Covid-19 rant thread

not being allowed to cancel any leave while “working from home”.

What? That's bullshit.

Meh, like I say, my situation could be far, far worse so I’m inclined to let it slide.

The management have been asking us to call them if we are sick though. Like, if it’s the ‘rona then I get it but I’m not gonna fone up and be like “oh my back’s gone again, I won’t be able to make it to sitting on the couch doing fuck all for the next couple days”!

Just because other people have it worse doesn't make you arguing about your situation any less worthwhile. Can they legal force you to take leave? Our company is actually extending the period in which you can claim leave since loads of people have had to cancel leave they're extending the "year" by 6 months.

Waders have no place in life, either get a boat or a fishing rod.

I work for the NHS and we're being redeployed, not enough PPE locally, faceless people in strategic positions who have no clinical experience just with spreadsheets , loads of work to do and then some individuals / organisations keep sending FOI requests for information that takes ages to collate when i've got loads of other things to be doing .....
at least i've got a job though i suppose

Just because other people have it worse doesn't make you arguing about your situation any less worthwhile. Can they legal force you to take leave?

Not sure on the legal situation. What I do know though is that we are unionised enough and have enough people who like to argue about anything and everything that if there is something can be done, it will be done.

Sweet. That frees you up to argue abuot something else. :)

I’m trying to become less argumentative.

It’s difficult.

I’m trying to become less argumentative.

It’s difficult.

No it's not.

/s

You could always get hippy to help you with that. :)

God
That's awful.
Stay well and strong.

Wife been laid off due to down turn caused by covid :(
we are both now looking for work after moving to new flat 5 months ago with 18month break clause (we were confident with work then). Not a great time to to job hunting. Fuck you covid.

Similar position.
My rant is more at the company though. I asked for the direct to rehire/furlough scheme as endorsed by the government after working there for eight years expecting at least a smidgen of support. Their reply, a condescending tonal nightmare (unless I'm misreading it). I don't think they even read about the scheme, as they go on about business support, not support for actual human beings.

An Extract :

At COMPANY we are currently experiencing a high demand for our products and our sales continue to grow week on week. This is great for us as a business and means that we can continue to operate as normal for our staff, our customers and our supplier. We feel that we are currently not in a position where we will be seeking the support of the various government initiatives, grants or loans.

Your request for an extension or further support is something that we will not be supporting.

That's really shit. From reading that I get "yeah we're doing great but no we won't be helping you"

Do you have an HR dep you can talk too?

We've been taking the kids out on the bikes to a local park/woodland area that we're lucky enough to have nearby. We go early when there's less people around and so far it's seemed like a pretty good way of getting them outside and running around, while keeping away from people: the only people we do see are dog walkers. No one has their dog on a lead so we're frequently getting dogs coming up to us to say hello. We're a pretty dog-friendly family and the girls are good with them (not afraid, but wary until introduced), so I'd not really thought about this until yesterday: Isn't that really fucking irresponsible of the owners?

It kind of completely undermines all this social distancing if they're touching their dog, then the dog bounds over and touches us right? I'm going to start politely asking owners to keep their dogs away now, but as I've yet to see anyone keeping their dog on a lead, I can't help feeling like the only option open to me to avoid this, is just to not go there now :-/

Photographer mate just texted me this
"Guy I know at Getty has been out shooting people sun bathing, and he’s had four arguments explaining to people a.) it’s public space b.) it’s to shame arseholes for news"

Sounds a lot like non-essential work.

Ha! Well... true. You could argue that what he's photographing has a purpose: to educate and inform, so people don't do it in future.

Having said that, I've seen fucking loads of 'empty London' photos recently... getting boring and definitely not essential. Unless it's done on your hour's exercise, which it clearly isn't.

I thought no rule against non-essential work, only that you wfh if you can and you maintain social distancing if you can't wfh.

Bottom feeders suppling the ring wing press with stories which don’t involve how utterly shit our government have been. But, yeah, look at the sun bathers! It’s all their fucking fault, the fucks!

That. Bonus points for using a tele lens that makes it look like everything is super crowded even when it isn't.

Due to further cost cutting measures at our company, they're going to be shutting the city centre office & moving us out of town at the end of the year, something we fought (& won) against for months before.

Infuriating, & depressing. Nearly everyone gets the train into the office - that's not an option with the out of town one - & it's a horrible, dangerous cycle. Fully expecting an exodus across the team now, which is a shame as it's a great place to work. Just hope they'll properly consider fuller-time WFH now.

Fuck this can bring out the worst selfish side of people.

My parents in law and brother in law both live in tier 4 areas. They are all intelligent sensible people but today parents in law told my partner they are planning on driving to drive to see their son and his kids. They did similar at the beginning of lockdown 1.0. It’s selfish, against the rules and exactly the kind of behaviour which pisses my wife and me off. Plus it leaves my wife feeling like their desire to see the grandkids over rides their thoughts about how it makes my wife feel that they’ll take this short term risk over the long term of living longer and that somehow the grandkids on that side are more important, and my wife is less of a priority.

It’s not like my family are perfect either.

Prior to the recent changes the plan had been for my wife and I to visit my dad for Christmas lunch. Two days later parents in law were to visit us (this got fucked when they moved to tier four yesterday). All of these plans were predicated on us, my dad and parents in law effectively isolating for the two weeks prior to Xmas so we didn’t infect my dad (or vice versa) so it would also be we should be clear and parents in law clear after Christmas.

Then we were told my little sister was planning on seeing my dad for lunch on Christmas Eve and were disappointed and frustrated that this risk had been added to the equation. However we were told on Friday by little sister that she and her family were practically isolating and had been since over a week ago when her kids broke up for the holiday. My sister is the most risk averse person and has been a ridiculous stickler for isolating.

This evening little sister announced she has COVID, so even when she was telling us on Friday about how precautious she had been, she was suspicious enough of the cough she didn’t tell us about to book a test.