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What will you miss about Coronavirus?


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15 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

Why didn't they hire more staff? They clearly need to and can afford to.

They absolutely can afford to and money isn't the issue. We've only in the last week or so brought in an extra head for the UK. The double edged sword though is that any new staff who come in, as there are only 3 established folk left in what was formerly a team of 8, the training falls on us. Even our team leader, who seems very competent, is new to the role and is still learning.

The problem was that in the summer, there was so many folk leaving already established roles for a variety of reasons and they had to replace them first, so we've been working short bodied on top of everything and they had to fill jobs that were already there before deciding if they needed to add to the head count.

On top of my own job, I've also had to cover several other countries that I'm unfamiliar with like Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic and train new starts coming in.  Training is fine in an office environment but it's fucking torture doing it remotely, especially as the job we do is so high intensity, thinking on your toes all day and learning a lot of different systems and tools. We're onto our 3rd person in that particular role since March and it's a big time investment to get someone up to speed. It's seriously fucking horrible putting 30 hours of training into someone remotely and they decide after 8 weeks that the job's not for them and you end up back at square one knowing you need to do it all again.

If we get a settled bunch of folk in, it will make things a lot easier but sometimes it's hard to just throw bodies at it when the folk expected to train them barely have enough hours in the day to clear their own feet.

 

Edited by djchapsticks
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This is me. 
I fully appreciate that Covid has been an absolute hell for some folks MH. 
However, it's allowed me to avoid in laws 50th anniversary get together, a family wedding, going into the office and best of all - just me, Mrs and kids for Christmas.
Quite frankly, I've had a good lock down. 
I'm hoping that it stops Christmas for the same reason.
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Just now, MixuFruit said:

Sounds intense but rewarding. Or it'll mebbe feel that way in a years time haha

It should be in the long run. I've already told them at the other end of all this pish, I'm taking 3 and a half weeks and going to the Florida Keys and they better not hum and haw over if they can give me nearly a month off.:lol:

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56 minutes ago, djchapsticks said:

I envy those who have used it as an extended break and skive from work whilst still getting paid, I truly do.

As I'm working directly in the credit management and collection of invoices directly linked to the supply of covid kits and testing machines to both the Government and their associated lighthouse labs, not to mention private third party companies who have taken on Government overspill and vaccine developers like Johnson&Johnson, Oxford Uni, LumiraDX and GSK, my own workload has literally trebled in the last 9 months. I'd love a day of sitting waiting on work to come my way...I've never had work to seek even in the best of times but it has become a fucking pile on since Covid as everyone wants more and more.

I'll miss being in the comfort of my own home to work, I don't like getting up and dragging myself into the office and I'm genuinely more productive in my own environment, but I certainly won't miss the constant stress, supplier demands, sales demands and pleading for higher lines of credit that comes with this pandemic. My partner tells me regularly she's concerned about me as she can see I'm mentally fried. Any time I do take off, it just leaves a big fucking bottle neck at the other side. This has always been the case when taking 2 and a half weeks but we're now talking having to play catch up after taking 2 days off.

Yet like you, my job is as safe as houses. Proven to be completely pandemic proof. Blessing and a curse.

Hope things get back to some kind of balance for you soon, I have just finished 40 weeks of pretty much flat out Covid work in the office and this is my first week working from home. Quite an odd experience especially when everyone else is so used to it and combined with starting a new job I feel quite lost.

On the upside I have a job and will be saving a fortune in petrol and dry-cleaning bills

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Radio Scotland announced the results of a poll this morning about home-working.

Only 7% of respondents want  to work from the office when things get back to 'normal'. :lol:

My work have already  taken the opportunity to close 12 offices across the country - they sent out a staff survey on homeworking recently - maybe more office closures?

Of course, the c***s will keep the flagship Edinburgh office open. :(

 

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10 hours ago, djchapsticks said:

I'll miss being in the comfort of my own home to work, I don't like getting up and dragging myself into the office and I'm genuinely more productive in my own environment, but I certainly won't miss the constant stress, supplier demands, sales demands and pleading for higher lines of credit that comes with this pandemic. My partner tells me regularly she's concerned about me as she can see I'm mentally fried. Any time I do take off, it just leaves a big fucking bottle neck at the other side. This has always been the case when taking 2 and a half weeks but we're now talking having to play catch up after taking 2 days off.

Yet like you, my job is as safe as houses. Proven to be completely pandemic proof. Blessing and a curse.

I don't envy the folk on furlough, I'm pissed off that they didn't freeze the markets and give me some time off...

Most of the above is applicable to me, albeit in slightly different settings as far as the work goes. I've generally managed my workload in here very well(As my posting pattern on here will attest) but the last few years have been hellish at times. Used to be we would get hammered with work May to August and the rest of the year would be relatively quiet, and I didn't mind 60+ hours a week then as the 35-40 hours the rest of the year was a piece of piss, but I reckon since the start of this year I have done at least a couple of 12-14 hour shifts every week and I am currently on a run of 7:30am to 9:30pm shifts going back to the start of last week so far, with no sign of it letting up.

My boss actually asked why it was so bad recently, he pulled some stats showing the number of events we are working on has only gone up just under 30% year on year. It doesn't sound much, but when I asked him to check the few years before that it turns out he can add a 0 on the end of that 30 and it's about how much my workload has increased. It was largely doable until the start of this year for a few reasons, but we have since lost a couple of experienced staff and the replacement for one of them was recently binned because he couldn't cope with the workload, which has left the rest of us getting shafted even more.

On the plus side, I have the last 2 weeks of the year off, and April of next year. Given the mess I had to clean up when I took a week off in August, I'm trying not to think about anything beyond the fact I  have time off coming up.

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10 hours ago, paranoid android said:

Radio Scotland announced the results of a poll this morning about home-working.

Only 7% of respondents want  to work from the office when things get back to 'normal'. :lol:

My work have already  taken the opportunity to close 12 offices across the country - they sent out a staff survey on homeworking recently - maybe more office closures?

Of course, the c***s will keep the flagship Edinburgh office open. :(

 

The wife has had her contract re-written (which she gladly signed) to say she is now a home-worker.  90% of her colleagues have done the same she said.  Think wfh will become the 'new normal 🤢'.

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I appear to work in a virtually pandemic-free sector, working right through. Only wfh part of the time. 

So, apart from the slightly easier drive to work, it's been all downside compared to the pre-pandemic era.

Can't wait for it to be over, but am also asking myself if I've lost some habits. I mean, do I really miss sitting in Douglas Park, freezing my arse off whilst watching Accies get pumped? Not really. 

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1 hour ago, Ross. said:

I don't envy the folk on furlough, I'm pissed off that they didn't freeze the markets and give me some time off...

Most of the above is applicable to me, albeit in slightly different settings as far as the work goes. I've generally managed my workload in here very well(As my posting pattern on here will attest) but the last few years have been hellish at times. Used to be we would get hammered with work May to August and the rest of the year would be relatively quiet, and I didn't mind 60+ hours a week then as the 35-40 hours the rest of the year was a piece of piss, but I reckon since the start of this year I have done at least a couple of 12-14 hour shifts every week and I am currently on a run of 7:30am to 9:30pm shifts going back to the start of last week so far, with no sign of it letting up.

My boss actually asked why it was so bad recently, he pulled some stats showing the number of events we are working on has only gone up just under 30% year on year. It doesn't sound much, but when I asked him to check the few years before that it turns out he can add a 0 on the end of that 30 and it's about how much my workload has increased. It was largely doable until the start of this year for a few reasons, but we have since lost a couple of experienced staff and the replacement for one of them was recently binned because he couldn't cope with the workload, which has left the rest of us getting shafted even more.

On the plus side, I have the last 2 weeks of the year off, and April of next year. Given the mess I had to clean up when I took a week off in August, I'm trying not to think about anything beyond the fact I  have time off coming up.

I hope you're getting paid for all these extra hours. Used to have friends who earned a load doing crazy hours on a salary but when you worked out their hourly rate it was shite.

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14 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

I hope you're getting paid for all these extra hours. Used to have friends who earned a load doing crazy hours on a salary but when you worked out their hourly rate it was shite.

Salaried, so not seeing any real financial benefit at this point. End of year chat is due soon so will see what they say with regards to bonuses and pay rises. They have been incredibly generous to me in the past, which is the main reason I am putting up with this at the moment. Depending on how that goes, I'll take it from there. I could very easily walk into the same job with one of the majors and up my basic by 30-50%. Granted, it would mean this sort of workload permanently, but given this has now been going on for me since Brexit was voted for, I can't really say this isn't permanent now...

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1 hour ago, tamthebam said:

Something I did miss was the 3 months free parking I got between March and June.

I can actually walk to work but I quite enjoyed the small victory over Edinburgh Council's parking restrictions.

They raised £100k in parking tickets sold in that period as well.

Edited by 101
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