Working from home

[Peckham Park]

Interesting recent article by Cllr Mc Ash about the right to work from home for all workers. See https://novaramedia.com/2020/05/15/the-right-to-work-from-home-should-be-a-demand-far-beyond-the-pandemic/

Although I agree with some aspects of it, much I do not. Why would I live in East Dulwich, when I could buy a castle in Scotland for the price of a flat around here!🤓

[rachp]

Indeed, and why would your employer pay you to work from Scotland if they could get it cheaper from abroad (of course there are lots of reasons not to do this but we know how these things work!).

I find the opening paragraph quite amusing

'Much of the British workforce have a job which is some variation on a simple theme: sit at a desk, send emails, make phone calls, and go to the occasional meeting'

It sounds like the episode of Peppa Pig where they visit mummy and daddy pig at the office and all mummy pig does is print out pictures of shapes!! (I can't remember what daddy pig does).

I am all for flexible working and am sure we will all work from home more as a permanent set up. But we can't write off the need for offices completely without a lot more understanding of the long term impact on different types of roles.

[Lemming]

Britain is (and always has been) chock-full of beautiful, unspoilt, reasonably-priced locations which you can sell-up, move to, spoil - and then go slowly and quietly round the twist whilst begging your old friends to please visit, please.

I'll be staying right here, at least for some time to come.

[JohnL]

rachp Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Indeed, and why would your employer pay you to

> work from Scotland if they could get it cheaper

> from abroad (of course there are lots of reasons

> not to do this but we know how these things

> work!).

Us in IT have said that for years - it's called offshoring and was a big reason school leavers and college leavers stopped taking up careers in IT (you can support a DC from India as well as you can from London).

But IT is one of the few jobs where there is demand - for some reason it doesn't happen.

Although here's this years prediction https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/covid-19-may-trigger-third-wave-of-outsourcing-for-indian-it-industry-120083101244_1.html same as every year.

[Peckham Park]

Rachp did you not know Peppa?s father was a capitalist pig working in the city? Thankfully that day he was working from home, sending a few emails to destroy the proletariat!

[rachp]

I just watched the episode again and it's not mummy pig, its Mrs Cat. Daddy pig appears to do very little but I'm sure he's very well paid for putting in sn appearance!:

Oh dear, you have to get your amusement where you can when you have small kids who insist on watching this rubbish!

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

"It?s no coincidence office blocks take inspiration from 19th century factories: they are intended to be sites of surveillance and control..."

Only Novara would print this tosh.

Odd that a socialist would be so keen to see the workforce atomised and made more amenable to offshoring. The consequences of inviting the employer to occupy the employee's home rent free has not been considered.

[JohnL]

Dogkennelhillbilly Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> "It?s no coincidence office blocks take

> inspiration from 19th century factories: they are

> intended to be sites of surveillance and

> control..."

>

> Only Novara would print this tosh.

>

> Odd that a socialist would be so keen to see the

> workforce atomised and made more amenable to

> offshoring. The consequences of inviting the

> employer to occupy the employee's home rent free

> has not been considered.

You should get a small increase for WFH for bills. Also chairs and desks etc. should be claimable from expenses.

[JohnL]

Anyway the offshoring/globalisation battle was fought in the 1990s - no point in re-fighting it - the drivers are not WFH but cloud and TECH changes.

If you work in an office and your job can be offshored the office will close.

[rachp]

My old company would monitor how many times you came into the office and which floors you visited. If you didn't come in often enough or you didn't leave your own floor, it flagged up a review on whether your role could be off shored.

[JohnL]

rachp Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> My old company would monitor how many times you

> came into the office and which floors you visited.

> If you didn't come in often enough or you didn't

> leave your own floor, it flagged up a review on

> whether your role could be off shored.

But working in IT we are moving everything to the cloud so it doesn't matter whether you are in the office or at home - you get the same functionality

So everyone can be offshored - but I've had this for 30 years LOL

[rachp]

I guess it's because employers realise it's not as simple as where you work but who you are, cultural challenges etc. Many companies will go through this painful loop before realising that it's more complex than it first appears.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

"You should get a small increase for WFH for bills. Also chairs and desks etc. should be claimable from expenses"

You're gonna get a small short term increase for a desk and a big long term drop in salary.

[JohnL]

rachp Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I guess it's because employers realise it's not as

> simple as where you work but who you are, cultural

> challenges etc. Many companies will go through

> this painful loop before realising that it's more

> complex than it first appears.

After years of feeling threatened by offshoring (I used to have a big issue about it years ago) I got to accept it. We can only differentiate on what we can differentiate on :).

Tech changes and there's not much we can do to stop it - we used to have servers in the back room - then we moved them to centralised datacenters in the UK - now they are moving to the cloud.

[JohnL]

Dogkennelhillbilly Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> "You should get a small increase for WFH for

> bills. Also chairs and desks etc. should be

> claimable from expenses"

>

> You're gonna get a small short term increase for a

> desk and a big long term drop in salary.

Lots of vacancies for IT staff still - My job will go when we move fully to cloud anyway as I'm a legacy network guy so I'll move to help another firm migrate.

It took years and years to get IBM As/400s out.

[JohnL]

Dogkennelhillbilly Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> "You should get a small increase for WFH for

> bills. Also chairs and desks etc. should be

> claimable from expenses"

>

> You're gonna get a small short term increase for a

> desk and a big long term drop in salary.

I used to talk like that 20 years ago - you can't stand in the way of change as it's going to happen anyway.

And due to Britain being an open stable country with good connections jobs increased here when we expected an exodus.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

I'm not standing in change's way and I do think it's going to happen anyway. It's consistent with the casualisation and alienation of the workforce. I'm just surprised to see a socialist so chirpy about it.

[JohnL]

I'm not chirpy - I've just learnt to live with it and try and see the best.

I much prefer to be involved with opening new offices (and datacenters) to shutting them - but companies are always looking to save money. Hopefully the UK can generate new roles that differentiate themselves from those that are vulnerable.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

I wasn't talking about you. I have no idea about who you are or your political persuasion. I was talking about the person who wrote the article.