British High Street Death List 2020

[Mr_Simnock]

Temporarily yes but I doubt most people have the space in their homes and their heads to do it permanently.  But then I do spend most days working with people who are struggling at home so I am a bit skewed.

I thought I would dislike it a lot but tit runs out the benefits for me far out way the negatives. Big savings in cash as I hardly go to the petrol station anymore and I don't miss the commute to work for a second. I live in a small house but it doesn't bother me or the wife from working at home together.

[The Culture Bunker]

I thought I would dislike it a lot but tit runs out the benefits for me far out way the negatives. Big savings in cash as I hardly go to the petrol station anymore and I don't miss the commute to work for a second. I live in a small house but it doesn't bother me or the wife from working at home together.

Yeah, same for me. The only advantage my desk at work has is the dual monitor set up. But I'm getting almost two hours a day back from not commuting and saving a fair whack of cash (ie my bus ticket is £50 a month) as well as not spending on my lunch breaks. If it was up to me, I reckon I'd be OK with WFH on a full time basis, as much as I'd miss my weekly trips to Fopp and Vinyl Exchange (to link my post back to the High Street).

[peanutbutter]

Temporarily yes but I doubt most people have the space in their homes and their heads to do it permanently.  But then I do spend most days working with people who are struggling at home so I am a bit skewed.

What kind of office are we talking about here? I think I'm thinking pretty explicitly about open plan places, where it seems like everyones whole day is dictated by the schedule for a limited number of meeting rooms, where nothing gets done because you're not able to book enough time to actually get a discourse flowing.

[Blumf]

Been wondering about offices. There must be a few bean counter's cogs whirring, doing the sums on having more people work from home on a permanent basis vs office rent.

[Better Midlands]

Been wondering about offices. There must be a few bean counter's cogs whirring, doing the sums on having more people work from home on a permanent basis vs office rent.

Won't their next thoughts be now everyone's working from home we can easily outsource this work to other counties to reduce overheads even further?

[peanutbutter]

Won't their next thoughts be now everyone's working from home we can easily outsource this work to other counties to reduce overheads even further?

next thoughts? of course it's on their minds, if you see how much a developer for Google/Facebook gets paid in the Bay Area relative to pretty much anywhere else it's insane, and they doubtlessly want to remove some of the very limited power those devs have on the company direction too.

I think it's a while away though tbh, feel like the next step will be limited office space with a greater focus on meeting rooms, routine get togethers to discuss a problem requiring people to live reasonably near

[Captain Crunch]

There's a lot going on, at my work the new buzzword is 'acceleration' as in "we are accelerating our plans for a more agile and flexible workforce.  Solutions.  Going Forward"  There's also the usual suspects being above it all and coming in to do disciplinary hearings with no social distancing*.

_{*Really tedious firms now insist on calling it physical distancing because, like, we still want to be social guys!  Oh sod off back to your free fruit and yoga shit.} 

[Gurke and Hare]

All the nice sandwich shops are fucked. And probably most of the shit ones too.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Greggs look set to ride pillion on a tsunami of grief.

The guy in charge is laughing - he's laughing now, right now at the prospect. Right now. As these very words melt into the bile pool.

[Ferris]

Greggs look set to ride pillion on a tsunami of grief.

The guy in charge is laughing - he's laughing now, right now at the prospect. Right now. As these very words melt into the bile pool.

"Yes!", he screams as the cubes of discount animal drop into the steak slice mix and the baking machine frantically gurgles. Mad, wild eyes, full of glee and malice, flashes of illumination from the lightning outside, and the cacophony of Mr Greggs' laughter.

_{Used to eat steak slices when hungover. Kill or cure innit.}

[Captain Z]

I'm quite sad about Percy Ingle.

I loved him in 'In The Night Garden'.

[TheBrownBottle]

Yes, Newcastle was one of the cities I understood had ample student accommodation and no real need to grant planning permission for any more.

Newcastle does have that; the problem is that, traditionally, this has been in the form of residential properties in Jesmond, Heaton and a few other places.  They're often kept in a state of dilapidation, using up valuable housing stock, and student parties can be a bit irritating for other residents.  Landlords often charge extortionate weekly rents for damp-filled rooms.  Think 'The Young Ones' and you're on the right lines. 

When I left a few years back, student accommodation was effectively the only thing keeping the construction sector going.  Decent quality accommodation, usually the same cost, only with security & amenities.  Often closer to the campuses & bars too.  Frees up housing stock, safer for students, and keeps the excesses away from every other bugger.

[BlodwynPig]

Won't their next thoughts be now everyone's working from home we can easily outsource this work to other counties to reduce overheads even further?

**Hot impoverished in your area looking for work**

[BlodwynPig]

Newcastle does have that; the problem is that, traditionally, this has been in the form of residential properties in Jesmond, Heaton and a few other places.  They're often kept in a state of dilapidation, using up valuable housing stock, and student parties can be a bit irritating for other residents.  Landlords often charge extortionate weekly rents for damp-filled rooms.  Think 'The Young Ones' and you're on the right lines. 

When I left a few years back, student accommodation was effectively the only thing keeping the construction sector going.  Decent quality accommodation, usually the same cost, only with security & amenities.  Often closer to the campuses & bars too.  Frees up housing stock, safer for students, and keeps the excesses away from every other bugger.

Yes, but the student boom destroyed those areas. When students moved into my childhood home in Heaton and fucked it up, that was the last straw.

[Blumf]

Won't their next thoughts be now everyone's working from home we can easily outsource this work to other counties to reduce overheads even further?

You're forgetting the ego boost management needs by dragging people into meetings.

Plus, if it hasn't been outsourced by now, it probably never will. A lot of companies have had their finger burnt by cheap overseas labour, and those that haven't learnt tend to be the ones that have management the most in need to lord it over the headcount.

The big question will probably be, what happens to GDPR regs after Brexit. Getting rid of that will free up a few businesses to send everything away they couldn't already (hands up who thinks the beige adults in the Labour Party will point this out)

[dissolute ocelot]

Been wondering about offices. There must be a few bean counter's cogs whirring, doing the sums on having more people work from home on a permanent basis vs office rent.

My boss has always been of the old school "if people are at home how do I know they're really working?" But I went into the office the other day and was chatting to another senior guy who said the lease is due for renewal next year and if we can get a shoebox somewhere and have everyone else work from home then the savings will be massive. Not sure to what extent he was joking.

But it's not just rent, it's heating, electricity, furniture, cleaning, servicing, maintenance, groundskeeping, all the health and safety/electrical/fire checks, conferencing rooms with 60-inch TVs, £1000 coffee machines. If the boss could take home our coffee machine, he'd be a very happy man. The cleaner and all the other people employed in building upkeep will be less happy.

[TheBrownBottle]

Yes, but the student boom destroyed those areas. When students moved into my childhood home in Heaton and fucked it up, that was the last straw.

Absolutely.  New student accommodation stock won't fix the damage done - but better late than never

[Uncle TechTip]

Intu are preparing for the worst and drawing up administration contingency plans. They own big shopping centres. Most shocking thing was that due to complex ownership arrangements, they say they might not be solvent enough to pay the people who look after the shopping centre - never mind workers in the stores, here's another layer of jobs at risk.

[imitationleather]

Intu have been in trouble for years. It strikes me as a probably very badly-run company.

[TheBrownBottle]

Yep, there's been rumblings coming from Intu for some time.  Wouldn't be any kind of surprise if they went under

[Blue Jam]

Intu are preparing for the worst and drawing up administration contingency plans. They own big shopping centres. Most shocking thing was that due to complex ownership arrangements, they say they might not be solvent enough to pay the people who look after the shopping centre - never mind workers in the stores, here's another layer of jobs at risk.

The one in Newcastle has a massive Sports Direct in it. I think I can guess what might happen there :(

[mippy]

Percy Ingle did nice donuts iirc. Not had one for well over a decade though. I wonder how Sayers are doing now? Is Greggs pushing out all the regional chains that do nicer donuts?

According to the Guardian link Long Tall Sally gone too. They had a store in Edinburgh until recently but being neither long nor tall meant I never had any call to go in there. All those niche places that specialise in plus-size clothing, non-frumpy maternity wear, DD-plus bras, petite and tall ranges etc probably did well in the 1990s but now it's not hard to find all that stuff online and places like ASOS and Primark all have their own plus size, petite etc ranges.

You'd be surprised with regard to bras - only Debenhams and Bravissimo are good if you're bigger than a G cup. Tall clothing has pretty much disappeared from the high street too - it's very rarely stocked by stores that actually make it.

Victoria's Secret is notoriously bad at bra fitting - they will add inches to the back size in order to get you to 'fit' in their range as it stops at about an E cup.

[BlodwynPig]

The one in Newcastle has a massive Sports Direct in it. I think I can guess what might happen there :(

Technically its not "in" INTU, its occupying a space on Northumberland street that either was the old HMV or the entrance to a former mall. There is no entrance from INTU into the shop.

[Blue Jam]

You'd be surprised with regard to bras - only Debenhams and Bravissimo are good if you're bigger than a G cup. Tall clothing has pretty much disappeared from the high street too - it's very rarely stocked by stores that actually make it.

Victoria's Secret is notoriously bad at bra fitting - they will add inches to the back size in order to get you to 'fit' in their range as it stops at about an E cup.

My point was that these things are all available to order online now and aren't stocked exclusively by expensive niche shops. The high street in general seems more fucked than ever.

I'm not too impressed with Bravissimo's stores as they never seem to have things in my size in stock and always have to order them in, so I just order things from their online store instead. Figleaves Outlet are also good for bras because you can search by size and get some real b@rgains, and Amazon are surprisingly good for that too (shame they're evil and all that).

See a few pages back for all the jokes about Victoria's Secret going "bust" (hoho!).

The one I really don't get is Marks and Spencer. Their clothing sales have been taking a nosedive for ages now and their bras have always been overpriced and badly-made. Are there still women who swear by them even with all the alternatives out there now?

[Captain Crunch]

People looove M&S because they think they offer a bra fitting service; it's not it's a measuring service.  Horribly overpriced too. 

When I left a few years back, student accommodation was effectively the only thing keeping the construction sector going.

That's still going on:

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/14m-student-apartment-blocks-approved-18467064

[Huxleys Babkins]

My other half was all about M&S and Victoria's Secret until a few years back when their undies started disintegrating after five minutes.

She's mostly wearing Sainsbury's now.

[pigamus]

The one I really don't get is Marks and Spencer. Their clothing sales have been taking a nosedive for ages now and their bras have always been overpriced and badly-made. Are there still women who swear by them even with all the alternatives out there now?

I think people have complaining about the nosedive in quality for years. Presumably people still go there just out of habit.

[Captain Crunch]

I think M&S have just ridden on the mindset of "oh I need underwear better get to M&S" people get stuck with.  From about fifty years ago. 

[Blue Jam]

I think people have complaining about the nosedive in quality for years. Presumably people still go there just out of habit.

Oh yes there is that, but M&S bras were always crap. Maybe they were better-made in the past, but they were still frumpy and badly-fitting. Now they're less frumpy, less well-made and still badly-fitting.

I think M&S have just ridden on the mindset of "oh I need underwear better get to M&S" people get stuck with.  From about fifty years ago. 

This. Also in small towns it may be one of the few big places to go to for undercrackers.

[BlodwynPig]

People looove M&S because they think they offer a bra fitting service; it's not it's a measuring service.  Horribly overpriced too. 

That's still going on:

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/14m-student-apartment-blocks-approved-18467064

Parasites. Destroying the city brick by brick. Scum.