Random Irritations

[irip]

Due to where we are there are only 2 trucks, the rest are tracked vehicles that don’t have flat bed capability. Both trucks are currently unserviceable! Welcome to the UK military equipment

To be fair the weight isn’t the issue, it’s more trying to carry it without breaking an ankle on the ice

I would like to comeback and play golf at Lofoten links though if I can in the summer.

In that case imagine your on dancing on ice with Sydney Sweeney as your partner.
I bet you wouldn’t fall over then?
In Love maybe?

 

[Sid Rixon IV]

My kid school yet again! So despite the previous irritation of parents paying so much for trip to New York without good notice. They’ve decided next year there will be another trip but giving ample time to pay for it.

They’ve decided next trip will be to Peru! Cost per child is £3.5k, now don’t get me wrong the proposed itinerary looks superb but it’s ridiculous to think parents can afford that when there is so many other expenses to be paid out for. It’s a state school and they’ve decide that’ll do a teams meeting in a weeks time to go through it all but deposit of £500 per child must be paid immediately after the call!!

I was a little incensed by your first example of insensitive pressure on both parents and children, but this follow up is an even more shameful example.
Are these "trips" expected to supercede, or be in addition to, family holidays?
How many children will they accommodate, how many teaching staff will supervise them and are the teaching staff fully funding themselves?

 

[Lucifer MorningStar]

In that case imagine your on dancing on ice with Sydney Sweeney as your partner.
I bet you wouldn’t fall over then?
In Love maybe?

Well at least there would be some air bags to stop my fall

 

[Sid Rixon IV]

Hotels that don’t supply toilet brushes in your room. Ridiculous.

Absolutely!
And when they do the toothpaste tubes are so inadequate!

 

[Lucifer MorningStar]

I was a little incensed by your first example of insensitive pressure on both parents and children, but this follow up is an even more shameful example.
Are these "trips" expected to supercede, or be in addition to, family holidays?
How many children will they accommodate, how many teaching staff will supervise them and are the teaching staff fully funding themselves?

Oh the school has no care if this supersedes or is in addition to family holidays. Let’s be realistic if we did it then It would have to be in addition or we would have to decide not to have a family holiday to accommodate the schools desire to go on ridiculously priced trips. So everyone else in the family miss out on a fun time together.

No. of teaching staff hasn’t yet been set as depends on the final number actually going and I believe the teachers place is funded from the money parents have paid towards it. It actually really winds me up, I get the experience would be amazing but family comes first and so many people
Can’t afford to do this so it’s just insensitive from the schools creating pressure of families.

 

[bobmac]

Clickbait.
You see the headline, click on it, and it's nothing to do with the item.

 

[Slab]

Re WFH versus office

It's bleedin obvious

For the 'right kind of ppl' is fantastic for employers and employee and productivity up etc etc
For just as many it's a freakin skive, with lower productivity , bunking off and general do as you please

Ppl should be assessed for the appropriate skills and suitability to WFH before being allowed and ongoing monitoring

 

[RichA]

Re WFH versus office

It's bleedin obvious

For the 'right kind of ppl' is fantastic for employers and employee and productivity up etc etc
For just as many it's a freakin skive, with lower productivity , bunking off and general do as you please

Ppl should be assessed for the appropriate skills and suitability to WFH before being allowed and ongoing monitoring

My sister and late BiL moved all employees for their small IT logistics management business to wfh during COVID. They wanted to keep it that way and get rid of the office afterwards but the staff couldn’t wait to get back to normal work.
I hated commuting but also didn’t get on with wfh, personally. Even though I actually worked when I was wfh it felt wrong. Every time I stopped for a coffee or put a load in the washing machine I felt like I was skiving.
Everyone’s different. I worked with plenty of folks who were more than capable of skiving in plain sight.

 

[Slab]

My sister and late BiL moved all employees for their small IT logistics management business to wfh during COVID. They wanted to keep it that way and get rid of the office afterwards but the staff couldn’t wait to get back to normal work.
I hated commuting but also didn’t get on with wfh, personally. Even though I actually worked when I was wfh it felt wrong. Every time I stopped for a coffee or put a load in the washing machine I felt like I was skiving.
Everyone’s different. I worked with plenty of folks who were more than capable of skiving in plain sight.

As an employer I saw the lowest 'sickness' absenteism ever during covid enforced wfh

I am fully aware most sickness absence has nothing to do with any actual illness and covid wfh proved it , suddenly I had the healthiest workforce ever

Back to office and sickness levels were back to the expectecd norm

 

[Neilds]

WFH - one cuppa in morning, one in afternoon. Take it in turns with my wife to make them, total time 5 mins each.

In office - multiple brews when someone fancies another. 5 minutes to walk down from level 3 to ground floor, then up to 5-10 minutes to queue for machine and till, 5 minutes back up.

All the things add up.

 

[RichA]

As an employer I saw the lowest 'sickness' absenteism ever during covid enforced wfh

I am fully aware most sickness absence has nothing to do with any actual illness and covid wfh proved it , suddenly I had the healthiest workforce ever

Back to office and sickness levels were back to the expectecd norm

More than one explanation for that though.
Pre-Covid, if I had a streaming nose or a hacking cough I would still spend 3.5 hours of my day commuting into London to work for 8 hours and spread my viruses far and wide, as required by my employer.
Post-COVID, such behaviour is rightly seen by the general commuting and working population as massively antisocial. For some jobs, but obviously not all, this can be solved with a simple message to your line-manager: “Full of cold. May I wfh today?”
Even for the malingerers, half a day’s work done at home is better than a full day off sick, isn’t it?

Ironically, the only time my line manager didn’t tell me to wfh while ill was after I had tested positive for COVID because the policy had just changed to say that self-isolation was no longer necessary and they were worried about breaking the rules.

 

[Fromtherough]

I’m very much in the pro wfh camp. I go in the office once or twice a week. They’re usually my most unproductive days. The commute is a factor. I naturally start later and finish earlier than I would if I was at home. I work in an open plan office. Apart from the usual water cooler moments and catching up with people which are enjoyable, it can be quite distracting. At home it’s easy to switch Teams to do not disturb if you’re in the middle of something. When in the office, it’s also occasionally difficult to book rooms for private/sensitive conversations, exacerbated if it’s something that just comes up.

For the people I manage, wfh definitely does not mean an opportunity to skive. They all have deadlines to meet and they are all adults. If they want to have a long lunch while something gets delivered, pick their kids up, watch an hour of sport or whatever… As long as it doesn’t conflict with any planned meetings and their work is of an appropriate standard, I’ve found providing that flexibility mutually beneficial. They start earlier and/or finish later. I understand why this couldn’t work in certain industries. But I don’t get why some get their knickers in a twist about it and assume everyone who does is at it.

 

[Arthur Wedge]

We have be hybrid since Covid and productivity increased significantly

Many people spend a lot of times in meetings on calls with people all over the country

We do have teams that work together are in the office more


I have to pop in every so often and it works

New CEO was talking about asking people to go back in every day - the reaction and pushback was huge

 

[The Squirrel]

A close relative is a manager of a team doing office work.
He says that for an established team who are functioning well and can be left to get on with it ,WFH works great. Skills and relationships have already been built. Less distraction, less travel, more output.

However if you have to build a new team to work cohesively, or integrate new starters into the group and show them the ropes then it is utterly useless; that classic "just walk over to them and show them the issue and how to solve it in 20 seconds" becomes an all day back-and-forth oF Email or even screengrab videos. Or more likely "I'll show you when you're in next". Also a lot of learning happens from chance observation and imitation of more experienced people; WFH loses all of that - people don't just fail to plug gaps in their skills and knowledge; they don't even know they have them because they never see other people doing things that they can't. Therefore over time, very gradually, without anyone really being aware of it, WFH makes an organisation weaker. I have to say that this makes sense to me.

Might the views of this forum reflect the age and career skew - most people here are established and experienced with their fields? Would you be so keen if you were 19 trying to find your way?

I don't know for sure whether he's right or not of course. I'll never be able to implement or experience WFH so not for me to worry about

 

[Slab]

More than one explanation for that though.
Pre-Covid, if I had a streaming nose or a hacking cough I would still spend 3.5 hours of my day commuting into London to work for 8 hours and spread my viruses far and wide, as required by my employer.
Post-COVID, such behaviour is rightly seen by the general commuting and working population as massively antisocial. For some jobs, but obviously not all, this can be solved with a simple message to your line-manager: “Full of cold. May I wfh today?”
Even for the malingerers, half a day’s work done at home is better than a full day off sick, isn’t it?

Ironically, the only time my line manager didn’t tell me to wfh while ill was after I had tested positive for COVID because the policy had just changed to say that self-isolation was no longer necessary and they were worried about breaking the rules.

Re my bold
Yeah but Very dependant of course

If you're (they are) too ill to work then you're too ill to work
I'm not paying a full days salary for half a days work
I pay an attendance bonus every month for no sick days taken, I want everyone to earn this but not by spurious wfh days when they claim they're not well enough to come to office but then say they can easily wfh

 

[Neilds]

Re my bold
Yeah but Very dependant of course

If you're (they are) too ill to work then you're too ill to work
I'm not paying a full days salary for half a days work
I pay an attendance bonus every month for no sick days taken, I want everyone to earn this but not by spurious wfh days when they claim they're not well enough to come to office but then say they can easily wfh

Never understood the bonus for not taking days off sick.Forces people into the office to spread germs or take their own leave so they don’t lose the bonus. Neither are good for the company imo.

 

[Slab]

Never understood the bonus for not taking days off sick.Forces people into the office to spread germs or take their own leave so they don’t lose the bonus. Neither are good for the company imo.

In my experience most illness absence has nothing to do with illness as a genuine reason for the absence

So no germs to spread

If genuinely ill then home is the very best place to recover (but don't try to work, which will only delay your recovery)

 

[Fromtherough]

A close relative is a manager of a team doing office work.
He says that for an established team who are functioning well and can be left to get on with it ,WFH works great. Skills and relationships have already been built. Less distraction, less travel, more output.

However if you have to build a new team to work cohesively, or integrate new starters into the group and show them the ropes then it is utterly useless; that classic "just walk over to them and show them the issue and how to solve it in 20 seconds" becomes an all day back-and-forth oF Email or even screengrab videos. Or more likely "I'll show you when you're in next". Also a lot of learning happens from chance observation and imitation of more experienced people; WFH loses all of that - people don't just fail to plug gaps in their skills and knowledge; they don't even know they have them because they never see other people doing things that they can't. Therefore over time, very gradually, without anyone really being aware of it, WFH makes an organisation weaker. I have to say that this makes sense to me.

Might the views of this forum reflect the age and career skew - most people here are established and experienced with their fields? Would you be so keen if you were 19 trying to find your way?

I don't know for sure whether he's right or not of course. I'll never be able to implement or experience WFH so not for me to worry about

Whilst I appreciate what your relative has described, it sounds quite antiquated. But as mentioned, what suits some roles/industries won’t suit others. We have offices all over the country and teams split similarly. We practice hot desking and when I do go in the office, I may not always sit with people who are working on the same projects as me or any of my direct team.

However, we have regular meetings and use Teams to both video call and message individually and collectively. Channels are set up for things like ‘Has anyone ever seen this…’. ‘Or what would you do if…’ etc etc. When we have staff turnover, new starters are assigned a mentor to provide the support and guide them through their induction, with plenty of opportunity to learn in a way that suits them.

 

[jim8flog]

I worked either at home or from my car for many years.

The company judged how good you were by how much new business you brought in and how up to date your money collections were and were never really bothered about how much time you worked and when you worked it.

The joy for me was being able to play golf twice a week after doing the paperwork either the night before or in the early hours.
Sometimes I would see one or two of the managers on the course.

 

[IanM]

I was far more productive wfh. Teams calls were standard operating procedure.

There's a Government itch that recognises the large number of jobs and businesses that depend on local workers buying lunch, coffee and sundries from them. Hence the noises from them about returning to the office.