Covid-19 Virus

My last London job my train season ticket was £3k per year, I used to drive to this particular station as it was a more direct route. That was a 20 minute drive and £7 per day for the car park, so another £1500 per year. I had a station within walking distance, but a season ticket to Waterloo was £4500 which took an hour, then I still had another 30 minutes on the tube, + the cost of the tube.

So either way you’re looking at about £5k per year and about 20 days of your 365 days a year on earth commuting (and that’s based on 10 months of the year to allow for holidays etc). 20 days of your life just commuting.

To actually earn that £5k before tax you’re actually looking at about circa £7k from your gross pay. 30% of the national average wage.

None of that is at all logical.

 

Yet when the rail industry begs for people to return and start using their trains, there's not a mention (from them) about reforming pricing and reducing costs:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58502589

 

When I had my first job after graduating, I was working near Maidenhead and I was quite envious of my mates who had jobs in London, particularly in the summer as of a nice evening they would be supping beers on the South Bank. However as I got older I realised how not going to London was a blessing. Before the pandemic, I would travel to London for business or trade shows about 5 times a year, I hated those few journeys.

 

I don't mind the daily commute, though I wouldn't say I miss it. Time to read a book or sleep. The trains from Leighton Buzzard were quite a good service though. When I lived in St Albans, they were awful.

What I really hated was when I commuted from St Albans to Watford by car. People behave like absolut c*nts when they are shut away in their little box in a way they never would face to face.

 

Park Street roundabout, that’s (literally) a hoot.

 

When I did jury service in St. Albans I went the opposite way, it looked horrific coming in to Watford, literally tailed back all the way to St A.

 

Yep, though even worse is Junction 6 of the M1 just along from there. Like a scene from Mad Max every day as ar$eholes would try and jump the queue and push in, often resulting in stand offs and textbook road rage.

 

You're right, £7k is a lot, .....and really eats into the extra £20k a year you earn on a "London salary" .
If you can get a London salary and then work from home, you are laughing all the way to the bank.

 

I used to be in London three or four days a week and found the trains from LB to Euston a bit of a bunfight. I live in Hockliffe now and use Harlington station instead when I go to London and it is much more pleasant. Also helps that there is a direct train from Harlington to Farringdon which is where I go.

 

That isn’t always the case. I earned more working for a company 10 minutes from my house than when I moved to work in London, it was just a better potential longer term opportunity for me at a better company.

 

Sure, OK. I never look at jobs in London anymore. Not just the cost of the commute but the whole battle to get in and out of London. Working in MK (well, home now really) I always felt the working day started when I got to the office and ended when I got back in the car, put my music on and drove home through country fields. Working in London I always felt that the working day started and ended at my front door. I could earn £50k more by working in London but will never consider it again. Work life balance too important but I appreciate I'm fortunate to be able to make that decision at 58.

 

Yes, fully agree with that. I actually like driving and listening to music, it’s difficult to count being pressed up against a stranger in a corridor next to a toilet as your own time.

 

So, so much about the way the workforce and society has evolved over the last 30 years defies logic. 'The Commute' and 'The Office' are both essential parts of the economy but they don't work for so many people. They are not essential for the workforce, families or individuals and their sense of a rewarding life – or even for many companies, either – but they exist to generate income for shareholders and landlords.

The move to push the population to live further and further from work, ramp up train fares, squeeze and gouge wherever possible has been a long business. Peak time tickets, season tickets and a whole raft of complex formulae that ensure the highest possible prices while maintaining an illusion of choice and flexibility. Funnel everyone past a Pret and co where it's now normal to spend £3 on a cup of hot milk and almost a fiver on half a wrap.

The 'imaginative' alternative was to build out-of-town office parks that can accommodate 2,000 workers but only 500 cars.

Then gradually normalise the abnormal. See the newspaper features with Stephen and Sarah who moved to Northamptonshire and get sooooo much work done on their four-hour-per-day train commute. Excellent. Money for the train company, car park operator, commercial landlords and extra 'free' work out of Stephen and Sarah while they're travelling. Multiply by thousands and it's a lucrative old business.

Britain has a political and business class that worships productivity (for which read profit) which makes it quite strange that it is tolerated that so many hours are lost to traffic jams and poor train services. The reason for this, of course, is that it's not 'their' time that's being frittered away, it's 'our' time.

And as @UEA_Hornet says, now that many people have had a glimpse of how things could actually be different, and better, the train companies, the people who own the commercial space, and the inflexible soon-to-be-doomed employees are just desperate for it all to get back to normal because normal worked for them.

 

And... reading @Clive_ofthe_Kremlin on his thread about the caring profession is an absolute classic example of how the workforce doesn't work for the majority. The chief exec will have a company car and mileage paid, I expect. If what Clive says is right, the workers not only have to provide their own car but don't even get paid for travelling to and from some jobs. Extraordinary.

 

I think the loss of the 'learning by osmosis' benefit is probably one of the main issues militating against working from home becoming the dominant trend in many sectors.

 

Did he slip with the scissors resulting in rivers of blood?

 

Err, never had the pleasure of being close to a 'toffs' trip out'?

 

That's a very good point but it's clear that the workforce is going to look very, very different in 10 years' time, let alone 20. As a society, we're fairly poor at imagining what the future will actually be like. We tend to cling to the way things have always been done until the shock moment when it becomes unviable.

For example, automation is going to have a bigger impact on working life than all the other disrupters put together (Brexit, Covid, climate change etc) but there seems to be relatively little planning for that.

There's not many people in charge of things who seem to demonstrate the vision to address the question of what work is actually for and how should it operate in the future. We've transitioned from a manufacturing base to a service base, replacing jobs in factories and mines with jobs in offices and call centres. And that's the extent of the imagination involved.

Take the current labour crisis in the HGV sector. Clearly in 50 years (perhaps only in 20 years?) we are not going to be driving things around in diesel-powered lorries. There's simply going to have to be a better, more sustainable way. But what is that way?

How are we going to create meaningful, rewarding employment for people? How are we going to transition to the inevitable four-day week (possibly even three days) without impoverishing huge numbers of people?

People scoff and take the mickey out of young people who want to be YouTubers or work in other branches of sport or entertainment but clearly there is going to have to be far more economic activity in leisure-style industries for a country with an over-ripe economy and an ageing population. What's the alternative because the Amazon-style warehouses will only need a handful of people to keep the robots charged up.

 

And they tried to hide how shyte it was by calling it 'Babycham'!

 

I typed that first but it didn't look right. Soz.

 

But the inherent sentient condition is to learn by copying the example of others and I think that can be forgotten in all the talk about being 'more productive from home'. That is certainly true for those already well-grounded in whatever their metier may be, but it is not so true for those less experienced. For the last 30 years of my working life I was officially 'based at home' and travelled extensively across Europe, visiting other branches and their customers. In every branch I visited, the feedback was that the local sales teams learnt a considerable amount from working in the same open-plan office with me as specific topics were addressed. Too drastic a move to WFH would undermine that, at least in certain sectors.

And I thought the drivers were the robots?

 

I thought you were making a qualitative statement!

 

That really is the short of it.

We all just went along with things previously because that was how things were. Some of us questioned it, but most of us were content to go along with it.

We've all now been given proof of how things could be, and for most of us its better. We're not going back to the office at this point - it's another seismic change, because most people are now used to working remotely, so going back into the office on a regular basis is an enormous adjustment.

I've been back in the office for 3 days a week since July of last year, but even the March - June period that we were working remotely was enough for people to see exactly how pointless going into the office is most of the time. Burning two hours of your own time for no net gain to either you or your employer is just completely pointless.

 

What was very interesting to read earlier in this thread (or was it in another one?) was how some people who have been told to return to the office have quietly withdrawn the additional free labour that had become commonplace before lockdown, such as working on the train, answering emails in the evening or at weekends or just ticking off a bit of work at home to catch up on what couldn't be done in the office.

It will all sort itself out over time because we have an economy that is so utterly driven by market forces that the market genuinely will decide. Some people and professions will adopt better, more flexible ways of conducting their business, recognising that content employees are good employees. Companies that are not flexible will lose some good people who are determined to seek out working arrangements that work best for them.

Of course, companies or lines of work that demand attendance at certain times or simply cannot be done remotely will face greater challenges as our workforce continues to shrink over time. Wages in those sectors will simply have to rise and perhaps then we'll get a more honest reflection of how a capitalist workforce should operate.

I've long thought how perverse it is the way things have gone over the past 20-30 years. In some (not all) desirable professions young people are told wages are lower than they used to be and hours are long because there's a queue of people just waiting for the opportunity to do the job. And then in many poor quality jobs wages are low because, well, they are poor quality jobs. Amazing, really. Some employers will find a way to pay you less and work you more one way or the other.

 

Bingo. Just today I was chatting with another senior colleague who has basically gone on a quiet work to rule. No more favours, unpaid overtime, worked through lunch breaks, research at the weekend etc etc.

I've had no issues helping out with technical issues during weekends and holidays up to now, just trying to be professional in my role, nothing more. No backside licking or promotion chasing, simply not my thing.
That's now dead.

 

It will be interesting to see the difference in productivity between home workers and office workers in future. Performance based wages may be the the thing that decides the matter in the long term. If people are genuinely getting more done working at home, along with the reduction in overheads, then it is difficult to see why businesses would want them in the office, and absolutely certain that they will see the opportunities in "empowering" staff in such a way.

Home workers, in my opinion, will likely start arguing themselves out of the best jobs, or resigning themselves to lower paid second class work. Almost certainly, in the long run, businesses will look at home workers the same way they are doing with delivery drivers (as self employed owners of the assets they utilise), and soon enough home workers will find themselves bidding against each other (I'll do it for less) to reduce their charges/wages in order to get the easier and better work.

It is an oppressive 19th century employment strategy, the very worst of unfettered capitalism, that required the formation of the trade unions to break. Royal Mail attempted to bring in something parallel in scope two decades ago but the Union chased them off.

Just like seggregation in the US, the establishment are persuading those who will be most adversely affected by it (make no mistake, people will be expected to accept cutbacks for the benefit of home working, pay will become performance based, and people will be expected to compete with each other to do it) that it is exactly what they need.

See Emile Zola for reference.

Personally, I would like to see smaller, more ecologically designed local offices where people choose not to commute long distances (home in 15 minutes) and where socialising is facilitated, helping local commerce and encouraging outward looking lifestyles. People could spend more time with their families, would be able to pop out from work to pick up the kids or react to emergencies, and be home sooner to be with their families. They would also have better opportunities to unionise in order to deal with bosses who try to take advantage of them.

 

I don’t think it’s likely that homeworking will have such a downward effect on wages. For a start, it was already here in many telephone or web based industries and those areas have pretty clear ways of measuring productivity.

In the public sector there are pretty clear rules about pay and parity. What may happen is that employers try to eat into what they think workers are saving in commuting. However, apart from front line health workers, most public sector staff are already facing years of zero pay increases, so anything further would be strongly resisted. In future, roles that require attendance may receiving a weighting which in effect would be achieved by depressing the other a little. But then you would have to compensate when homeworkers were required to attend.

People are not going to pay to go to hubs when they can work perfectly well at home. There’s no benefit for staff or employer. They mostly wouldn’t even go if they were free.

Fact is, there are dodges at home and in the office. At home my working time is fluid. I often take a longer lunch and exercise. In the office I was surprised to realise just how much time I spent chatting. Not all of that is unproductive of course.

Many employers will reduce pay and terms and conditions if they can. If there are enough unemployed people who can replace staff, they may get away with it. What stops it? Unionisation, workers rights or professionalisation. The threat, zero hours contracts, is already there.

 

My sister in law works for a software company and even pre-covid they gave new employees the option of being home or office based, with the home based workers earning slightly less, most still opted to work from home on slightly lower pay. Post Covid they’re now getting rid of their office all together.

 

You've just described the Japanese labour model.

 

Good. They’re almost completely pointless. They don’t stop people with Covid getting in to events and spreading the virus. They’re left to private businesses to check/police. And they’re unlikely to convince sufficient numbers of unvaccinated people to ge the jab to be worth the inconvenience to the rest of us.

 

Was anyone checked yesterday? Nobody checked me or my son and I didn't see anyone doing checks.

May be the club had already got word that the whole vaccine passport idea was being binned?