Ways things will change due to COVID-19

[coprolite]

It will become more apparent that the old and sick are a drain on resources and a program of compulsory state backed euthanasia will be introduced. 

There may also be negative impacts. 

[Jambomo]

16 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

I think we could also see many businesses realise that they do not need such a big office space and that they could easily increase remote working, and possibly see the benefits of it. Many folk would really benefit from being able to work from home when needed, such as those with childcare issues. Folk like me would like even a day a week out of the office. It just breaks up the monotony. Unfortunately this will take longer as far too many businesses are still stuck in victorian ways of working in terms of Mon-Fri 9-5, and there are too many moron managers around who can't handle it.

I think there is a good chance it may help get the odd work from home day as this shows its possible,  but if businesses are experiencing what we are at work, it may have the opposite effect.

The technology we have isn’t reliable enough for this to be a permanent thing or wide-scale so I don’t think you’d get many people scaling back their offices on the back of it. We get about 50% done of what we normally do. 

[Terry Singh]

26 minutes ago, Detournement said:

Given that a fair percentage of everyone's workday is talking about non work related topics or talking about doing work rather than actually doing it there is probably fat to cut. 

It's encouraged in many offices though, focus on stress, mental health etc, making sure people get away from their desks and switch off.  More reason to allow more WFH.  There's also the aspect of less cars on the road.

[throbber]

Less cars on the road, less carbon footprint, less congestion and millions less people wasting 2 + hours a day commuting to and from a desk that they can easily sit on at home to do their workload from.

Any disadvantages to letting everyone who can do it work from home?

[red23]

6 hours ago, Fullerene said:

I totally agree.  They also believe punctuality is the best indicator of performance.  Somebody who is never late is regarded as the hardest working even if nobody has a clue what work they actually do.

Agreed - i used to work in an office and the manager of the dept always wanted you there at 8.30. Most of the time i was but some days shit would happen and it'd be 8.32 or 8.33 by time i got to my desk. He'd come through and say "You're late.....again" I'd log in and bang straight on to the work at hand (which was traceable due to ticket closed etc) I'd rarely take the full lunch and never leave bang on 5pm

The boy i worked with however was early every day by 5/10 mins, he'd surf the net read all the morning news before going to speak to everyone in the office for a  catch up. Eventually by 11am he'd start to slowly have a look at some of the work that had come in in the morning. Would disappear for 2 hour lunches and leave at 5pm on the dot. Boss loved him to bits and said i need to learn from him.

Edited March 26, 2020 by red23

[The Moonster]

1 hour ago, DiegoDiego said:

My prediction is that we'll see an increase in idiots using the pandemic as a stick with which to beat capitalism and promote their tried and failed methods of governance.

Richard Branson literally wants to use your taxes to bail out his company about 3 weeks after paying out huge dividends to his shareholders. This pandemic has shown that capitalists are only capitalists as far as their profits go, everything else should be shared risk. I don't have to support communism to know that the capitalism we see is rigged.

34 minutes ago, Detournement said:

I was wondering about junkies. Will there be enough smack? Will they be able to hang about their usual haunts such as the back of shopping centres? 

Hopefully they start congregating in your garden, you horrible c**t. 

[Detournement]

2 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

 

Hopefully they start congregating in your garden, you horrible c**t. 

I live in a flat. No garden sadly. 

It was a genuine question. Junkies can't stay in so what are they going to do?

[Sergeant Wilson]

39 minutes ago, Detournement said:

Given that a fair percentage of everyone's workday is talking about non work related topics or talking about doing work rather than actually doing it there is probably fat to cut. 

It's the complaining I miss. There is no fun in discovering someone else's fūck up if you can't theatrically sigh, slap your forehead and mutter if no-one can see you do it.

[beefybake]

6 minutes ago, red23 said:

Agreed - i used to work in an office and the manager of the dept always wanted you there at 8.30. Most of the time i was but some days shit would happen and it'd be 8.32 or 8.33 by time i got to my desk. He'd come through and say "You're late.....again" I'd log in and bang straight on to the work at hand (which was traceable due to ticket closed etc) I'd rarely take the full lunch and never leave bang on 5pm

The boy i worked with however was early every day by 5/10 mins, he'd surf the net read all the morning news before going to speak to everyone in the office for a  catch up. Eventually by 11am he'd start to slowly have a look at some of the work that had come in in the morning. Would disappear for 2 hour lunches and leave at 5pm on the dot. Boss loved him to bits and said i need to learn from him.

And did you... ?

Edited March 26, 2020 by beefybake

[Guest JTS98]

6 minutes ago, throbber said:

Any disadvantages to letting everyone who can do it work from home?

There's an argument that people being around each other, chatting away idly about work stuff is good for innovation as it encourages people to share problems and ideas more naturally than they would sitting at home trying to think their way around something.

I've certainly seen evidence of this in my work where someone gets a good idea from a colleague or two people talk their way to a new idea when one of them wasn't even working on the issue in the first place. That would be lost to a degree as you'd remove those natural conversations.

[Jambomo]

9 minutes ago, MixuFixit said:

I'm able to log in and work remotely with minimal disruption, the technology exists. My work has a central server and we all log into virtual desktops so we don't even need to take physical computers home, provided we're willing to use our own. I'm more running into issues with IT blocking 3rd party stuff we're trying to use to supplement our remote desktops.

Sure, I’m not saying that nobody can do it, just not necessarily everyone. We can’t generalise across the world that offices and businesses can do X or Y because in many cases they cannot all do it. I was just using my work as an example as some of our systems can’t be accessed remotely, and we have issues in getting the server back up when it went down yesterday.

[The Moonster]

2 minutes ago, Detournement said:

I live in a flat. No garden sadly. 

It was a genuine question. Junkies can't stay in so what are they going to do?

Well hopefully they sit in your close out the rain then.

It was not a genuine question, you were sitting rubbing your hands at the thought of a few homeless drug addicts being either hassled by the police or snuffing it through withdrawal. 

Edited March 26, 2020 by The Moonster

[red23]

Just now, beefybake said:

And did you... ?

No because its moronic behaviour and i wanted to better myself and learn the trade best i could. There is nothing to learn from someone like that.

[Guest JTS98]

2 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

It's the complaining I miss. There is no fun in discovering someone else's fūck up if you can't theatrically sigh, slap your forehead and mutter if no-one can see you do it.

I actually did that today, including forehead slap while sitting alone in my flat.

Who could have done something that stupid? Let me check the old logs.

It was me. In October.

[Detournement]

23 minutes ago, MixuFixit said:

Eh? You think businesses will sack 90/100 staff then keep on 10 who somehow won't do this?

I don't think they will sack 90% of their staff. 

But huge layers of middle management have already been cleared out of many industries and the nature of capitalism requires constantly increased productivity. If offices are only as efficient as home working they will attempt to make offices more efficient.

[vikingTON]

 

1 hour ago, JTS98 said:

Wow.

Where to start with that?

That's only true if you mean in the sense that some people still use pencils and the goal remains to impart information, develop skills, and develop the ability to learn.

No, it's also true in the sense that pen and paper, final exam testing has been the primary means of measuring learning in the Scottish education sector since the 1880s: and the lecture method of teaching at further and higher education has barely change at all in its form since the 18th century.

Your belief that technology is going to magically transform the sector is laughable then.

[Guest JTS98]

14 minutes ago, virginton said:

 

No, it's also true in the sense that pen and paper, final exam testing has been the primary means of measuring learning in the Scottish education sector since the 1880s: and the lecture method of teaching at further and higher education has barely change at all in its form since the 18th century.

Your belief that technology is going to magically transform the sector is laughable then.

Aye, you've got your finger right on the pulse, right enough.

[Lambie's Pigeon Feed]

With the right people in charge there could be huge systemic change but it's arseholes in charge in most places so I see a return to normal sadly.

On a personal level I hope this means I can stop making up furniture deliveries as an excuse to work from home and just work from home 3 days a week. For that to be normalised is what I need, my organisation have all the right policies in place and say the right things but just now I cant just say 'I'm working from home tomorrow' and not have to provide a reason why.

I absolutely love it, time is the most valuable thing we have and working from home saves time travelling, you can get some chores done, nip to the supermarket at lunch, rip the heid right aff it, etc.

[alta-pete]

The wife manages a team in financial services. Was spitting feathers as the big bosses shouted with glee as to how they were essential key workers and how they all therefore had to be in the office. 

Tables turned Monday night, all were swiftly redeployed at home working on laptops.

Result? Productivity  has gone through the roof. 
 

Future result in my view? Almost certainly a cut in numbers, wfh becomes normal for (say) 2 or 3 days a week, office will become a hot desk arrangement, physical office downsizes by 50% or more and cost savings will be huge. Ergo bigger big boss bonuses nae doot 

[Sergeant Wilson]

9 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

I've been thinking on and off about how to control my employees if I ever decide to start hiring outside the family. I keep coming to the conclusion that I can either stress my tits off checking their login and logout details and counting their facebook usage or I can simply give them a list of tasks with agreed delivery dates, pay them a fixed salary and leave them to it. The latter sounds more and more like the right approach and I'm now coming round to the idea of hiring in the near future. Of course I need to be able to re-open my business first. 

Mind and tell us when you're recruiting.