^ yep. We stocked up on Friday for the weekend, came home and Boris shut us down.
Would have saved us a lot of money if he’d had announced it in the morning

John Lewis to close all stores monday night,

As fotr the 80 % government pay funding you need to apply to the government on the internet listing every employee and their pay , onto a computer program mot yet built or working according yo gov.uk.

Also nothing for self employed, also out cycling today lots of large premises /industrial depots seem to have security vans parked outside, when they havent before, and Soho London restaurant/shops being boarded up to deter looters looking for toilet rolls,

But passed local tip site and huge queues to tip, also New Brighton like a summer sunday,new Brighton has loads of restaurants and all closed, people walking round enjoying the sun, with quite a few carrying multi packs of bog roll

Will there be stipulations on businesses applying for the 80% government scheme, such as they need to keep the employees for 12/24 months after the scheme?

I guess I am just cynical, and imagine there be lots of employers looking to exploit it, and the Tory’s not making it as easy as it looks.

I’m one of the 5 million self-employed in this country. It would appear that we’ve been classified by the government as the economic collateral damage.

Things are going to get pretty grim, pretty quickly. Looks like we’re on our own.

we print magazines, including Singletrack.
turnover has dropped of a cliff edge.
reduced hours start soon for 8 weeks, it that is not enough redundancies seem inevitable.
a struggling industry before this shitstorm.

Our company announced 35 redundancy before this all kicked off. Manufacturing firm so non shop floor employees could WFH at least some of the week but management are not buying it.

I don’t think that the virus will help our order books. Still over 150 people employed….

I imagine a lot of pubs will get burgled in the next few weeks

Mostly Wetherspoonses hopefully.

I work for a big car company on the continent. Right now, everybody is WFH and they are making sure office equipment is available. We’re using MS office tools for communicating. The really sweet thing is that everybody is looking out for each other. I’ve been off sick often recently with other issues, and the management response has been really positive. No redundancies announced, no pay cut announced, nothing yet. Fingers crossed it stays this way.

I imagine a lot of pubs will get burgled in the next few weeks

Wife works for a company that rents fruit machines/pool tables to pubs. This weekend is a mad dash to get all the money out of the machines.

I’m working my notice and leave at the end of May to start my own business. I think my timing could have been a little better. Oh well, luckily I can afford to take a few months off unpaid if I have to and start when we’re out the other side. Looks like I’ll be finally getting all those DIY jobs done in the house.

I think my timing could have been a little better.

Lovely British understatement there! I guess you are right!

Anyone working for an office based business still attending as per normal?

Nope. Going in today to collect my screens.

Working from a single screen laptop isn’t sustainable for my work.

Then there will be no need for me to go to office

we print magazines, including Singletrack.

The kids magazines will do a roaring trade I reckon, if you do any of those (CBeebies / Peppa / Mr Men etc). I can see my expenditure on them going up from £5 a month to £5 a day. They’re sold in all the grocery type shops as well so distribution channels still open.

I may already have posted this above – can’t remember – but we’re busier than ever as customers place panic orders. Our product is used in the manufacture of sanitiser gels as well, meaning there’s extra urgency. In fact Management have placed airfreight orders on a two-week lead time just to give us a chance to get stuff manufactured and shipped.

I’m back to work tomorrow after a couple of weeks leave. Wonder if anything is new, haha!
Contract is up at end of June though – if this is still going on, that will be a tough job market to get dropped into

Anyone working for an office based business still attending as per normal?

Yep … working in that there city as an equity dealer…. we are classed as “Key” workers !?!(no my kids are at home)

Support staff/back office are at home but home connections are too slow to effectively do our dealing jobs from front rooms. So half of us dealers are here in the city, half at the disaster recovery site in Hayes/Heathrow.

CRAZY busy.

work for a large oil company,
office staff have been sent home & are now WFH,
process operators have been switched from there current shift rota onto one that gives more man power

maintenance staff which i come under, carry on as normal & have been told that until there is a confirmed case on site nothing will change,

Feels very much like letting your house burn down & then consider fitting smoke detectors

Only 3 of us in the office today (more in the building though), temp is 17c – it’s like they don’t want us here or something :p

I currently don’t have a WFH option (secure network access required) so still trying to get equipment sorted to allow WFH (but so is the agency I’m contracted to and they’re understandably prioritising their staff as they’re key workers as well). The VPN solution is also only sized for 50% of the total staff numbers so the network guys are busy applying bandaids.

Not sure if anyone is factoring in a reduction in productivity for many people WFH with kids either (especially if both parents in that situation). Have team members asking to work 2-3 hours at a time and spread that over the day so they can rotate with their partners on childcare duties, seems sensible but even that’s not an option for single parents etc. 🙁

Business as usual here. Office staff all WFH, production staff all in the factory. No provisions for child care for the production staff. It’s not like we’re even busy; deliveries are drying up and we’re dragging the work out. I’ve got a whole shift to do a 3 hour job.

Couple of us in my bit of the office today, site seems full of tradesmen though, just had a group of four asking to come in to check some snagging- bit mental really.

I start my new role in a couple of weeks. Not doing my actual job as that has been suspended, redeployed elsewhere in the trust to assist depts that are under-staffed. Manage to avoid the bug thus far, but i’m sure it’s only a matter of time once I start mixing with others.

I’m WFH as I’m ‘vulnerable’, company is still running training seminars which astounds me……………

And that’s it. Another 4 days finishing off the current task and we aren’t getting the next Task Order authorised.  We’ve got nothing else on the order book that’s likely to happen at all in the coming 3 months.
Im not sure the company will survive this. We’re not eligible for the ‘grant’, the VAT holiday still needs paying for at some point so it just delays things and we run a tight enough cash flow that I’m not sure a loan would do anything other than delaying the inevitable either.
Just had to make the call to 3 subcontractors too, that was fun. Going to be tough to keep them motivated until the end of the week…

Anyone got a sense of how many firms at topping up the £2500 or 80% government bailout?

Looks like we are both going to be on it by the end of the week but don’t know what ‘the package’ will be.

And I have given in my notice before this started that can’t be retracted.

And our new employers (Mrs C never quite got the letter in but was meant to be leaving) have both said they are not sure they will be able to honour our new contracts

And we are homeless July 3rd as our flat comes with my job.

And Mrs C’s cancer prognosis has gone on hold as the consultant has been reassigned and all his procedures cancelled. So she has had the joy of a really bad set of results but with nothing that can be done for the foreseeable.

Got to confess life has looked better. So 3 months of close to full pay rather than half rations to build up a fighting fund would be lovely right now.

I wonder if at the end of this a lot never go back to working in the office. After a time people are going to get used to it, the infrastructure for it will be improved and a lot of companies who’ve seen it work well will see it as a cost saving

We can but hope! I’m looking forward to having that conversation when all this is done & dusted. I would love my role to become 4 days a week at home and one in the office for team meetings/socialisation etc.

Just been on a 4 hour webex with the leadership team, discussing the plan of action. Our supply chain across Europe is starting to shut down & creak, we tend to carry enough stock in the UK for approximately 8-12 weeks & a lot of our customers are shutting down, so we physically cannot supply.

I oversee 4 teams (approximately 30 people in total), we are as of tomorrow about to enter a phased shutdown until the end of April, with a review at that point. We’ve done the necessary to with the government to get everyone as much as possible on the 80% scheme for those who won’t be working. I will be one of 5 left in my area, we have to keep the leadership team functioning, as when the period of mothballing is complete, we will have to phase the business back into action, along with my department managers & some key staff. The business will ‘top up’ salaries for this period, which is good.

Wouldn’t want to be on our executive board right now, a billions of euros business spanning 40 countries & 80 sites with ~12500 employees – some tough decisions.

Anyone working for an office based business still attending as per normal?

Yep, I work for a large bank who’s primary customers are “underserved” – basically people with low credit ratings, we’re classed as key workers. Our customer service lines have been at 150-200 calls queuing all day long.

I work in IT on the servicedesk, most of IT and operations (non telephone staff) are wfh but we need a presence on site to support those left. We have split the team though, half wfh one week, the other half the next. I’m in this week and wfh next week.

Still, our 200+ desk floor has had 15 ish people in it the last few working days, our London office of 300 hundred had 3 people there today. We’re still busy as ever with calls/tickets, and we’re building laptops like they’re going out of fashion…

onewilddiesel
Member
maintenance staff which i come under, carry on as normal & have been told that until there is a confirmed case on site nothing will change,

Feels very much like letting your house burn down & then consider fitting smoke detectors

Only I run them and our apprentice had a granfather that died last Saturday with CV-19 and despite splitting all the teams with no crossover we are all in lockdown.
I work in Flour Milling that has been tasked with running at all costs.
Its not going to get better for quite a while 🙁

We were asked to WFH at lunchtime today, so have taken everything home this afternoon; now set up on the dining room table till I get sort something more permanent. Have ordered some hardwood faced ply to make a desk in the spare room, but unsure as to wether they’ll be allowed to deliver this Wednesday.

As for the company, a brand new start up which is the re-incarnation of our previous company which liquidated six weeks ago. None of us have contracts yet, so in theory it could all collapse if the investor backing loses his nerve. As for how much we can achieve with most of the world in shut down, very unclear….

I went to a builders yard this morning in Ellesmereport then a house in Widness with a family present to work in a bathroom with 2 guys from different towns,it was bonkers. I emailed the whole firm from CEO to cleaners to ask what or why are we doing this as it’s non emergency work. Even me with my limited intelligence felt like a super spreader. We are now shut down. About 7 days too late. The only plus is our main office is up the road from you MrOvershoot so traffic should be a bit quieter. Good luck and best wishes to you all.

Marin
Member
The only plus is our main office is up the road from you MrOvershoot so traffic should be a bit quieter. Good luck and best wishes to you all.

Cheers Gregg once this is all in the past its massive drinks at mine 🙂

Latest news from Kazakhstan – the coffee machine has broken, this may cause some friction and irritability in the workforce

I work for Airbus and as you can imagine, we’re now facing quite uncertain times ahead. Already we’ve seen cuts to our budgets, salaries, etc. But, where possible, Airbus have been very flexible WRT working from home. I already worked from home for about 40% of my time, but seeing how rapidly they’ve adopted it for all and how quickly they’ve updated their IT systems to cope has been impressive.

What’s less impressive is the expectation to keep your current level of work even though the kids are now at home. Yes, they’re being flexible, “you can work after hours, etc”, but with two kids (3, 8) at home, they take most of the day, then I’m left with before and after their bed time. my working days are now 18 hours long.

It’s like doing my PhD again.

Daffy, similar situation kids aged soon to be 3 & 5. Wife’s work is less secure, but being more understanding and saying do what she can, but she feels she has to work lots or she looses her job. Mine is talking about reduced hours or burning all my leave to cover. Or I work whilst they sleep, expected to cover the same hours.

I know plenty of others are in worse situations, but this is a receipe for breakdown. The kids are pretty full on anyway. Being in all day they completely trash the house and garden as they are crawling up the walls. On top of that trying to do your job. And absolutely zero time to yourself to unwind.

A few weeks, doable, a few months not so sure.

At this point I look at those who are laid off but qualify for 80% salary and wish that was one of us

We face the same problem but my solution was that I get up at 4:30 and start work at 5. I work 7 hours straight through to 12. We all have lunch together then I take over for the afternoon/dinner etc while my wife works. I put the kids to bed and then myself. Its hardly going to be a thrilling life but it seems to be working. Puts some structure in place, gives me adequate quality time to work, and my wife too. My working day is a little shorter than normal, but I think Im mainly losing out on the time I wasted 😉

First day back at work after two weeks off. My job is managing all the IT systems including our new WFH set up I instituted a couple of weeks back.

I wonder how many emails I’ll have?

expecting the production site to be shut down by the end of week at the latest, maybe the end of the day.

engineering/R&D carrying on as best can from home although some stuff will be limited without access to labs.

I’m currently doing ~6am until ~3am and then taking over childcare.

I look at those who are laid off but qualify for 80% salary and wish that was one of us

Isn’t that capped so you may not get 80% of your actual salary?

By the sounds of it, construction of a new building on the school site near me is going ahead this morning.

First day back at work after two weeks off. My job is managing all the IT systems including our new WFH set up I instituted a couple of weeks back.
I wonder how many emails I’ll have?

Just delete them, either blaming the WFH set up or if its important they’ll email again!

@convert I have just sent you a message in the chat section