You know what, I apologise for my earlier reply. MOAB has explained the schools thing well, at times like this we don’t need people like me being unnecessarily pissy.
I'm finding I'm increasingly ratty with replies on social media. Come off two groups due to losing it with idiots who appear to be able to type a comment but not read the government website advice.
Large automotive OEM, all pregnant people told not to come in from today, board meeting being held today and awaiting further information that was promised throughout the day. I am classed as high risk according to the NHS due to long term medical condition so preparing for the joy of 12 weeks WFH.
I’m finding I’m increasingly ratty with replies on social media. Come off two groups due to losing it with idiots who appear to be able to type a comment but not read the government website advice.
Not getting involved in FB "debates", but have had to snooze a few sanctimonious bellends who have suddenly become experts on disease prevention etc.
More easily avoided here by not looking at the main CV thread.
More easily avoided here by not looking at the main CV thread.
Yeah, I stuck my head in there briefly. Makes the Brexit thread look like the Oxford Debating Society
Just a point of note for all the people messaging me about delivery jobs: there are none available at my company. We were in a state of large cost-cutting measures before the new year and that is still ongoing. Plus it takes a minimum of 3 months from job offer to starting deliveries due to regulatory checks, training and licensing. If I do hear of anything changing I'll message the people who have been in touch already and let them know but I very much doubt that anything will change for a long time.
Russell Group Uni here. Vice Chancellor is a medic. We have gone from keep calm and carry on, but vulnerable folks work from home (Friday), to no face-to-face teaching (Monday), to work from home if you can (Tuesday). So, staff will still be coming in and spreading the virus across the city.
UK wide email just dropped in the inbox today. Aside from the obvious work from home if you can policy, they’re keeping the offices open for now for those who can’t work from home for any reason but will be enabling social distancing measures. Also told us we have total flexibility to work when and where we want, and have been advised if we do need to go in to the office to avoid peak commute times. Also said we can have an automatic paid leave of absence in addition to sick leave to deal with any personal or family issues caused by the pandemic.
Needless to say I don’t work for Virgin Atlantic. I don’t think I’ve ever been so grateful that I work for a responsible and mature employer. Also aware I’m very lucky. I hope this is the rule across the business world rather than the exception.
Boris has said we should all work from home, most departments at my work are working from home, I'm in IT with a work supplied office at home, my entire job has remote capability, not needed onsite at all. We've had emails from the top bosses saying if you can work from home, work from home.
Direct manager is dragging his heels because he's sure "it's not that bad"
UK Directors meeting yesterday, ended up being all day & pretty heavy going. I hope no-one in there had the lergy, as we've all got it now!
Standard guidelines, everyone who can work from home now is, as someone who is asthmatic with a history of pneumonia, i'm in for the long haul away from the office. We have planned initially for 4 months for everyone, but that's changing daily.
No discussions on losing people yet, we're at milestones in lots of projects so have revenue coming in & being a big company we have decent cash reserves, but people are understandably twitchy now for their futures.
Whilst i'm not happy about potentially not being able to do fun stuff for what will no doubt be the best period of weather in 2020, i'm actually quite looking forward to the enforced change for the business. We're very traditional in 'forcing' people into the office, when there isn't a huge need or requirement for them to be there - there are some long standing trust issues from the CEO which hasn't allowed for agile/remote working. Now he doesn't have a choice, we're all forced to, and changing that back in however many months time, won't be easy once we're used to a more modern style of working.
That's my positive out of it all, if we still have jobs & a company to work for, of course 🙂
Work at a heritage charity. Our museums are still open and full of retirees in the cafes and volunteering, not phased at all by it all. Schools have cancelled all visits and many not allowing any visitors in, people from our charity included.
Looks like we will close all sites as of Friday. We are fairly lucky though, as 86% of our funding is secure, so wages wont be hit and no redundancies...at present. Outreach freelancers will be paid for any cancelled sessions due to virus. I have enough work for about a week...then not too sure what I'll be doing as I deal with all school groups! Meant to be starting a new job though in July with the local council and adult learning, so that may be sooner if schools closed for months.
Direct manager is dragging his heels because he’s sure “it’s not that bad”
I'd say the UK Government outranks your direct manager
A few people above saying they work for banks and feel secure. When 250,000 small businesses default on loans and millions of homeowners with mortgages follow suit, I imagine that they might start to feel a little different. Banks will fall like dominos and government resources won't come close to bailing them all out.
oilfield.
the price bit hard already
in a manufacturing call - just been told that big swathes of equipment manufactured in europe are subject to government mandatory closure orders - between 15 and 30 days..... as a starter for 6....
thats on top of the lack of logistics capacity right now.
could be an interesting client phone call.
Schweiz - you want this thread
A glitch with instagram has made a months-worth of my feed vanish .... all day the first post is from my main and favourite client and says “We’re Hiring!” - unfortunately it’s dated 22nd Feb.
🙁
My Mrs (nurse) has been poorly so I've been told to self isolate for two weeks.
Is there anything wrong with me going out for runs and rides?
I'm alone in the middle of nowhere and it's good for my immune system.
Boris says, exercise is OK. Although, that was yesterday.
Just received an email asking for volunteers to help in interviews for a large recruitment exercise next week, shortages due to a rise in sickness levels - honestly wtf is wrong with some people’s cognitive process
I work for a large gas distribution company in the office.
My department should all be able to all easily do our jobs from home however nobody is setup to do so due to our IT systems being dire and still in the dark ages. They are in the process of implementing access for working from home however everybody will probably be infected or dead by then...
There is also a lack of trust that people will be working..
Luckily I think my job is pretty safe in regard to the effect of corona virus...
Last day in my old job today. Got a phonecall an hour after I got home. Future employer not sure they can afford to take me on. Was a bit nervous about the economic impacts. Now bricking it. Some phone calls to make, maths to be done and negotiations. Spending going into lock down.
Got the really big important project (delayed already due to Corona Virus issues) shown at a web-broadcast/invited audience event in London on Friday afternoon so thankful that we didnt have to wait any longer.
My other job (college lecturer) has moved suddenly to fully online tutorials so spent the day talking to students who due to CoronaVirus are worried/concerned/ambivalent/perparing to embrace the exciting new future where we can sweep out the old thinking and remake society in a new, better and glorious way (delete where applicable) .
One of my students has a (modern) laptop that doesnt have a camera or a microphone so simply cant do online tutorials. Hmmm...
Used Google Meet for the first time today, bit iffy in places but seems to work ok. Skype is its usual hi-res-pixelated-sound off-smooth-blank screen, where are you? oh there you are-jittery-sound-on self...Trying to sue Zoom for a group meeting tomorrow.
UK Pharma R&D. Sites closed to non-essential non-lab staff. So WFH. Internet is terrible and the VPM poorly. Skype is not great at the moment. Still I just got 20% of my time to do my own research on CORVID-19 as part of my Senior Fellowship.
Used Google Meet for the first time today, bit iffy in places but seems to work ok. Skype is its usual hi-res-pixelated-sound off-smooth-blank screen, where are you? oh there you are-jittery-sound-on self…Trying to sue Zoom for a group meeting tomorrow.
We're in the process of switching to MS Teams - appreciate it's just an evolution of Skype rather than something new altogether but it seems far more resilient. The call I was on this afternoon (everyone WFH) had full video, audio and file sharing with no issues.
Trying it on Skype yesterday (from the office with it's hard-wired internet) was a glitchy mess of echoing sound and pixelated images.
We have MS Teams - migrated across as part of Office 365 and all the rest.
Screen sharing very good, very helpful. Haven't really used all the facilities yet (channels etc). We are completely distributed - my boss is a mile away in same town, another guy is in Aberdeen and the 4th guy is in Philippines and it works absolutely spot-on.
We should be on Teams but the lazy **** responsible kept putting it off.
Gutted for those of you moving jobs and now in the shit.
My best friend at work is being made redundant anyway as now interviews for other jobs are getting cancelled.
My work is doing the right thing regarding CV now, but the bad news is I need to include a load of CV related content in our forthcoming launch with no extension on an already tight deadline.
Very grateful to have a job and be able to do it though.
All office staff now WFH. A few will be in tomorrow to collect laptops that weren't available today. One member of senior leadership team present per dayUs plebs on the shop floor have to stick with it. No non-employees to enter building under any circumstances. DHL drivers still think it doesn't apply to them.
Starting a new job on Monday, still on at the moment, been out of work for 7 months so really need this. Supposed to have a second interview for another job tomorrow, been cancelled and the recruitment is on indefinite hold, so grateful I accepted the first job now.
I do feel for people whose lives are going to be totally screwed by this.
We’re in the process of switching to MS Teams – appreciate it’s just an evolution of Skype rather than something new altogether but it seems far more resilient.
we’ve been through this and Teams is indeed much more reliable.
I really feel for those that have had their world come crashing down due to Corona Virus 🙁
Probably made worse from being in a job that is pretty much vital for the supply of a basic food stuff (Flour Milling) we have been flat out for the last 18 months and we are turning business down!
We are also recruiting at a pace I've not seen in 3 decades in this industry.
All teams are now split into sub groups that don't cross over and as a manager we are not permitted face to face meetings with other managers.
Around 70% of our work is at festivals and events, so have just seen the diary empty till around July over the last two days, mentally we are preparing for the whole summer to go.
We will tighten our belts and will survive ok, but the whole industry is going to be decimated, there have been lost of very depressing calls to friends across the whole sector. There will just not be the companies and more importantly the people available to put on events and everything that goes into them once this is over, as people will have to find other work.
Not much impact for our company (Market-research/IT) as we've been remote working on/off for a number of years.
Found this an interesting read today - https://onezero.medium.com/coronavirus-is-a-preview-of-our-self-isolating-future-f5e73b046104
Ignoring all the horrible stuff and assuming we survive, I think forcing a lot of companies into this home-working scenario will open up some cool opportunities for employees in the future.
I work in IT at a large bank (main products are CC and loans) of 1600 across 3 sites, and we're pretty safe in terms of job security - I'm certainly glad to be working for a big company right now though. If anything, due to our products, we'll probably thrive... Sad but true.
We have several hundred customer service/collections staff which can't WFH, IT and operations have been told if you can WFH, do so - us on the servicedesk are doing a WFH tester over the next few days as it's a little more complex due to our need to take 200+ calls a day. Still, I'd be surprised if we weren't on a skeleton staff as of next week or the week after, with most WFH and just a couple in the office to fix things in person than can't be done remotely.
If they close the callcentres though, that would change things.
Also, out of 1600 staff we've not had any confirmed cases, only a handful of people self isolating due to family members or travel. And I'd hate to think of the amount of stuff you could catch from our call centres, I feel dirty after touching equipment that's been there, and that was before the corona virus!
And MS Teams. Yes it is very good. Video meetings, channels and chats, we use that as our main infomation hub in the team and across IT. 200+ user teams meeting this afternoon, not a single issue.
I’m lucky to work for a company that helps others implement Microsoft comms/collab - so lots of Teams these days, some Lync/SfB still. Not short of work right now. Our clients are mostly well set up for this sort of event, we do have some hurrying along their move to Teams just to get more traffic off their network/servers and on to Microsoft’s.
Have been totally home based for a couple of years, the team I work in is spread all over the place and working fine, no changes here.
Wife is still going into the office as she works with secure patient data and can’t even remote in to her office PC. Waiting on some solution or approval to bypass those requirements.
Headache will be if/when schools and nurseries close, I’ll be able to do the odd quick thing during the day else it’ll be limited to a couple of hours of work after the kids have gone to bed. Lots of my colleagues in a similar situation.
So, one of my clients is a company that has had everyone working from home on secure telephony and cloud servers for ever. They’ve always been pretty quiet about it because it is a bit unconventional. But it’s meant that they have reasonable overheads, can pay well and employ people who work fairly flexibly so there’s practically no staff turnover. They’ve cracked working together remotely - the office banter is on a skype chat and it feels like a team even though they’re all over the place, the phones work and it’s immaculately organised. I reckon the MD should do consultancy on how to set this up - I think he doesn’t know how good his business really is.
I work for myself so in between bursts of activity I have spent far too much time gazing in horror at the internet. Oh, and I’ve been chain eating Strepsils so remote meetings for a week then.
Just had my hours and salary halved until future notice. I’ve got an interview tomorrow which has now been moved to the ZOOM app. Im starting to feel a bit desperate really as I know the other interview was on Monday. Not in a good place mentally at all.
"I have spent far too much time gazing in horror at the internet."
Seriously this. I quit news about 1.5 years after Brexit got too much and was perfectly happy. Now I'm a C19 junky clicking refresh on the live news and checking the threads here, instead of WHF and doing my online diploma.
I feel very lucky. I work for a global organisation, has products that are in demand in times of financial stress. Already had a fairly relaxed WFH culture and > half of meetings were already Skype/teams. Infrastructure was bolstered last couple of weeks. A few tests and we are now operating with most of the org except skeleton staff WFH.
Still feeling productive, missing the office though. Some things are better discussed in person but really that is so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
There was a global update meeting today, expecting knock-issues due to recession, but exec seemed genuinely concerned for the workforce and related their own (pretty significant in a couple of cases) personal challenges. I'm bowled over with their handling of it, tbh. I'm sure issues will pan out, that may affect me in future, but for now I feel very lucky indeed and also very proud of who I work for.
Not often I have been able to say that in my career.
I have a cafe.
We’re still open but I can’t see it lasting long.
I’m ringing my insurance tomorrow.
Just found out that company policy is not to pay ssp for less than 25 hours, over a 3 day period, I was meant to work 30 hours Monday, Tuesday and Saturday, so I'm screwed even though they said to stay at home.
I am diabetic so on the high risk list.
This week my office started a rota of day working from home, day in office, repeat - the other half of the department doing the opposite.
I was off on Monday and assumed that as the rota was emailed out just before Boris yesterday, that it was out of date and everybody would be working from home from today onwards.
Our CEO emailed out at 2pm saying that everybody should follow the advice and work from home. Brilliant!
However, our head of department has now decided that we are going to continue with the rota system - I’ve not been given a reason why and when I said I was concerned the reply is “everyone is concerned right now”.
Plan is to give HR a call in the morning and get their view before thinking of what to do. Thoughts would be appreciated...
We are now on a site wide lock down as Astana and Almaty are being quarantined for a month. After the futile attempt to get home last week I will be working for the foreseeable future, realistically I do not expect to get home before June. Our staff who are on time off and cannot get into the country are being given trivial paperwork to do so they can be justified a salary.
Currently Offshore in Norway,flying back to the Uk tomorrow.
It's been an interesting week,no cases onboard,thankfully,social distancing at meals,your meal and cutlery is handed to you. All fruit and desserts are individually wrapped in cling film,you're not allowed,to touch any food produce or drinks,they also put ketchup on your food.
They have security stationed by the hand sanitiser,on entering the galley,during meal times,no food without sanitising.
The catering staff,are doing an excellent job,but it does feel,more like a prison,these past few days.
Lifeboat drills are banned,so that's a bonus.
The industry is carrying on as normal,Norwegian workers,are flat out,they've banned most foreigners but they are struggling,some companies are suggesting,you could go back to Norway,stay in a hotel, in quarantine for 2 weeks,without pay,and then go offshore,no thanks,i'm going home,probably for a few months,might get laid off, but i need to be home now.
I work for a large builder merchant as a driver. I've been given a packet of "BIG WIPES" multi purpose hand wipes.👍
I was nervous about starting a new job, those fears became reality yesterday. few phone calls today and I'm now on a three month unpaid sabbatical and likely to be starting on a 4 day week. The latter isn't a problem as its what I was doing. However, there's still no guarantee that in three months there will be a job.
I'm going for a bike ride now...
I was told yesterday to WFH then been told today to self-isolate for 12 weeks as I'm in the at-risk category.
Unfortunately, I've also had to send 4 field team members home today as they fall into the at-risk category, though luckily they will still be paid.
