Coronavirus

[Kenny]

I kind of understand it where she works. They are a security printer (stamps for various countries and everything you see for Royal Mail). So they can't just move stuff to home office. I think she could do a split though. She does need to be on site at times, as she is charge of the facilities, security and purchasing so has to have some interaction with the factory workers and security team

 

[Dublin Drummer Wolf]

The Government here has decided not to move forward with the next Phase due to the spike in new cases and the R rate climbing above 1.

That means pubs and nightclubs wont be re-opening next week. Also, public gatherings were due to be expanded from next week, thats been shelved too, so the limit of 50 remains in place, meaning many weddings have been affected.

 

[Derby Wolf]

My employer is going back to normal, we were instructed that we could have 16 customers into our Convenience store. We've ignored this and gone from 3 max pre-July 4th to 6 now. We have three aisles each no more than 12-14 feet long and about a metre across. 16 is fucking bonkers. Perennially policing people's distancing so many people have taken a relaxation as cessation.

 

[lemonjelly]

I said not long ago it seems like a fair few stores that have been open a while have slacked off with their diligence. I know the asda near me has virtually ceased asking people to queue, and have pretty much stopped counting the numbers who are in the store. I know more than one person who has challenged their security about it.

My employer is (i think) arranging some zoom chats and collecting data on staffs views on returning to work on site. That will be interesting.

As kenny says, the government are now shifting the matter onto employers, which will merely create tensions between employers and unions, meaning there will be continued divisions within society, and bickering, when this government is basically absolving itself of any responsibility.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

Shifting it to individual companies to make the call on home working or repopulating offices is going to come almost exclusively down to money.

In a lot of cases changes in productivity will have been fairly negligible so it'll come down to other factors. Can they save a fortune by ending leases on expensive city centre offices? Or for others do they currently have commitments to buildings they own outright that aren't being utilised?

No chance we embrace home working long term here, the company is fairly old fashioned at the best of times but they own the building and land outright so there's no benefit to be had there, it's hardly prime real estate that's going to easy/worthwhile shifting if you went that far down the line with it. I'm glad of that to be honest, office slowly getting a bit busier in recent weeks, somethings haven't been a problem working remotely but plenty of other stuff that just doesn't work very well at all, much easier to collaborate when everyone is under one roof.

 

[Dublin Drummer Wolf]

Shifting it to individual companies to make the call on home working or repopulating offices is going to come almost exclusively down to money.

In a lot of cases changes in productivity will have been fairly negligible so it'll come down to other factors. Can they save a fortune by ending leases on expensive city centre offices? Or for others do they currently have commitments to buildings they own outright that aren't being utilised?

No chance we embrace home working long term here, the company is fairly old fashioned at the best of times but they own the building and land outright so there's no benefit to be had there, it's hardly prime real estate that's going to easy/worthwhile shifting if you went that far down the line with it. I'm glad of that to be honest, office slowly getting a bit busier in recent weeks, somethings haven't been a problem working remotely but plenty of other stuff that just doesn't work very well at all, much easier to collaborate when everyone is under one roof.

It's the opposite for me and my wife.

We've been told we will be WFH for at least the rest of the year, and for me, it could be permanent. Have mixed feelings about it - yes it's great getting up a bit later, and not having to travel in to the office, but I feel like Im at home all the time and the days/weeks are just melting into one big lazy haze that I feel is a bit of a waste.

 

[lemonjelly]

Various parts of Spain are also seeing increasing numbers of cases apparently.

Irelands decision to not move to the next phase could be quite prescient.

 

[Dennisons Wrong Foot]

Some here have been told they will be working from home for at least 12 more months, with mixed feelings just like everywhere else. There is much more tension as regards schools reopening (or not). trump wants it, most parents want it, but teachers very worried so a lot of early retirements.

 

[Newbridge Wolf]

I'm back at work but not really been in the office other than to pick up some bits and bobs.

Just before I came back the bham office had a push to get people back in the office but that was mainly down to the site guys moaning about office staff being allowed to work from home, shock horror site guys moaning at the office staff.

My desk is in the bham office at the business park, thats one shit commute so I've always tried to work at least one day from home, I can work pretty effectively remotely but I do benefit from working in an office, not just work wise but social interaction.

My next couple of projects are for the Cardiff office so will be popping down there once or twice a week I expect.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Been back in the factory for three weeks now. Appropriate social distancing rules are in place but they aren’t overly practical as we are almost out of space because a few of the clients sites are closed and we are knee deep in product to send them. Good thing is loads of people already wear masks because of the concrete dust.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

I'm back at work but not really been in the office other than to pick up some bits and bobs.

Just before I came back the bham office had a push to get people back in the office but that was mainly down to the site guys moaning about office staff being allowed to work from home, shock horror site guys moaning at the office staff.

My desk is in the bham office at the business park, thats one shit commute so I've always tried to work at least one day from home, I can work pretty effectively remotely but I do benefit from working in an office, not just work wise but social interaction.

My next couple of projects are for the Cardiff office so will be popping down there once or twice a week I expect.

I was spending more time on site at the start of lockdown, didn't have any tenders in at the time plus here was a big push to improve our none existant record keeping and keep clients informed of problems we were encountering. I did feel for the site lads to be fair, their jobs got a lot harder whilst a lot of office roles did get easier and they got the perk of sitting at home in the garden enjoying the nice weather. Think all but one of our sites stayed open throughout, so they had their normal jobs to contend with plus a bunch of new site rules to enforce, stacks of new complaints from nervous subbies and management above them wanting extra reports and meetings all the time. Their workload went through the roof and they were expected to keep putting themselves out there with this virus about but other people were allowed to hide away from it at home with a reduced workload.

Just finished my first lockdown tender, well got Monday to make a few changes and then submit, and I think everyone involved would agree it hasn't gone as well as usual. Not a disaster by any means but found there's a lot more one on one conversations because it's all over the phone rather than people getting together in the office so people get left out on certain decisions or bits of information without realising. There's definitely been minor drop offs in efficiency everywhere, communication, interaction, general output, in isolation not massive issues but combined it's made things much more difficult.

I was hoping it would be my only lockdown tender as more people are returning to the office, at least part of the time, but got told yesterday that there's already something else planned to come in next week. Thankfully it's something that we've cost planned 3-4 times already in recent years so as long as it's not changed massively everyone should have a decent handle on it already.

 

[Tredman]

I was spending more time on site at the start of lockdown, didn't have any tenders in at the time plus here was a big push to improve our none existant record keeping and keep clients informed of problems we were encountering. I did feel for the site lads to be fair, their jobs got a lot harder whilst a lot of office roles did get easier and they got the perk of sitting at home in the garden enjoying the nice weather. Think all but one of our sites stayed open throughout, so they had their normal jobs to contend with plus a bunch of new site rules to enforce, stacks of new complaints from nervous subbies and management above them wanting extra reports and meetings all the time. Their workload went through the roof and they were expected to keep putting themselves out there with this virus about but other people were allowed to hide away from it at home with a reduced workload.

Just finished my first lockdown tender, well got Monday to make a few changes and then submit, and I think everyone involved would agree it hasn't gone as well as usual. Not a disaster by any means but found there's a lot more one on one conversations because it's all over the phone rather than people getting together in the office so people get left out on certain decisions or bits of information without realising. There's definitely been minor drop offs in efficiency everywhere, communication, interaction, general output, in isolation not massive issues but combined it's made things much more difficult.

I was hoping it would be my only lockdown tender as more people are returning to the office, at least part of the time, but got told yesterday that there's already something else planned to come in next week. Thankfully it's something that we've cost planned 3-4 times already in recent years so as long as it's not changed massively everyone should have a decent handle on it already.

Tenders and stuff should be quite easy to collaborate remotely on though - especially if you can put the docs in the cloud and edit them together at the same time. To be fair to Microsoft, Teams is superb at enabling collaboration on documents in real time.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

Tenders and stuff should be quite easy to collaborate remotely on though - especially if you can put the docs in the cloud and edit them together at the same time. To be fair to Microsoft, Teams is superb at enabling collaboration on documents in real time.

It's not the actual output that the end, there aren't many documents require multiple parties to contribute but everything gets saved to the server and is accessible to all anyway, whether in the office or at home.

It's the general day to day stuff that suffers, I might go ask someone a question about something I've spotted on a drawing, someone else completely unrelated to the project might pass by and join the conversation adding their own experience/advice. As good as teams has been in replacing a lot of previous face to face interaction it'll never have those adhoc moments, sure you can add other people in you feel might have something relevant to say but that's not always where the best ideas come from.

It's been fine for concluding stuff or meetings with clear purpose but for the more open ended day to day stuff it'll never replace the day to day interaction of people milling around the office.

 

[Tredman]

It's not the actual output that the end, there aren't many documents require multiple parties to contribute but everything gets saved to the server and is accessible to all anyway, whether in the office or at home.

It's the general day to day stuff that suffers, I might go ask someone a question about something I've spotted on a drawing, someone else completely unrelated to the project might pass by and join the conversation adding their own experience/advice. As good as teams has been in replacing a lot of previous face to face interaction it'll never have those adhoc moments, sure you can add other people in you feel might have something relevant to say but that's not always where the best ideas come from.

It's been fine for concluding stuff or meetings with clear purpose but for the more open ended day to day stuff it'll never replace the day to day interaction of people milling around the office.

Perhaps I’m lucky in being a miserable git when working - I enjoy not being interrupted all the time by people unable to do their own research. Much easier to respond to a chat message quickly and efficiently than get involved in discussion about ‘why’.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

Perhaps I’m lucky in being a miserable git when working - I enjoy not being interrupted all the time by people unable to do their own research. Much easier to respond to a chat message quickly and efficiently than get involved in discussion about ‘why’.

I just like the wider collaboration that isn't possible on teams. There might be 4-5 people devoted to working on a particular tender and you'd perhaps at times ask more senior colleagues for bits of advice on certain issues and it's easy enough to involve all those through teams. There's no way that can ever replace the 50-60 other experienced people milling around the office that might pop in to talk about something else or overhear something of interest and chip in with some valuable advice.

 

[BillyDee]

UK daily death toll will no longer be released because of inaccuracies...

 

[Newbridge Wolf]

Marks right, at least in our industry, working in the office you get a lot of shared information. Knowledge management isn't something we as an industry are good at and there's been many times a golden nugget of info has come from a chance overheard conversation. I had to phone up 6 people yesterday to see if anyone had a relationship with a company, I could have just turned round and shouted it out.

Its also lot harder to organise subbies to attend teams meetings and rely on their home tech, also there's been a slimming down of teams and we struggle to get their time

I understand that sites have had to adapt and it hasn't been easy at all, subbies and resources have been all over the shop. Some subbies shut up shop straight away, whilst others stopped later on.

My complaint was more to do with the fact that whilst we are working from home, unless we can somehow build a building in everyones home then its just ridiculous tit for tat jealousy that you always get between office and site.

Oh and Mark, expect it to get real busy in the next month or so, I think theres a log jam at the moment and we will be ridiculously busy towards the end of the year with jobs that were paused and new projects coming in, Ive also just had another couple of offices in the south included in my remit. Still busier the better after the last couple of months

 

[lemonjelly]

UK daily death toll will no longer be released because of inaccuracies...

this news, and hancocks announcement yesterday is just preparing the ground for re-writing history.
they will announce a new covid death toll and argue that in fact they did brilliantly in managing the pandemic as part of their review.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

Marks right, at least in our industry, working in the office you get a lot of shared information. Knowledge management isn't something we as an industry are good at and there's been many times a golden nugget of info has come from a chance overheard conversation. I had to phone up 6 people yesterday to see if anyone had a relationship with a company, I could have just turned round and shouted it out.

Its also lot harder to organise subbies to attend teams meetings and rely on their home tech, also there's been a slimming down of teams and we struggle to get their time

I understand that sites have had to adapt and it hasn't been easy at all, subbies and resources have been all over the shop. Some subbies shut up shop straight away, whilst others stopped later on.

My complaint was more to do with the fact that whilst we are working from home, unless we can somehow build a building in everyones home then its just ridiculous tit for tat jealousy that you always get between office and site.

Oh and Mark, expect it to get real busy in the next month or so, I think theres a log jam at the moment and we will be ridiculously busy towards the end of the year with jobs that were paused and new projects coming in, Ive also just had another couple of offices in the south included in my remit. Still busier the better after the last couple of months

Definitely been more of a pain getting coordinated quotes in from subbies with a lot of them working remotely too. You'll get prices submitted but little information from the production side so you end up phoning round a bunch of people to try and make sure they've included everything, got enough resource to do it the way you want and actually understand how it all goes together. Usually not an issue when they're all sat within earth shot and can do it in one hit but now only takes one guy being a bit of an arse not answering the call and you've got a gap. Had a pain trying to get info from pilers on this job because the mix of vibro and driven being handled by different blokes and it's been impossible to get them both together or talk to each other to give me one consolidated response.

Been a bit of a pain for us preconstruction wise as we had a pretty busy but successful year or so until lockdown hit, got some good projects lined up and would've been enough to occupy the site staff from jobs which are coming to an end. The two biggest secured jobs have gone back 12 months though so now we're back into a super competitive market that we were hoping to avoid looking for some filled for a couple of site teams.

 

[darlowolf64]

this news, and hancocks announcement yesterday is just preparing the ground for re-writing history.
they will announce a new covid death toll and argue that in fact they did brilliantly in managing the pandemic as part of their review.

and the idiots who continually vote for them will lap it up...