Was supposed to start work for Sky on Monday in London, returning to work after 12 years off- have decided to pass on rejoining the workforce.
Wife started a new job 6 weeks ago, was very fortunate to get a permanent role after a decade plus contracting- IT program manager for a global shipping co. rolling out their new general ledger to 70+ countries worldwide- was supposed to be loads of international travel, which she hates, now working from home, which the company hates.
Hopefully the line of business will mean the job is secure, but until she's confirmed in role at 3 months there's only one weeks notice, and I can't see any other work out there.
On site Service technician type role ( single site - no travel ) here so wfh is not really practical, apart from catching up with a few on line training sessions and paperwork which would take all of a day or 2
Good news is company ( multinational US owned ) has already announced that anyone having to stay at home will be on fully paid leave of abscence
Bad news for site is work is drying up as non essential travel has been banned, so sales folks are not getting contracts and clients are not visiting to place work.
Good news for my role is we get our hands on the idle equipment to do the routine work maintenance more easily
Except ,.... being in Pharma research 1 area is really getting busy and ironically at the same time hoping it’s only for a real short time ... can you guess what it is yet ?
Fully expect to si at some point though ☹️
I'm an engineer working for a company supplying components to the rail industry.
We are an international company having many offices around the world, including to areas which are already in quarantine.
We were sold last year to an investment company who now have a three year plan to double our turnover during that period. There plans are to sell the company off after that period. So there are worries there.
Now with the virus, the advice is to not to go into work if we are showing signs of symptoms. Myself, I can work from home, however the guys who work in the manufacturing plant don't have that luxury nor do they have the same sickness benefits I have.
I won't even mention the B affect..
My wife is a teacher who comes into contact with many more people than I do, therefore the chances of her contracting the virus before me is statistically far greater than me contracting it first. But the schools remain open. Someone has to babysit our kids while the rest of us keep the economy ticking over.
We live in rural Croatia so have effectively been self isolating for last 7 years 🙂
Our reclaimed timber business is on site so I wfh everyday, no issues there. The very pressing issue is exporting our product.... With borders closed and international transport cut we will struggle to deliver.
Saying that we live pretty self sufficiently.... Food in the ground, water in our own well, wood fired heating and several generators on site. We have enough stock to work through though so can stockpile finished products..... We should be ok for a year at least should it all go tits up big style.
Civil service here, possibly that we will get redeployed from shiny-arsed office dwellers into doing some real work for a change (supporting front line police most likely)
Not something that occurred to me right away - but as a freelancer in a sector that can expect to be on its arse for a while... I should give some thought to what I can do / how I can make myself available to sectors and services that are under strain
Specialist courier here, no chance in hell of working from home. If we stop doing our job it will be headline news and I’m genuinely not joking when I say that the general public will panic.
Hearse driver?
Printing press operator in a large commercial printers.
We are very busy right now, I'm actually in on overtime right now. But I am extremely pessimistic. As far as containment should the virus hit us we have no hope. Multi touch points throughout the production process so even with regular hand washing I can't see any outcome other than the place shutting down if we get an infection.
Then long term I think it's looking grim. Always a weather vane for the economy I think we will be impacted by the inevitable recession. My hope in the survival of the fittest that we may just scrape by, but we are a big company with huge overheads so I fear the worst.
Being through redundancy a number of times I'm trying to drip feed the younger lads with advice about mortgage insurance, savings and just preparing for the worst. Probably think I'm joking as most of them have only known good times.hope I'm wrong.
My team.works with vulnerable people, visiting them at home or meeting at events.
Looks like all visits/events will be cancelled soon and WFH too.
There won't be much to do!
I own a small manufacturing company. I’m currently sat in my vehicle planning tomorrow’s staff meeting. I have 15 staff and only two with an office based role.
I am very worried about the business and my staff. We have been trading for seven years and I have never had to consider this type of situation.
If we can keep manufacturing and installing our product, we will be fine. The company has good cash flow and a very busy order book. The second we stop manufacturing / installing then we will very quickly run out of money. The reality is we could survive maybe 2-3 weeks before we would be bust!
I am looking for info on what the government is planning in order to support small business if we are forced to isolate. We would require a very large interest free loan to cover the running costs for an extended period. The thought of yet more dept to the business and pressure to repay any sizeable loan is daunting.
If a member of staff gets the virus then they will obviously have to self isolate. Will everyone else have to go home?
Another concern is the supply of materials. Most of ours come from Europe. I am yet to panic buy in a supermarket however I was forced into purchasing extra materials last week as there were difficulties with my normal suppliers. This increases the cash flow issue.
If any other people or small business owners can offer me any advice, it would be greatly received.
Freelance press photographer selling images regionally, across the UK and internationally. Very, very busy at the moment (this is a perfect storm for the media) .
While I'm no longer working in news, it's good to see my former colleagues busier than ever and people trusting journalists again at a time when there's uncertainty about whether the authorities are playing with a straight bat.
Catching up with an old friend last week, she is very glad she is no longer health correspondent for a big national news org though!
Site investigation company and a small one. Phones and emails have been a bit quiet but nothing big yet. Company doesn't appear to have any plans. I can work from home in as much as finish reports and audit work but if we can't do to sites we could be in trouble.
Construction industry as a whole seems to be ignoring it from what I can see.
OP - can’t help you in any way, but I can tell you that we appreciate what you’re doing. Thank you.
Work for a private Ambulance service and Medical training company. Ironically it could both destroy the company or be its biggest opportunity. If any of our staff catch Covid-19 it of course means that the office shuts, and quarantine of any staff affected. We've already had cancellations on the training side of things - if any trainers are infected it of course also means no training can take place. The problem is the stalling of income in this case. Like any business, there are lots of outgoings and cash flow is king...already companies who owe us money are stalling on payments. We are hearing talk of pay cuts, reduced hours even the end of the business. I'm a nurse and definitely making plans just in case...my CV is out with various nursing agencies and i have interviews this week.
I previously worked in the oil industry, and hearing from former colleagues, the sh1t is truly hitting the fan....
As an aside, ive cancelled my orders for a new Nukeproof Mega and Whyte Wessex road bike, just in case my job goes under. So my LBS has lost £6500 of business........the downward spiral begins unfortunately.
Big tier one OEM supplier to the automotive industry, worldwide company, big in the military sector 7.5Bn euros turnover with healthy profits, but 14,000 employees and a lot of overheads means we ‘could’ go pop in 3 months. Little bit scary.
More locally, in the UK we are having a leadership team meeting tomorrow, as company policy is to send everyone home who can work in that environment. Difficult as anyone not in manufacturing can in theory, but the logistics are huge. We shall see what comes of tomorrow.
Personally, I’d rather be at home now, I’m 40 & considered high risk as I’m asthmatic and had the lovely experience of pneumonia twice already because of it, which has been great as I’m still young.
I’m Head of sales for the UK and have big internal & external teams, there will be a lot of questions tomorrow.
Outdoor gym equipment, I'm the Design Engineer. There's only 15 of us and generally only 6-12 of us in the office at a given time. It's been talked about a lot and tommorow our IT guy is coming in to make sure everyone is able to work from home, I'll take my PC home as I need Solidworks.
We are have lots of new orders and installs planned. We have some amazing prototypes which arrived last week and were to be installed at a gym close to the office this week, I've been working on these for 15 months.
Our manufacturer is a huge company in Newcastle and our contact there told me that the management have told them its business as usual even though one person is in isolation. The owner rules that place with an irion fist but I think he may have to relent.
I wasn't worried until I read gingersquirrel's post above. My bosses are awesome and they must have the same concerns as him.
Transport here as well but sub-national, not local. Financially fine as we’re funded by DfT. Our IT is mostly very good (sadly the same can’t be said of many people’s ability to use it to its full potential…)
Presume TfN @crazy-legs? As you say, I feel very fortunate that work is safe and can choose to work from home if I need to, and almost indefinitely if needed.
I really hope that others more directly affected on here are able to deal with the impact and that it’s over as quickly as is safe.
Self employed in construction, on the face of it I've work in front of me well into June. Whereas usually its only a couple of weeks max.
I'm expecting things to come to a grinding halt soon (As of Friday Morgan Sindall still using fringerprint turnstyles on site entry and exit FFS).
Luckily I've cut my overheads as much as possible and only employ 1 other. Will try my best to keep them on as he'll be buggered otherwise.
As above any thoughts of new bike bits, changing cars, holidays have all taken a back seat for now which in turn hits down the line
Some scary scenarios here. Almost any size business seems to be at risk. Or if you’re in the NHS etc then massively overwhelmed.
90% of my work if for UK universities. It’s been a really busy 3 months since the start of the year. My diary was stacked until end May with at least 50% of my time on site. That’s all changed - quite rightly - over the last week. Most universities are reasonably well set up for remote working, but we do like our workshops and conferences!
I expect I’ll lost about 50% revenue for 3 months at least. That’s fine, as a (very) small business we plan for work drying up and could last a year with 0 revenue if we were very careful. I’m changing a whole bunch of things I do to work remotely. It won’t be perfect, but if the university still wants to do it, I’ll do what I can to provide it!
I realise I’m lucky compared to most. Who’d want to be a senior administrator/director in a big corp/uni/govt dept right now? Only difficult choices and hard to know the right ones.
On the upside, I’ve a jungle to turn back into a garden and nice bikes to ride on my doorstep. I’ve been saying for years I’m going to work less, earn less and enjoy other stuff more. Looks like this year will be my chance to test it!
Work for Microsoft supporting a handful of very large customers. Travel is restricted for us and most of the customers aren't allowing visitors now unless it's for essential reasons. Worldwide we've shifted tens of thousands of office-based people to working from home, Seattle (and King County where our HQ is) is a COVID19 hotspot.
I've spent some time this week sharing remote working info plus we've pushed out some additional tools/made a bunch of stuff free. I expect there'll be more of this, combined with helping out if there are any significant technical issues.
Self employed working as an event electrician. Work has dropped off a cliff, and doesn't look like i'll be doing anything for quite some time. Self employed so zero income. Normally have lots of avenue for work; festivals, big sporting events, film premiers, list goes on, mostly UK but plenty of opportunities in Europe or further afield.
Would never of envisaged a situation where everything is cancelled.
started looking for other work but given the wider situation people are understandably holding off hiring
Upside? be able to get out on the bike loads
Support staff in a high school, not a great deal for me to do if we are required to work from home. Some of our staff and pupils have already had to self isolate for 2 weeks due to passing through northern Italy during half term.
The missus works for the NHS and visits elderly patients, she may be drafted in to work on hospital wards if required. Both very fortunate that we'll still receive wages.
A friend at ASDA head office has been told to work from home on as of Tuesday.
I work in a small industry closley aligned to planning/construction and estates management (arboricultural consultancy).
The industry was just coming out of the Brexit slump and now this will halt a lot of things. I'm not clear as to how this will effect us as a company as we can wfh but we rely on some office based staff so there'll be an impact when the virus hits us. I forsee a couple of months with reduced pay to keep things going until the worse passes. No new shiny bike bits for a while!
Worrying times.
Haven’t read all the replies above but it’s worrying times. More than that in fact.
We run our own small accommodation business here in Glencoe. Like all rural tourism and hospitality business things are run right to the bone financially and winter is always a massive cash drain. We are massively down already in terms of bookings coming up. We also face the very real prospect of a Uk lockdown at some point where no one can travel. That results in 100% loss of income for however long that is. That’s not sustainable for any length of time at all and we will be out of business and a home.
We have already slashed staffing by 2/3. All ironing etc is now done onsite increasing workload dramatically.we have cancelled all projects and non essential dd’s from the business and personally. I’m selling what I can (lovely touring caravan if anyone is after
One!).
At the moment insurance doesn’t cover anything as they have not adopted CV as a notifiabke disease. If/when they do it will only cover us if we specifically are locked down as a hotspot.
There’s a very real prospect of us and lots of others going out of business with the resultant loss of jobs, homes and of course peoples hard earned holidays.
Totally realise there’s a public health issue here too. We are terrified to be honest. The disruption and impact to us all is going to be world war levels imo.
That’s me, over out and out. Stay safe folks.
I'm a tour guide in Austria. I had a full calendar and was looking forward to a very lucrative year. Everything cancelled. Austria is on lockdown. f uck
Im a facilities coordinator (ie caretaker) for the National Trust. We are currently cashing in as people flock to the outdoors to gather in our cramped humid and probably viral cafe. "fairly" generous employer, but i'll soon find out more about that as I will probably be isolated for a few months as my 89 yo mother currently lives with us.
Long term, my job will be fine, but the NT will struggle if revenue streams (cafe's, shops, car parks, memberships) are severely affected, and I suspect there will be a contraction in staffing before a gradual rebuild.
Hearse driver?
No, that's guaranteed work though! Actually have a clause in my contract that says I cannot say on social media exactly what we courier around and more specifically which company but it's high value goods that cannot go via DPD/Parcel force/Hermes etc. We're banned from striking by the government as issues show up within 3 days, the public would know about it then all hell would break loose. We're already having issues with our specialist despatch centres struggling to get deliveries out on time as the European contingent of our workforce (was roughly 20%) has mainly gone back due to Brexit and hiring people to replace them takes a minimum of 3 months. The nature of the work means we see hundreds of people every day at customer sites it's only a matter of time before problems arise. We're on a knife edge right now and it is going to get worse.
Rope access technician working mainly in building maintenance.
Our biggest regular job is working on the Spinnaker Tower in portsmouth. Wasn’t too concerned at first but now we’ve had a confirmed case in the city and with talks of restrictions to public movement etc I am getting to be.
Just needs access to places like the Spinnaker to be stopped and we could be forced to shut down.
Added to that is the fact that other clients are delaying works to see what happens themselves.
We’ve already had a terrible few weeks because of the weather so this could push us over the edge.
Wife is an ACP in A&E so she certainly won’t be short of work and there’s a good chance she will have to do some locum shifts to replace my income if things do turn out as bad as I fear...
When i started this thread last night thought id get a half dozen responses some, telling me not to worry, sadly i was totally wrong, its going to be anything from horrendous to life changing for almost all of us.
But as can be seen a lot of companies are planning for whatever might happen,and some will not be able to cope,air industry,events,manufacturing,police and nhs.
Going to be a lumpy bumpy 2020,and thanks for all the honest responses, which im sure will help other companies plan for the future.
We work in older peoples homes,usually over 60 plus, oldest 101,fitting doors,locks and fixing things to walls,and general maintenance 2 small jobs for next week.
WE're starting to see things effect us now.
I'm the first 'victim' of the virus on the ship. My opposite number was due out on Thursday, but was in Italy on is leave (Doh!), so has to be symptom free for 14 days before the company will fly him out. So I have an extra week on the ship. No much of a hardship to do that, but it's the knock on effect of being here that extra time.
We fly out from Guyana via Trinidad/Barbados/Pananma, whether those routes will still be open is another matter when it come to crew change day.
One of the ships is en route from Peru to Canaries, planned crewchange off Rio now cancelled so some guys will be on for a very long trip. No as bad as regular seafarers, but when you expect 4 week hitches, and they become 8-9 things get very ansty.
Jiffy bag courier?
I'm in work today and it appears that a member of staff has self isolated last night after both of her parents have tested positive and she has displayed symptoms.
To be honest, we’ve never been busier.
We’re IT support. We had a few clients flood last month so we’ve been installing all-new kit (desktops, servers etc) then for about 2 weeks now we’ve had lost clients asking us about either disaster Recovery planning (after the floods) or contingency for home working - we’ve been telling clients for years they need this stuff in place but few listened and we’ve had to tell a few now that they’re not nearly close enough to have anything in place in time for school closures etc but we can always have remote phone / email access in place so it gives them some accessibility.
Forecast isn’t exactly great of course. I have 3 clients I personally think won’t survive this, they’ve been in trouble since that Referendum, just as things were starting to pick up for them they’re being hit hard again.
On a technical point of view we’re already geared up for home working all out data is either in cloud platforms or SharePoint / teams, phones are via VOIP and we’ve all got laptops, but thankfully we also have room to set up desktops as home if we need to.
We had a guy leave us last week for a new job, we’ve made the decision to delay recruitment a month and are all taking on different responsibilities to cover.
According to the FSB it's been designated a notifiable disease already.
I still don't know yet whether or not we are covered. I am expecting not. We'll be taking a big hit to our revenue whether there's a lockdown or not.
TA in 55 kid primary school. No hint of anything as yet.Doubt it will mean a thing in reality to me. More riding time. The wife is a DOLS assessor visiting oldies in care.Visits may stop or reduce but until we get it nowt will happen. She has weeks of paperwork to do sadly anyway
Sales and Operational Planning manager for a manufacturer. So some challenging times for my role specifically. We are taking sensible steps and working to the Government advice. Business is great currently but will be impacted like everyone else making non essentials.
Am buying a house currently, was thinking a few weeks back that it was all proceeding exactly to plan and didn't appear to be too stressful!
Fingers crossed for those of you facing tough times ahead, would like to think that society will look out for the vulnerable and support will be available when needed.
No, that’s guaranteed work though! Actually have a clause in my contract that says I cannot say on social media exactly what we courier around and more specifically which company but it’s high value goods that cannot go via DPD/Parcel force/Hermes etc. We’re banned from striking by the government as issues show up within 3 days, the public would know about it then all hell would break loose. We’re already having issues with our specialist despatch centres struggling to get deliveries out on time as the European contingent of our workforce (was roughly 20%) has mainly gone back due to Brexit and hiring people to replace them takes a minimum of 3 months. The nature of the work means we see hundreds of people every day at customer sites it’s only a matter of time before problems arise. We’re on a knife edge right now and it is going to get worse.
Teabags?
According to the FSB it’s been designated a notifiable disease already
Thanks. We are with NFU and it was their line on Thursday last I spoke to them that the Association of British Insurers hadn’t adopted it. That could obviously have changed. What do you do yourself?
TS.
I work for a small (12 people) investment firm, based in London and Asia. Those team members who were meant to be coming to the UK from abroad in the next few weeks are now firmly staying put. Markets are crazy so there is a lot going on but we've shuttered the office and everyone's been told to be based at home, some are also leaving the country to work remotely. For me - that means a lot of operational and IT ground-work to ensure all is as seamless as possible. Portfolio-wise, we're down on the year but we're sitting tight and will ride things out.
My company does conveyancing for house moves. I can't see it being very busy for the next few months.
We were acquired a year ago and the plan is to double transactions in 1-2 years.
But then a normal Friday 13th knocks our figures by about 15-20% as people are superstitious to that extent.
Given the size and importance of each transaction to the clients concerned, any kind of uncertainty is immediately and significantly corrosive.
I am worried, but then I don't work for an airline or a restaurant chain, so things could be worse.
Thing is, everything is going to grind to a halt. There is no way government can sit back on this one and let things run their course. Landlords will have to offer businesses rent holidays. There will have to be some drastic realignment of priorities. Hopefully for the better.
Run my own pro audio manufacturer selling consumer direct. Orders have almost completely stopped - the pros and semi-pros are having all tours and gigs cancelled, the amateurs are too scared of the world economic situation to buy high end gear right now. Am chasing extra funding so we can switch everyone in the factory to development and content creation to give us a big push in sales when the world recovers but if it’s looking prolonged then I may have to lay off almost everyone and mothball the factory.
We run our own small accommodation business here in Glencoe. Like all rural tourism and hospitality business things are run right to the bone financially and winter is always a massive cash drain. We are massively down already in terms of bookings coming up. We also face the very real prospect of a Uk lockdown at some point where no one can travel. That results in 100% loss of income for however long that is. That’s not sustainable for any length of time at all and we will be out of business and a home.
Some local businesses are getting enquiries and bookings from folk who've had foreign holidays cancelled.
My Mrs is in community social care with the NHS. Face Fit session this week for masks, additional PPE being handed out. Work therefore secure and likely additional shifts on the way, but we're aware of the effect on stress levels and the added personal risk. Meanwhile, of her 5 surviving family members, 4 would be categorised as High Risk and we're already envisaging losing a couple of the next few months.
I teach in a large sixth form college - we have 2200 students coming in each day from an area the size of Northern Ireland and have had trips return from both New York and Berlin this week...
We'll be open until the government decide to close schools, although will have to deal with possible staff/student absences before then. When we close (I'm not saying "if" anymore) we'll be setting work for the students but no idea what might happen around exams.
Good luck to everyone.
Really feel for those of you looking at tough economic times ahead. I’m feeling anxious about the whole thing as it is, and I can’t imagine how this would add to it. Sending all my best wishes.
We are fortunate. p20 is a paramedic which means we almost certainly will get it, but at least job is very secure. Just know we won’t see our parents for months.
I’m a University lecturer. It’s been a tricky week as the Uni tries to work out what on earth to do. We are moving to online teaching but the site will remain open as we have international students etc who can’t get home. We can work from home and I’m already directing my research group to do so if they want. Biggest uncertainty is in nearly all of our students in our Dept are supposed to do field work over Easter. Of course many are cancelled, so I am working out how to run day trips from Leeds but even that seems unlikely. We somehow have to come up with a way to teach and assess enough content so at least finalists can graduate, if we don’t run the field trip. It’s has been stressful.
My brother is a newsreader for the BBC World Service and has basically been told ‘the world needs you’. Thankfully he has got things set up that he could broadcast from home if he had too.
Some local businesses are getting enquiries and bookings from folk who’ve had foreign holidays cancelled.
@scotroutes. Same here which helps in the immediate term. Big fear is a uk lockdown for however long at which point the tap is well and truly off!
Sounds terrible re your family - fingers crossed all goes as well as it can.
TS
This thread makes very sobering reading.
I work for a company providing software systems to the NHS and private hospitals.
We're all geared up for working from home, in fact most people do it a couple of days a week.
Concern is that at this point in time the NHS will quite rightly focus on CORVID-19. This means projects not related to that (everything realistically) will get put on hold. The company will survive as we've got regular money coming in for support and maintenance and our NHS customers will be leaning on our systems heavily.
Wife works as a TA at an infant school, so I very much expect that they'll close down early for an extended Easter break. She primarily supports kids with additional needs, so if they're not at school there's not a great deal for her to do.
Personally it's a bit of a concern, me and the kids will be fine, but wife has a dodgy chest.
parents are in the at risk demographic with dodgy chests and a stroke a few years ago between them. They're suprisingly pragmatic about it saying that they'll be dead sooner or later anyway, just might be a bit sooner than expected!
Really feel for a lot of people who've already posted on this thread, I just hope the Gov sorts something out to sustain small businesses while we ride it out.
