smaller office space for the few who need it
I would imagine that when it comes to things like promotions etc, that the most noticeable will fare best.
But having worked from home for a while, now doing a mixture, I think the people who get noticed the most are those who are most vocal on Teams, joining work Yammer groups etc and it’s the work that gets done quietly by some in the office that gets overlooked
The thing with working from home is that because everything is done online it’s easy to check someone’s production, achievements and contributions, they are visible to everyone and I think that probably leads to a fairer and easier way to make your mark than office gossip
1 Like
You only have to look at how the new software here on OFC works, if that is in any way similar to the way those who work from home are monitored then their contribution to hours, work etc. are easy enough to see. There’s nothing wrong with that providing the employee is aware of this and accepts it as part of working from home.
I think most do, and the thing is, in some ways it’s fairer, what you do gets noticed and you’ve got a record of it when it comes to going for promotions etc
It’s a new way of working with different checks and criteria to get used to but I think it’s here to stay despite Johnson’s dire warnings
Personally I would loathe to have to work from home. All my working life I kept the two things entirely separate. My home is private. Never spoke about home to work colleagues. Rarely spoke about work with friends/family except to say - if asked - what I did to earn my keep.
I appreciate C19 has necessitated some people working from home rather than losing their employment - but makes me glad I am retired.
It’s definitely a new way of working and today’s ‘youngsters’ are going to see this as it being the ‘usual’ way of working life. I have a young family member just embarked on her first job, she was taken on as it’s working from home for three days and two days at the company’s office. No problems with this way as she’s well into all the new technology, as are many her age. Those two days are more or less to keep in touch with the business she’s in and that ‘balance’ suits both her and the employer. It’s the way things will be in the future I reckon.
1 Like
The trouble with Boris is, he is a complete and utter anus. Therefore, we can only expect one thing to issue forth from the idiot! What a complete disappointment he has turned out to be!
3 Likes
When deciding on semi-retirement working from home allowed me to do that on a self-employed basis.
I had and still have a study / office containing all the computer technology for my work plus the necessary communications like broadband and telephone. The one very important thing for anyone working from home, whether that is on an employed or self-employed basis is that the hours start at whatever time you decide on and the day finishes in the same way. The door to my study / office was opened at 09.00, my work was done as it would have been working anywhere. Then at 17.00 that door was closed as business was done for that day. I also took an hour out for a break and lunch. You also have to be a person who can resist the temptations all around to take time out of work during those hours, that is another very important and self-imposed rule to keep to.
I enjoyed my work and working that way and definitely wish I had done that many years ago now.
1 Like
Mr P had to work from home during lockdown, and hated it. I wasn’t keen on him being at home either 
poor man. As soon as his office opened up for the choice of working there a couple of days a week, he was on the train before the email hit the trash icon on his laptop!
3 Likes
Love it. 
1 Like
Thats when I first joined here…my intro post was that I was banned from the kitchen, and was sitting on my own with a flask of coffee and a sandwich!
1 Like
Like most things you do have to want to do it and work differently, possibly from home. I knew someone who had tried to work from home as I did but couldn’t be self-disciplined enough to do so. Too many distractions he reckoned. He ran his own business and eventually returned to where he had office premises and all the associated expense of paying for those and travelling to work every day. That is what suited him as the person he was, all down to personal choice if it’s voluntary.
I couldn’t agree more Tabby. I liked the fact that I had two quite separate areas of my life - work and home. And they never overlapped. Throughout my working life my home was my sanctuary, the place where I could breathe a sigh of relief and relax away from the pressured work environment.
I belong to several sewing and embroidery FB groups, and I’ve come across a number of people who’ve had to give up their much loved hobby and sell their sewing or embroidery machine, because they simply don’t have the space in their tiny starter homes to accommodate a sewing room/corner and a work station. Now that would have had me seething.
Working from home is all very well if you have the room, but if your home is small, and you are forced to turn your kitchen or dining room table into an office space, it impacts on the entire family, as well as denying you breathing space away from work. Yes, in the Covid-19 emergency, there was nothing for it, we had to lockdown and I completely understand that. However, a lot of employers, having seen the benefits to them in reducing office space/overheads etc, are now putting their staff on permanent ‘work at home’ contracts. I bet they’re not paying for the use of those staff members’ spare rooms!
1 Like
My wife is a nurse & during Covid lockdown, due to office space, she did some shifts from home. But as most of their work is done online filling out several hours of paper work on various systems, it did not effect how people were seen. But I can see, having read your post, how for some it could.
My wife works for one trust, within a hospital belonging to another trust. So each patient requires 3 different sets of paper work. Some for the trust she works for, some for the trust she works at & then because the various A&E departments use a separate IT system, some on there to. Then she has letters & information to enter for Social Services, community teams, GP’s. As well as regular coroners court paperwork, which can 3 to 4 hours to complete & often for someone she saw for 3 minutes months before their death.
On a good 12 hour shift she has time to see 3 patients, but 2 is the average & occasionally only one.
During lockdown she either saw her patients face to face wearing appropriate PPE, or via mobile phone. But the paperwork remained the same & that could not be done here for privacy reasons.
1 Like