Only 49 emails, not bad at all.
Though did get a phonecall from my boss saying they have no idea what’s going on with the business, all the systems I set up work great and now there is nothing for me to do, so just to twiddle my thumbs til my contract finishes at the end of June. And they’ll probably keep paying me.

Great time for jobseeking!

All-hands call later today. If there’s no guidance coming on what parents and managers of parents should be doing (beyond “be flexible! work when they’re asleep!”) then I’ll be asking about possibility of either being furloughed, temporarily drop hours or failing that go on unpaid carers leave. I’m more than up to looking after and homeschooling my kids, but not for doing a full 40 hour working week on top of that.

a wee situation i need help with folks, advice appreciated.

Good friend of mine is a single mum (age 43) with an 11yr son (good kid), her husband (good friend) died 2 years ago of cancer so she is currently working in a local bakery (kirkcudbright) for 3hrs day at moment. She’s got asthma (but not out of control, mostly blue inhaler) and as she is the primary care provider for her son, no family within 350 miles i said she should stay at home as if anything happens to her regarding catching the virus then who will look after her son?, i would help out but i have secondary progressive multiple sclerosis and can barely sort myself out never mind someone else.

She needs the pittance she earns to pay rent electricity/bills/food etc but her manager in the shop (3 of them work there on a shift/rota basis) is unable to get the boss to speak to her on the phone as the boss just puts the phone down whenever she calls (to do with the boss being annoyed at something the manager did a while ago).

Obviously she earns a pittance at minimum wage for 18hrs work but its made up with working tax credit and she wonders if she would get esa if she just left and how long would it take to be implemented/paid as she has £45 left in her bank till payday this friday, she’s looked for advice on the gov pages but can’t find any definite answers

Help?, advice?

CAB?
Boss sounds very unprofessional.

Really sorry to hear about her situation.

Office closed today. Any essential work being handled from home by the few staff who already had laptops, rest of us waiting to see if IT can get enough laptops built and distributed so we can pitch in when we can

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.

I’m contracting in the civil service at the moment. There’s been a flurry of comms about how you are not expected to put a full day in if you have kids at home. Mine are mostly self sufficient now, but I have folk in my team with younger kids that don’t have the space or time to put a decent shift in. Folk are being told not to over juggle hours / work weekends etc. Time spent working does not equal productivity.

Newcastle University (and others) – lending qPCR machines to Public Health England for virus testing. Staff have been invited to volunteer to go and run them.

A question if anyone can advise.

I’m self-employed see, and I virtually have no work for the foreseeable future.

I have applied for a couple of jobs delivering groceries for Tesco and Asda but should I be offered them, I’m not actually sure whether I’d be better off taking them or not.

If there is any help for self-employed folks coming from Boris, then that would be a massive help and I could actually use the time to work on my website, to do online training and all sorts like that.  If I was delivering toilet rolls etc, then presumably I’d lose any potential help, plus I’d lose the time too. Lose, lose…

Any self employed persons have a take on temp work during the madness?

@somafunk You won’t be able to find advice on her circumstances as, like a lot of things, it depends on many different factors; your friend’s circumstances sound complicated as it is and whilst it’s applaudable you’re looking out for her, there isn’t a simple answer from the information available – and neither will you be able to easily glean all the necessary info.

Drop me a PM if you want and I can talk you through a few things which will help you cut through the difficulties you’ve experienced when trying to Google.

We’re now only remote working, my last site visit was yesterday. Clients have had plenty of warning but some are still not WFH.

Out of 75ish clients (IT support) 2 have cancelled their DDs – 1, a school that teachers English to foreign students has been in trouble for years and were never better than 50/50 going to survive, it’ll be a miracle if they survive this. The other manages a small chain of bars / restaurants and again have been circling the drain for years away after expanding aggressively assuming they had the golden touch, they didn’t.

Our work volume is up 300% or so, hundreds of end users on a madcap collection of PCs and Laptops the kids have been downloading minecraft skins onto all connecting to ropy routers that haven’t been rebooted since the last power cut. We’re hoping to get into some more project work soon to make more robust permanent WFH systems, but no one is that keen to get the chequebook out just yet.

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

If what my boss was telling me just now is right the whole 80% thing is a big scam to make the government look good and there will be a lot of people getting nothing.

I think what people are expecting and what actually happens will be 2 very different things 😡

I work as a grounds person for a care company, I was told by the Director today that I’m a key worker and have to work (I don’t mind, me and my boss work apart, we don’t mix with others and getting outdoors is good for my mental health)

So forget NHS staff, Carers, Police, Fire, food distribution, charities etc etc, the real heroes during this time of international crisis are us grounds people for keeping the grass short 🙄

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

If what my boss was telling me just now is right the whole 80% thing is a big scam to make the government look good and there will be a lot of people getting nothing.

I think what people are expecting and what actually happens will be 2 very different things

It’s not a scam and the gov have been very clear. 80% of your salary capped at £2500 per month. Employers can opt to top up the difference if they want / can, but you are not allowed to actually work. This is for PAYE..

Contractors etc very different rules.

We’ve had to do this and with senior management taking a voluntary 20% cut but not join the furloughing process as it would screw the company.

Well that’s me furloughed.

At least that’s us better isolated as a household.

Mark – its capped at £2500pcm. That will cover the vast majority of people. thats significntly more than the average wage.

This is when those who are “self employed” to avoid tax find out what real life is about when they get basic SSP at £94 a week as they are not entitled to that support above

Kayak you will be entitled to SSP at £94 a week IIRC

Mark – its capped at £2500pcm. That will cover the vast majority of people. thats significntly more than the average wage.

True, but everyone’s circumstances will vary. I’m lucky to earn over the minimum which helped when my wife got made redundant and couldn’t get a new job that fitted around the needs of our disabled son. We can manage on my salary but if it dropped to the cap for a significant amount of time we’d struggle. If we hadn’t had to spend a fair chunk to adapt our house we’d have that in reserve to cushion our selves and I wouldn’t be as nervous.

TJ – don’t tar all us self-employed with the ‘tax dodger’ tag please? It’s bollocks!

I pay my tax at PAYE rates but I’ll be entitled to 94 quid a week.

The self-employed people who have registered themselves as limited companies for tax reasons are about to get an even bigger shock. When they try to apply for universal credit they will be told that if they are listed as company directors at companies house, as far as the government are concerned they are ‘employed’, whether they have an income or not, so not even entitled to the 94 quid.

It’s clear from the chancellors statement at lunchtime that there’s no desire in government to help the self employed whatsoever.

In my game an awful lot of us are freelance. We all know we’re well and truly ****ed! We’re on our own.

Without going into too much detail I’m still working (we are suppliers to the military so can stay open) but our turnover is above the 45m business interruption loan limit, the next step on from that (Covid Corporate Financing Facility) is a big step financially so everything is a bit uncertain at the moment.

And all this is nowhere near being up and running so even the people that are entitled to the 80% will have to wait for weeks yet.

It’s all here

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-52005137

This probably explains it better, bet there will be quite a few in this situation now!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52004042

Furloughed worker as from today….hope to god the Tories make good on their 80% salary promise and that it’s not for more than 4-6 weeks tbh.

benpinnick
Subscriber
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 😉

Exactly what I’m doing 6 days a week.

@bearnecessities Thanks for the reply, i won’t bother you with a pm as tomorrow ill get in touch with her employer to explain the situation but he is of the belief that as he is an “essential” food provider he is staying open until told to shut shop then he will implement the 80% pay rule and hand his staff over to esa or whatever is available

binners +1 re TJ’s comments about self-employed.
Note to TJ – remember the 4 F’s; First Find the Fffing Facts.
Nice to preach when you’ve got a gold-plated NHS pension.

The company I work for is now on total shut down.
The only people in the office are the print room team and one member of the
dev ops team to deal with any network issue.
Every one else is working from home.
During this lock down I’m not going to shave, by the end of this I
could look like Uncle Albert.

We’re operating as normal at my work (classed as a key frontline service) but we are going to be doing very little after tomorrow as all our customers are shut. Today has been basically going to all the customers and getting their high value collections done so they can shut up for the duration, will be the same tomorrow but that should be it after then. We’re going to have to send a lot of people home as we can’t have 25+ people in the depot mooching around, not enough space to keep any distance in the staff areas so it’ll be do what work you can then back o base, clean your vehicle out then go home. Bosses are promising to top up our wages to our contracted 39 hours provided we get all the work done and the cleaning is done, if people start taking the piss then it’ll be everyone sat in their vehicle in the yard with no contact.

I’ll take that scenario over what others are going through every time.

I said those that are “self employed” to avoid tax. NOt all self employed. Just those who set up a fake self employed status to avoid tax. Somewhat obvious difference if you cared to actually red. the use of the word fake and the inverted commas

People who are actually self employed is obviously a totally different case but I pay a lot more tax and NI on a much lower income than a couple of fake self employed people I know. If you avoid tax and NI thru a fake self employed status then do not bleat when you find you don’t get benefits

People who are actually self employed are in a real nasty situation and my heart goes out to them. Howevert the government has made money available for them that is higher than universal credit.

Those who use self employed status to avoid tax when they really should be employed and PAYE, eff ’em

However, the government has made money available for them that is higher than universal credit.

No, they haven’t! We’ll be eligible for Universal Credit and that’s it. After a 5 week wait. I suspect, under the circumstances and given the fact that UC was a complete shambles before this shitstorm, it’ll be considerably longer.

The self-employed are being offered no additional money or aid of any sort. It’s not even sure we’re going to get UC. We might end up with the lower Employment Support Allowance of 74 quid a week, or nothing at all.

High earning people using front companies to reduce their tax bill are a very well-publicised but tiny minority of self-employed people. The vast majority are freelancers like me (we’re 15% of the workforce). We pay exactly the same rates of tax and NI as employed people, so are presently feeling a bit miffed, to say the least.

binners
Subscriber
However, the government has made money available for them that is higher than universal credit.

No, they haven’t! We’ll be eligible for Universal Credit and that’s it. After a 5 week wait. I suspect, under the circumstances and given the fact that UC was a complete shambles before this shitstorm, it’ll be considerably longer.

The self-employed are being offered no additional money or aid of any sort. It’s not even sure we’re going to get UC. We might end up with the lower Employment Support Allowance of 74 quid a week, or nothing at all.

High earning people using front companies to reduce their tax bill are a very well-publicised but tiny minority of self-employed people. The vast majority are freelancers like me (we’re 15% of the workforce). We pay exactly the same rates of tax and NI as employed people, so are presently feeling a bit miffed, to say the least.

i think this may well come down to a perception of what PAYE earners see from self employed from their own experiences, and not from facts. My view is also squed to believe that most self employed have set themselves up “tax efficiently”, but im happy to accept this is my view of the people i know in an industry that is rife for it.

Im sure no-one is trying to slant anyone, but nieveity can lead to it.

Note to TJ – remember the 4 F’s; First Find the Fffing Facts.

Been here long?

Im sure no-one is trying to slant anyone, but nieveity can lead to it.

Indeed. Call me cynical, but I imagine it quite suits the government to continue this common misconception that freelancers and self-employed people are highly paid and tax avoiders.

In line with the vast majority of us, I’m neither

Will find out in the next 48 hours if I’m to be furloughed or not. I work in the Bursary of a large boarding school, no kids back after Easter means no income for the school. We’ve turned into a virtual school post Easter holidays so academic staff are ok, however for all the support staff it means we aren’t needed – cleaners, chefs, lifeguards, the list goes on. Biggest issue is that once the bans are lifted school will need to restart so all the staff will still be required. Worrying times for all of us, especally since the School is the main employer in the town.

In line with the vast majority of us, I’m neither

I’ll preface the following cheeky comment with an expression of genuine sympathy for your predicament in these troubled times….

….but…

There is however a certain irony, that after years of sitting trapped at work reading your posts about how you’re sitting at home drinking coffee and listening to the radio, whilst looking out of the window and contemplating a bike ride whilst still earning a living , I now find myself sitting at home drinking coffee and listening to the radio, whilst looking out of the window and contemplating a bike ride whilst still earning a living.

It’s a fair cop PP. I never claimed I had a hard life.

Welcome to my world. Enjoy! 😀

Getting back to the original point, I’ve got 2 jobs on at the moment. One will be finished in the next couple of days, the other is a bigger, longer-term, but in all honesty, I expect they’ll be shutting up shop and that will all be put on hold before the weeks out.

So as of next week it’ll be Universal Credit, at best. Something to look forward too

f what my boss was telling me just now is right the whole 80% thing is a big scam to make the government look good and there will be a lot of people getting nothing.

I think what people are expecting and what actually happens will be 2 very different things 😡

Your boss is probably being a dick / scared / anxious / completely overwhelmed. It’s all very new and of course didn’t have 2 years of planning to put it all in place, but basically your boss has to furlough you, no work at all and then pay you 80% of your usual salary (I don’t know if that’s Net / gross whether you pay tax/Ni or whatever), they then apply for a grant to recoup the cost. The only problem is that lots of employers are unwilling, or unable to keep payroll going now, as they likely not to get the grant for 4/5 weeks. Small employers have already got £10k-25K grant coming to them automatically plus all sorts of ‘deals’ with HMRC etc.

It’s easy to knock it, but it seems the developed world has agreed to put everyone who can on pause for a few months, hoping that when it’s over we can go back to normal. It’s completely unprecedented so trying to equate it to the Great Depression, Credit Crunch / Great Depression etc doesn’t really work because there isn’t a economic problem as such to over-come, the virus goes away because we stop it spreading or there’s a vaccine and we’re back where we were.

Yes, there will be an increase in national debt, but that’s the same globally – when it comes to economics (I’m by no means an expert, but I do find it interesting / follow it) nothing is isolated, only relative to everything else, so our national debt rises billions, well the US rises 2 trillion, France’s rises etc etc – I’m not saying it doesn’t matter, but fundamentally ‘money’ is a tool we invented for our benefit, as long as everyone agrees, we can make it do whatever we want.

I wouldn’t look at the FTSE / Currency markets / value of gold / bit coin whatever and think we’re going into a depression just yet, really it will boil down to how long this goes on for and the loss or production – ironically perhaps, the scale of stock piling and Government procurement over the last few weeks and weeks to come, might just keep us in the black!

Welcome to my world. Enjoy!

#binlife

. Howevert the government has made money available for them that is higher than universal credit.

No they haven’t. The government has raise UC a tiny bit so that it equals statutory sick pay.

Plus you try living on 94 quid a week TJ.

Plus you try living on 94 quid a week TJ.

That’d buy a shitload of sackcloth and ashes.

😆

All the subbies on our sites are self employed via CIS so 20% gets deducted at source and the balance adjusted at the end of the tax year. If the site shuts then they’re not earning.

I think this is definitely going to be a year to get the self assessment done sooner as there’ll be headaches trying to suss out earned income/SSP in lockdown/80% payment got tax return time!