How's your employer been?

[holyzombiejesus]

Mine - Manchester City Council - is full of arse. We've been told it's business as usual and a senior manager was reportedly angry about the amount of people working from home. We've been told to carry on doing home visits unless there's an underlying health concern and there are no plans to change this.

I'm really shocked, to be honest. It was only 24 hours ago that Boris Johnson was outside his house telling people not to travel and to stay at home if possible. The schools we have to visit are slowly closing -the two I visited today were turning pupils away if they had a cough - yet I'm supposed to spend an hour a day on a filthy train, traipse through the shithole that its Victoria Station and then go call on vulnerable families? Seems so bizarre.

Also, no word on what will happen with parents if/ when nurseries and schools close. You'd think they'd actually try and reassure workers rather than spouting shite about carrying on as normal.

I guess I'm lucky in a way. People are getting laid off and two colleagues' mum died due to the virus on Sunday night. they didn't even get to say goodbye as they weren't allowed in to the hospital, so I probably sound like a bit of a spoilt entitled cunt.

[Captain Crunch]

If it's any consolation my sister works for a council and it's a very similar story.  The majority of her work is just processing data which she can do from home and does often but for some reason they've got all heavy and insisted everyone comes in.

[Zetetic]

A little bit worryingly chaotic, but otherwise fine. Depends how much you like a crisis.

[The Culture Bunker]

Also at MCC, albeit in an office chimp capacity. There's been fuck all guidance handed down to my manager, though they've told me "off the record" that they expect something to change in the next few days and we'll be working from home. Perversely, I'm not keen on the idea because I'll just end up doing fuck all here.

Friends in other departments have been told to work at home until further notice, so it's the usual lack of any top-down planning that I've long expected from the council.

[Jasha]

HR chap did the rounds today asking if anyone has asthma bronchitis etc, rumour is there's a meeting at 8am with the possibility of the summer shutdown being brought forward to next week[nb]oh and the seats being reserved for the coronavirusisisis [/nb]

[Emma Raducanu]

I keep wondering what the unemployment rate will be by August. Are 75% of people going to be out of work.

[weekender]

A little bit worryingly chaotic, but otherwise fine. Depends how much you like a crisis.

I don't like a crisis, but my ability to work from home has been stable for a couple of years now, just generally supported by the IT guys.

[thecuriousorange]

I'm a council spod, for one of the Welsh ones. It sounds like we'll be working from home from next week, as they expect the schools to close and other people have kids. But, of course, we haven't officially been told anything.

[weekender]

I keep wondering what the unemployment rate will be by August. Are 75% of people going to be out of work.

The unknown is still potentially quite a big problem.

[Zetetic]

I don't like a crisis, but my ability to work from home has been stable for a couple of years now, just generally supported by the IT guys.

Working from home isn't even slightly part of the issue (although VPN bandwidth might be).

[weekender]

Well is it or isn't it?

[Gregory Torso]

Couldn't give a shit. Minimum wage, high risk, bullshit management. Fire me, release me. I've time now to paint and write and be the peacock I was born to fly.

[Beagle 2]

Very good, supportive of me taking my kid out of nursery and working whenever I can. However, it was already circling the plughole and I can't see it making it through.

[peanutbutter]

I think fine, bit more resistant than I expected initially but I doubt they're gonna rush us back at any point, company is somewhat positioned in a way that it should be able to weather most anything coming ahead in the next 12 months really. Can see the crunch period in the middle of the summer being very very hard though cos shit is inevitably going to build up.

[holyzombiejesus]

I'm a council spod, for one of the Welsh ones. It sounds like we'll be working from home from next week, as they expect the schools to close and other people have kids. But, of course, we haven't officially been told anything.

So are people supposed to combine WFH with looking after their children? I don't get it. We're always told that we can't WFH if children are ill as they need your attention and you shouldn't be trying to concentrate on work if you are looking after a poorly child.

I'm still flabbergasted by Manchester (and other City Council's approach. Not only are they completely ignoring government advice but they're also risking the health of their employees and vulnerable families. Looking ta Facebook and seeing re-posted stuff from doctors saying 'please socially isolate' yet MCC are basically forcing thousands to mingle.

[Zero Gravitas]

Really excellent, not needlessly sending people all over the country to spread diseases (even if they're generally 110% down for that), plenty of support from above in getting our people back home and reducing client visits since about two weeks ago.

I'm sure there are plenty of other similar places that wouldn't have made a move until the client did.

We're extraordinary privileged to be able to work remotely easily.

[Viero_Berlotti]

I work in e-commerce. Got told last week to prepare to work from home. I turned down an offer of a company laptop and said I'd prefer to use my desktop at home. All sorted, can connect to the server from home. Expecting an announcement today to say we need to work from home and they were like "Great, everyone is now set up to work from home should the need arise. See you all at work tomorrow".

The government advice is that if you can work from home, then you should. We can, but we are not. They are waiting for it to be enforced I think. So I will continue to spend 2.5 hours a day risking myself on public transport. Dicks.

[jobotic]

It's realesed a statement to say that libraries, leisure centres and all other council offices will remain open. Not one mention of the word staff.

Keep working until you can't.

[confettiinmyhair]

The government advice is that if you can work from home, then you should. We can, but we are not. They are waiting for it to be enforced I think. So I will continue to spend 2.5 hours a day risking myself on public transport. Dicks.

I work two jobs, one NHS role, one Charity sector role. NHS bosses have been great and understanding to staff, encouraging us to work remotely until redeployment. Charity role manager is being an expletive. I offered to hold my appointments over the telephone, which is still carrying out my role, but she said that my shifts will be counted as unpaid leave unless I come in to the office as I'm contracted to do face to face work. She says this when she herself is self-isolating because of health issues and doing telephone consultations at home.

[Old Thrashbarg]

Really excellent, not needlessly sending people all over the country to spread diseases (even if they're generally 110% down for that), plenty of support from above in getting our people back home and reducing client visits since about two weeks ago.

I'm sure there are plenty of other similar places that wouldn't have made a move until the client did.

We're extraordinary privileged to be able to work remotely easily.

Very similar story for me.

As a civil engineering company, there will likely always be some staff/subcontractors out on site. For those people, we're trying to avoid them having to use public transport as much as possible and daily briefings are being scaled down to avoid large groups of people being in the same room. For the majority of the rest of the staff in planning, designing, support roles, etc. laptops are being prepared so most will work from home. Slack/Skype is already in use for video conferencing, so use of that will be expanded. For the roles that require some physical presence in the office, we're trying to organise things such that half a team will have two weeks at home, while the other half will be in the office for two weeks. And then switch over.

For me, in software development, we usually work from home 60% of the week anyway, so we've just immediately expanded that.

Everyone gets at least one week of full pay and one week of half pay if they're off sick, and that increases with time served. I'm lucky to have been there long enough to get six months full and six months half.

At times like this I'm very thankful to work where I do and for the company to care about their staff.

[Blinder Data]

I'm a civil servant and while I understand the gov's priority has been communicating the latest news to citizens, their communications to staff has been crap. Same wishy-washy shite as what Boris Johnson is saying, "work from home where possible" but basically leaving it up to line managers. They just need to state "work from home apart from those on essential business in the office" but clear communications seems beyond them. No doubt various directors are having daily updates but we don't hear anything.

Disgracefully we learnt of a positive COVID-19 case in one of our buildings via the local press! No all-staff message on that at all, which as someone who's done internal comms stuff is astonishing.

Otherwise I'm very lucky as I can WFH (though I have shitty equipment). I might get pulled into working on the response to COVID-19 though :S

[monkfromhavana]

My girlfriend works for UPS. They've been told if they're going to work from home, they're going to have to that their PCs with them, monitors and all.

[Cuellar]

Employer's been fine, told us we could work at home ages ago if we felt like it. Been WFH since last Thursday. Bored shitless now of course.

[Sherringford Hovis]

Thanks to my wife's headphones breaking, I've suffered a morning her virtual meetings at the edge of my hearing. Her craven cabal of whiny wafflers, ignorant bullshitters, incompetent blow-hards, clueless lickspittles and mumbling morons all sweating to win corporate buzzword bingo by talking over one another bothers me far more than any of the germy geriatrics I'm encountering during my working day.

[madhair60]

Just got sent home for two weeks' isolation :T

[Jasha]

Cam rings scroll plates and common rail all told that Friday is the last day before 3 weeks off. Contracted employees get full pay without it coming from their holiday allowance but the agency workers get nothing.

Soft stage match grind and chemi black have had a shift cut (again the contracted will be "redispersed" but agency nothing. Only my lot and stators still running full chat (for now anyway).

[Dewt]

Just got sent home for two weeks' isolation :T

KICK ASS

[Pink Gregory]

Head office are all but shut down, everyone working from home or coming in for reduced hours; I'm a mobile gardener and I work alone so theoretically I can keep working, although I have to use supermarket/service station toilets during the day because...well, mobile.  So not sure how that works.

Developing situation but I doubt I'll be getting anything if I have to self-iso.  Paying rent for two at the minute and all.

[Icehaven]

Heard nothing whatsoever from my actual employers (local council) and nothing except "we're continuing as normal for now" from the institution we're based in (which is run by a government department). Fucking absurd, given we come under public libraries (which other local authorities have closed already) and prisons (where it has the potential to spread like wildfire, there's already been confirmed cases in Bullingdon and Manchester). If I don't get some directive soon I'm just telling my staff to stay home because that's almost inevitably what we're going to be told to do anyway.

[jobotic]

Not all authorities are shutting libraries. Felt like I was in a petri dish today. Or fucking leisure centres. Fancy a workout and a filthy communal shower anyone?