Viewing 40 posts - 41 through 80 (of 616 total)
  • CORONA VIRUS, Hows your company/workplace doing
  • squirrelking
    Free Member

    Adjusted shift rota to 12hr working to increase available pool for cover, scenarios planned all the way to half the operational workforce down and the remnants forming 2 shifts living on site.

    Army will probably arrive soon to free up police resources.

    We’ll still be here for the forseeable.

    davosaurusrex
    Full Member

    Construction company in the water industry. Latest chat is fair chance all construction work to be put on hold and as and when staff shortages kick in at the water company we will be redeployed to help run the water supply and sewage treatment works. Needs doing so fine with me although WFH bike riding would be OK too…..
    Wife is a teacher so if the schools close we’re OK for childcare, we’re in a relatively good position compared to many (extremely vulnerable parents notwithstanding)

    thegreatape
    Free Member

    Police again. Company and job perfectly safe. There’s a poster about washing your hands on the work toilet door, and the rufty tufty boys and girls have had to shave their beards off so their face masks fit properly. Beyond that it’ll have to be business as usual.

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    Engineer in pharma, looking like wfh next week, Mrs is a nurse, really worried about what’s coming her way. 😞

    RoterStern
    Free Member

    I run a private tutoring school/ language training Centre. The local government has closed all schools until after the Easter holidays so I expect we are going to be very quiet in the coming weeks. I can envisage a complete lock down if things get out of control which will naturally be very damaging for us. Fortunately we have cashed in one of my life insurance policies so we have enough to pay the bills. Currently our city has 16 confirmed cases though I found out on Friday that one of the local secondary schools was closed immediately because one of the teachers had tested positive and all the pupils were supposed to go into quarantine. Didn’t stop one of our clients sending their child to us though on Friday afternoon.🥺

    Macgyver
    Full Member

    Work for a private civil engineering company but seconded to a Government project. Feeling slightly peeved that my stricter parent company guidance seems to be over ruled by less rigorous government guidance. Go figure. At least they seem to accept that I may have stricter requirements given my wife has reduced resistance due to cancer treatment. Scary times in that respect.

    longdog
    Free Member

    Both of us work for the local authority. We have to be prepared to WFH and make sure laptops are connecting etc. Obviously self isolate if unwell.

    I’m an outdoor access officer so life will go on without much drama. My wife’s an occupational therapist so they will struggle as they have pretty infirm people who need one to one assistance.

    The fly in the ointment here (Shetland) is that the schools are shut from Monday so there will be big numbers of people having to be home to look after kids. Pretty much all clubs and events are cancelled too. We had 11 confirmed cases in a population of 22,000 on Friday, but as they’re not testing the numbers will be much higher.

    cbike
    Free Member

    National Arts Company – Our season was already weighted towards the end of the year, just in time for CVirus wave 2… Community projects, Tours, International Travel eeek! Continuing as normal for the moment, but I predict a quiet year for us, a terrible year for all the freelancers and probably we write off and reschedule everything and just do a lot of maintenance and internet pod casting.

    ajantom
    Full Member

    My eldest is 16 and is working her butt off currently for exams to start in a little over 6 weeks and while I keep telling her she’ll be rewarded for her work now and in future and also that it isn’t that important….. to her it’s massive.

    She will be rewarded…

    1st scenario is schools stay open and exams run as normal. She’ll do well and get good grades.
    2nd scenario is schools shut short term, she carries on revising, but many lazy students don’t, she gets good grades and potentially higher than expected as grades are worked out in in relation to overall achievement.
    3rd scenario is that schools shut longterm and exams are postponed until later in the year. Result same as scenario 2.
    4th Scenario is that schools shut longterm and students get their predicted grades. Again if she’s worked hard then her PDs should be good and she comes out on top again.

    lister
    Full Member

    Senior outdoor instructor employed by a (very) large national charity.
    If schools stop sending us kids then we’ll spend a few weeks fixing kit, riding bikes and drinking tea I guess. After that I would think we’d be redeployed to other duties on the estate I work on. Plenty of footpaths to fix.
    Weird times, can’t work from home but I have fairly high hopes that I have a good and fair employer. Very happy with my direct line management up to regional level so I think I’ll be ok.

    eat_more_cheese
    Free Member

    Air traffic control. Very worried. Downturn in traffic even before CV. Regional airlines going bust is going to have massive implications on the smaller airfields. Belfast City, Southampton etc very concerned about colleagues’ futures there.
    I imagine some bigger airfields-Glasgow for example are going to suffer massively due to Jet2 stopping flying to Spain. En-route traffic still holding up but way down on this time last year. Next few weeks could see some vast changes in my industry.

    jag61
    Full Member

    Construction here lots of self employed subbies on site so poss not going to self isolate unless forced nothing from office ! I’m feeling a bit rough atm may need to SI mrs g teaches she’s been off 2days this week cough /flu like achy is it a coincidence that some kids she teaches were skiing at half term …north Italy and were back in schools after hols
    More worried about new contracts due to the other big thing B..

    Sandwich
    Full Member

    Working in holidays it’s all going to rat poo. Continental bookings to Italy not happening, Spain looks like its next, France shortly afterwards and Austria/Germany who knows. We guess that it will be flat for 2 or 3 months and then we may see a domestic rush. We may have nowhere to place them if the hotels are all shut/bust.

    TheFlyingOx
    Full Member

    Environmental & process chemist on a major gas project for Israel. Job security looks better here than other oil & gas projects as we’re keeping the lights on in Israel as well as at least part of Jordan and Egypt, and gas hasn’t taken quite the hammering that crude has over the last couple of weeks. Life is fairly normal here though there are small concessions such as catering crew serving food rather than everyone helping themselves, random temperature tests, etc. Will be changing soon enough though, all relief crews have to go through 2 weeks quarantine on arrival in Israel and that quarantine has to be at a residential address at the moment – hotels not allowed – so that’s proving a headache. That and the ever-dwindling number of flights entering/leaving Israel means those of us here might be here for a while longer. I’d be surprised if I get home before May. Should be home last week of March.
    My wife is a social worker. Job had slowly turned to shit over the last few months so last week she applied for and was granted a 2 year career break, due to finish up at the beginning of May. I think she should just knock it on the head now because a) her work have never been particular good at looking after their staff even at the best of times, and b) I can see schools closed by the end of next week so she’ll need to be at home for the kids.

    Rubber_Buccaneer
    Full Member

    Gigolo catering for the elderly. Work’s really dried up

    grahamt1980
    Full Member

    Gigolo catering for the elderly. Work’s really dried up

    Can’t imagine it was ever really that moist

    andy8442
    Free Member

    I’m a “freelance” tv cameraman working mainly on sport……so I’m F……ed basically. We were all cacking ourselves with IR35 just around the corner, but this could be the end of a lot of individuals, and worst, some of the big facility companies we work for too. I’ve got my last job tomorrow, then I haven’t got a single days work full stop. If HMRC are kind, I can last a good few months, but if they start banging on the door demanding payment, its a couple of months and then I’m in big trouble.

    euans2
    Free Member

    I work in the aviation industry… it’s not good at all! we’re looking at redundancies, unpaid leave, wage and pension cuts and new working hours… It’s going to be a long 3-6 months and even beyond that, my employers are predicting that it could take a number of years for it to return to pre virus levels of passenger numbers.

    singletrackmind
    Full Member

    Micro Brewery
    we are screwed in reality
    looking to use the downturn to re–locate and shoot for a rent holiday, smalle runit, full SBR relief etc

    tails
    Free Member

    I work in large format print if all the events etc are cancelled I could possibly end up homeless. Statutory sick pay is not going to cover my rent and bills so something will have to give. Beyond concerned.

    jonba
    Free Member

    Research chemist. I’m high enough up that I do t spend much time at the bench. Everyone who can has been asked to WFH where possible to thin out people on site.

    It would all be fine but my last day is Friday and I start a new job in April.

    Feeling vulnerable. No notice/redundancy or real benefits during probation. Engineering and coatings based so more affected by a recession than the virus. I’m nervous.

    Can live off one wage and no kids so we can easily get by cutting back a bit. Will probably be saving a bit of money on holidays in the next 6-12 months anyway. Going to reign in non essential spending till I have more certainty.

    mikertroid
    Free Member

    I’m in aviation (pilot). I hope I’ll be okay in terms of job retention, due to a combination of skills and other factors, but I know many who are very concerned indeed. It’ll be a tough year with lots of adjustments and disruption however. There might be unpaid leave or pay cuts and voluntary redundancies across the board.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    No idea. Our senior management insist we’re cut to the bone and barely making money, and if that’s true then this is going to be trouble, because there’s no way it doesn’t hit our revenues for the next 4 years- this year’s recruitment is in tatters. We were already seriously worried about brexit.

    It’s just, I really don’t believe them, because they’re the sort of management that say “we need to cut costs and it’s up to you do to it” and also “we’re spending millions of quid on a new building which will probably lose us money but will look amazing”. And also “we need to be more efficient” and “we’re cutting resource at the early and more important stages of proceeses, and then we will throw twice as much at the next stage in a panic when it turns out cutting resources has an effect”. So who knows.

    doomanic
    Full Member

    Manufacturing here, production team. Office staff have been told to be prepared to WFH where possible so take laptops home every night as a precaution. Business travel stopped, which is a problem as we sell, install and service a pretty unique product worldwide and Pharma is a big market for us.
    Production staff have been issued with “hospital grade” anti-bac, anti-viral gel and been told to wash our hands more and not touch our faces. Attempts to keep delivery drivers away from the workforce aren’t working as all the regulars assume it doesn’t apply to them and several have got stroppy that they can’t use our toilets any more.
    Suspected exposed to a sufferer or travel to a hot spot results in a 14 period of self isolation on full pay, WFH where possible.

    maccruiskeen
    Full Member

    Self employed in the film and TV industry. Jobs are getting cancelled almost as soon as they are announced. My bread and butter is ads and theres several factors in the cancellations – one being the practicalities of filming as they tend to be international affairs in terms of crew and clients so travel restrictions in other countries are as much of a factor as they might be here.

    Another is companies aren’t going to be able to get insurance for shooting – you have to insure against factors that would delay or extend a shoot – such as bad weather – and to be able to guarantee that you can finish what you started. Nobody is going to offer to insure that in the face of a pandemic and changing government polices.

    On top of short term practicalities like that the knock on effect of the cancelation of big sporting events etc is the advertising slots that the ads would be made for vanish with them.

    For bigger film projects the discouragement and restrictions on things like ‘going to the cinema’ is going to stifle production and also leave companies that have just invested millions in the production of a film with their arse in their hands because the route to sales in distribution will vanish.

    It comes right in the middle of a boom in production in the UK – 6 weeks ago I was on a course intended to encourage crew to step up into new roles (or across from other sectors into film) because the crisis facing the industry was there were about 30,000 too few crew to service the sector at the level of production we’ve been seeing in the last year or so.

    Suddenly theres going to be far too many crew – elbows are going to get a bit sharp.

    Personally I have other strings to my bow and also have always endeavoured to keep my overheads low so I can live pretty leanly when I need to. But I can expect some pretty fundamental shifts in the dynamics of the sector I work in and probably a bit of a re-focus of my work back towards the public sector / public realm work I used to do before the Tories **** it.

    blackmountainsrider
    Free Member

    I work in maintenance of a large supemrket chain, I can’t work from home, wotks carrying on as normal for now.

    bigdean
    Full Member

    Work at a college, initally yay 2 weeks WFH but…
    We are going to be weeks behind with lessons, can you see 16 year olds bothering to work at home? (Most wont).
    But all work needs to be assessed by july.
    We have English and Maths exams comming up.
    If exams are delayed/ cancelled how will we manage the applicants at enrollment.
    I’ve got some side work validating qualifictions for schools and colleges, cant do that if no one at school which will mean they cant claim certificates, see earlier note about applicants.

    And thats if we only have two weeks off (i’ve heard two weeks added to easter break giving 4 in total) any longer things just get worse, i can see lessons upto august.

    GlennQuagmire
    Free Member

    I’ve been WFH for quite a few years now, so no change for me. The muscles in my right arm are quite impressive hence my username.

    a11y
    Full Member

    Quite harrowing reading the replies so far.

    Bus development/management for local leisure/cultural trust. Already equipped to WFH and spent most of last week forward planning inc a pecking order for the redistribution of laptops to those deemed most vital. But a large number of roles in the organisation are frontline service provision – lifeguards, gym instructors, librarians, etc – where WFH isn’t an option.

    However, wife is a NHS A&E consultant hence my WFH will be limited by bored 5yr and 7yr olds once schools shut.

    High probability of whole family getting CV via wife’s work (she expects) 🙁

    jimdubleyou
    Full Member

    UK branch of a big US bank. The bank will definitely survive.

    Many teams who need to be onsite are splitting 2 weeks on 2 off.

    My small team (application development and 2nd line support) can all work from home. I was supposed to be in office all week next week for some conferences on future projects, but we’re doing it over the phone now.

    Not ideal, but we’ll get over it.

    Mrs Dubs is a secondary teacher. She’s looking forward to an extended Easter Holiday…

    bedmaker
    Full Member

    I work from home, just not my own home, as a self employed stove fitter.
    I’m inundated with work, but I’m expecting supply of goods to interfere with that as time goes on.
    Schools shutting and a nurse wife might also mean cutting days anyway.
    Thankfully my overheads are minimal, and there’s money in the bank. I really worry about the effects of the virus on several people close to me, both physically and financially though.

    BoardinBob
    Full Member

    Actuarial pricing person for big private health insurer.

    Interesting times. I’ll leave it at that

    onehundredthidiot
    Full Member

    Teacher, currently no change but it’s panic stations for exam classes. Been told they need another exam next week in case. I’ll be writing an exam on Monday then.

    OH police officer has to do home visits.

    There’s no current plan for any changes to work for either of us.

    phil5556
    Full Member

    @eat_more_cheese

    Me too. I’m on leave at the moment so haven’t seen the reality of the lower traffic levels first hand yet but expect it to be painfully quiet at times. Which will obviously ultimately mean less of us.

    Losing Flybe had already made a very noticeable difference, I just hope the likes of TUI & Jet2 can survive.

    rob8624
    Free Member

    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) . I don’t cover sport only news, but many other photographers who shoot football for a living are very worried.

    stewartc
    Free Member

    Being based in Hong Kong I guess we are a little ahead of what most of you are experiencing on the work front.
    I work for an international finance company as a project manager in the technology side, mostly the delivery of new office spaces or relocation’s for India, Japan, Australia and China.
    For Hong Kong we have had some serious social disruption for the 2nd half of 2019 which meant we were for some period forced to work from from home plus most of my projects are in other countries were I do not usually get to travel to so remote working, whether office or home, is very well ingrained and we are provided the tools to manage.
    The company have also segregated teams to minimize the chances of any cross-infection with certain teams having access to certain floors only and some members just not allowed into the workplace at all. It is expected that people in separate teams do not mix even socially and that seems to be being adhered to.
    There is of course a complete travel ban and even if I did need to travel I would now be subject to 14 days isolation on return to HK.
    For the work itself, projects directly affected are just on hold with shifting restart dates there is some confusion, in China especially, on what restrictions are in place and what regulations need to be met (both national and local government plus landlords) to enable workers access to site. We expect projects in other countries to be similarly affected as the virus takes hold, in my case I am expecting this to be the case for both India and Australia.
    In China I expect everything to be back to, as close as possible, normal by mid-April but I suspect the downturn in the financial markets will have a greater affect on my long term employment than this ‘blip’ caused by COVID-19.

    reluctantjumper
    Full Member

    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.

    I’m on holiday this next week and my bosses were begging me to cancel it, same with my week off in April. We have very little capacity for mass absenteeism at the best of times plus an ageing workforce due to driving license requirements ruling out a lot of people who passed their test after 1998 (C1, removal of grandfather rights) so we could be hit incredibly badly.

    petefromearth
    Full Member

    I run/own a food business with my wife. We have about 20 staff.

    We are expecting a very difficult time ahead. We have already seen a drop in footfall which is only going to get worse.

    For now we are open, with lots of extra hygiene measures in place. We don’t know how bad it’s going to get, or for how long. We’ll do whatever it takes to keep the business going, and hopefully not have to go as far as redundancies.

    Many independent food/drink businesses are going to go under, no doubt about it.

    Those hit hardest will be those that have no daytime or takeaway trade, or who aren’t able to diversify.

    I implore everyone here to spend money with their favourite businesses if they want them to still be there in 2 months time.

    On top of all this we are having a baby on Tuesday. Timing is not good!!

    hjghg5
    Free Member

    Commercial solicitor. I can work from home fine but after the initial rush of people asking what their contracts say about this situation I suspect that a lot of projects will be put on hold meaning that they don’t need anyone to advise on them.

    More interestingly my firm was acquired about 10 days ago and we’re currently going through tupe/redundancy consultations and face to face meetings about integration. That process will become rather more challenging if people aren’t in the office – a lot of the support staff being made redundant don’t have remote access/laptops and need to finish/hand over work before they leave.

    chambord
    Free Member

    Work as a software developer for one of the big tech companies.

    Everyone been told to WFH (if they can do their job remote) until further notice, April at earliest. I’ve been 3-days-a-week remote for 2 years so not much different for me.

    Feel like it won’t really effect me too much but it’s really worrying reading the replies to this thread. Good luck to everyone

Viewing 40 posts - 41 through 80 (of 616 total)

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