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Post by fenrisulfr on May 12, 2020 8:09:12 GMT
On the property side there is going to be a lot of surplus buildings on the market, a lot of small shops will never reopen due to folks continuing to work and shop from home. Manual workers will have no choice but to continue to travel into work and the workforce divide will increase. Thousands BC (before Corvid) were already working remotely from homes in the sticks having escaped the cities but will the business owners now see the opportunity to dump expensive city premises or downside their bricks as their office workforce will be able to function remotely giving them huge savings? Why employ 100 people to sit at computers in an expensive building where the owner forks out for rates, insurances, lighting, heating etc. when they can do the same job via the internet from home?
(Thoughts of Victorian times come to mind when a lot of homes had a business running from it such as in the Black Country.)
With all the restrictions and job losses and the change in working I can see a lot of folks selling off a shedload of stuff to try and keep afloat as well as many commercial premises coming onto the market 'cheap' as nobody will want them except for converting to fancy housing.
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Post by NomadCris on May 12, 2020 9:13:34 GMT
Hard to predict what will happen really,nothing like this has happened in living memory of most of the population,we only have history to go on and that tells us that despite mass unemployment and poverty and recession,plenty of folks make shit loads of money from it.
We have a double whammy too,not just covid but Brexit driven downturn as well.
Its a ripe opportunity for wealthier individuals and companies with reserves to buy up property dirt cheap and sit on it as an investment,as theres no money in shares commodities currency at the moment.
Its also an opportunity for poorer desperate folk to be exploited fleeced robbed, call it what you will.Poverty always brings exploitation.
Whether working people continue working at home or are allowed to is debatable, people like getting away from home and companies have more control when theyre under one roof.
Some office jobs like finance cant be done from home for security reasons.
One thing is for sure,its made people and companies think and assess options and maybe change their operating model in future.
We certainly need to tackle the stupid absurdity of commuting to work when that work can safely be done at home on computer and the equally absurb fixation on 8-4 9-5 work hours and the complex commuting congestion problems that causes on rail and road networks.
Another absurdity is the need to travel the globe to attend business meetings when we have video conferencing and remote viewing abilities via internet.
Maybe also it will force people to consider our equally absurd dependency on globalisation and the supply chain and things coming in from abroad that we can just as easily produce or grow here.
A lot of change will come,maybe a long overdue rethink and reset.
We can but hope,but humans are creatures of habit and most dont like change,they will want things back how they were because it was easier for them and they didnt need to think too much about anything.
Who knows? but wont be much fun for a lot of people.
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Post by bigbear67 on May 12, 2020 9:27:09 GMT
There was a lot wrong with the way the world turned pre covid, but people seemed reluctant to face the issues. Now our hand has been forced, & it has been proved that commuting is a dinosaur, due to new methods of contact etc. We don't need to go into an office when these new fangled computer things make it possible to work from home for many people. Why travel on crowded transport links for 2 or 3 hrs each day to sit at a computer when you can do the exact same thing at home?
Some people cannot do their jobs from home, but with all the office workers out of the commute, these other people will find it easier to move around too. Trouble is, the rich will always find an angle to exploit the working masses, & make even more money from the situation. Any advantage found from working at home will not be an advantage to you & I, but to the overlords, as usual. Anyone using their home as a place of work will probably be hit with business rates etc, until it is just as cheap for them to go back to the office.
Rich get richer, poor get poorer, life goes on. Change is needed & now could be the ideal opportunity for an overhaul of the way things are done.
Just don't hold your breath though...😕🤔
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Post by fenrisulfr on May 12, 2020 11:14:44 GMT
Daughter gets about a tenner a week extra for electric for her laptop and supervises several others as well as doing projects for the company. She's adapted well and from what I gather this is what they'll do from now on as it works. The downside from what I can see for her is heating her home in the daytime in winter.
Years back the norm for most was 9-5 Monday to Friday then they changed it to 8-4 or 7-3 then they got the mummy fck about hours where parents got to work what they wanted so they could take the offspring to school while non-parents became rubbing rags to cover for them. It beats me how some small companies survived pre-corvid with the maternity leave, paternity leave and so on but this working from home part could have an effect on those doing those hours, some for the better others the worse.
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Post by NomadCris on May 12, 2020 11:50:25 GMT
The trouble is almost everything is based around 8-4 or 9-5 and schools are the same so almost all movement and commuting to work peaks twice a day along with congestion and pollution.
There should be more work from home arrangements where possible, people may have extra heating bills in winter but conversely they may not be paying a fortune on vehicle fuel or bus/rail tickets.
Those who must go to an office and those services that demand it because its not practical should operate more flexible opening hours and allow staff to work flexi-time so they can work their hours but at times that are more suitable to them and/or stagger commuting periods.
But being in a workplace enforces the corporate brand and psyche on employees immersed in it which businesses like.They dont like people being freewilled and independent thinkers.
Ok in the past 8-4 or 9-5 worked but there wasnt the vehicular traffic,people walked,cycled or got bus but now everyone has a car and expects to use it or uses crammed underfunded trains services.
Prior to that people worked from dawn till dusk,there were no fixed start and finish times.
School hours need to change too,they do different times in Europe often much earlier start and finish, but uk is fixated on standard hours they set many decades ago.
Most corporates work 24/7 globally now,they just pass work on to call centres in different time zones when they close here.
If they had more flexible hours here and people were more flexible themselves the call centres could operate 24/7 here and manned by uk staff.
Why is it office workers in finance industry and retail commerce etc insist on 8-4 9-5 but everyone else works around 24 hr shift pattern.
The system needs to change and people need to change with it. Too much of a sense of entitlement here im afraid.
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Post by VanWoman84 on May 12, 2020 12:53:06 GMT
Will it be a buyer's markerket? Probably. This whole covid thing is like one massive Christmas time, people will be broke.
At the moment, it's OK whilst the furlough scheme keeps propping up those that can't work, but that's due to change at the end of June. If it gets cancelled, lots of people will probably simply get the sack.
As for the working from home thing, it does annoy me that the government assumes almost everybody works in an office. They don't.
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Post by NomadCris on May 12, 2020 13:02:23 GMT
The furlough has been extended to October.
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Post by VanWoman84 on May 12, 2020 13:09:04 GMT
Ah thanks for that info NomadCris, I hadn't heard that. I did read that it was possible the payment would decrease gradually, maybe to 60%. |
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Post by givingitsomethought on May 14, 2020 17:57:47 GMT
Will it be a buyer's markerket? Probably. This whole covid thing is like one massive Christmas time, people will be broke. At the moment, it's OK whilst the furlough scheme keeps propping up those that can't work, but that's due to change at the end of June. If it gets cancelled, lots of people will probably simply get the sack. As for the working from home thing, it does annoy me that the government assumes almost everybody works in an office. They don't. I don't expect many of them have ever done any kind of job that wasn't in an office, Vannie. A lot of them seem to live in a vacuum that bears little resemblance to the real world - as is being shown by so many of them wanting schools open and people going in to work when none of them are back in the House of Commons. My scum tolerance level has been breached now, I'm so sickened and disgusted by almost all of them. |
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Post by bigbear67 on May 14, 2020 18:34:53 GMT
That is the biggest insult IMO, sending everyone back to work, but no MPs back in the commons. They obviously know its not safe to go back. Either that, or they have already found more loopholes to get paid for doing fuck all....
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Post by givingitsomethought on May 15, 2020 10:21:12 GMT
That is the biggest insult IMO, sending everyone back to work, but no MPs back in the commons. They obviously know its not safe to go back. Either that, or they have already found more loopholes to get paid for doing fuck all.... That's just it BB, and without PPE and/or testing. Lots of people I know are desperate to get back to work, not just because of the money but because they like going to work and they're bored at home. But it's the rhetoric they use to slag people off, there were various MPs and other people on twitter yesterday slagging off teachers because they want safety issues resolved before kids start going back into schools. There are easy solutions - (1) you sort the safety issues out - (2) teachers deliver lessons online to the classroom and the people baying for them to go back to work go in and mind the kids or (3) you only open the private schools up and all the kids they want to go back go private for a wee while while the older ones continue to stay at home. They've not even assessed the logistics of it - they've no idea how many kids would be going back in (lots of parents keeping them off anyway, lots of kids in higher risk groups or with higher risk adults at home) and then you've got the same for teaching staff - how many of them are having to shield regardless of whether or not the schools are open? My son's tutor has been phoning once a week, nice lady, but she was saying that almost half the staff in the department wouldn't be able to go back in anyway as either they or a close family member have a health problem that makes them more susceptible. There are so many issues there but some seem to think you just open the doors and it all sorts itself out. Twats. |
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