Also in the News - Part 2

[Izzy]

There no right/wrong answer here. Introverts who get their energy from within will prefer WFH, and extroverts who get their energy from those around them will prefer to be in the office.

 

Some jobs require you to be physically at the work place, and others don't. Some companies are forward thinking and some are archaic.  

 

Bottom line is most people are paid to perform and deliver results in some way, shape or form. How and where they do it will always differ.

 

If you don't like your job or the rules/working arrangements, look for something else that suits your needs.

[Foxdiamond]

8 minutes ago, Izzy said:

There no right/wrong answer here. Introverts who get their energy from within will prefer WFH, and extroverts who get their energy from those around them will prefer to be in the office.

 

Some jobs require you to be physically at the work place, and others don't. Some companies are forward thinking and some are archaic.  

 

Bottom line is most people are paid to perform and deliver results in some way, shape or form. How and where they do it will always differ.

 

If you don't like your job or the rules/working arrangements, look for something else that suits your needs.

Some good points made. Funnily enough I see myself as mainly introverted but preferred the company of colleagues. I think working from home in a customer service role rather isolating.

[leicsmac]

29 minutes ago, Izzy said:

There no right/wrong answer here. Introverts who get their energy from within will prefer WFH, and extroverts who get their energy from those around them will prefer to be in the office.

 

Some jobs require you to be physically at the work place, and others don't. Some companies are forward thinking and some are archaic.  

 

Bottom line is most people are paid to perform and deliver results in some way, shape or form. How and where they do it will always differ.

 

If you don't like your job or the rules/working arrangements, look for something else that suits your needs.

Exactly. And so workplaces need to be flexible enough to accommodate all of this for best productivity, if indeed that is what they really want.

[FoxesDeb]

38 minutes ago, Tommy G said:

Management doesn’t mean office staff does it? You’ve just made that up. Your post is really about you not wanting to interact with your peers more than the wfh benefits, apart from having a fag whilst on your laptop.

I'm confused, you think management don't work in offices? My management prior to covid all worked in the office, now we all wfh. They don't manage any less efficiently now we all wfh 

[Tommy G]

8 minutes ago, FoxesDeb said:

I'm confused, you think management don't work in offices? My management prior to covid all worked in the office, now we all wfh. They don't manage any less efficiently now we all wfh 

I meant  management don’t just work in the office. Nevermind - it was a throwaway comment about *in my opinion* I just don’t think wfh is effective for *the majority* of the U.K. workforce, millions of people. Which has led to advocates of WFH to justify how productive they are - OK fine with me. It’s not that deep! 
 

I wonder if John Rudkin works from home 5 days a week, reckon there would be an uproar 

[Finnegan]

4 minutes ago, Tommy G said:

I meant  management don’t just work in the office. Nevermind - it was a throwaway comment about *in my opinion* I just don’t think wfh is effective for *the majority* of the U.K. workforce, millions of people. Which has led to advocates of WFH to justify how productive they are - OK fine with me. It’s not that deep! 
 

I wonder if John Rudkin works from home 5 days a week, reckon there would be an uproar 

 

Sorry if I missed you stating this but is this anecdotal or is your opinion based on studies you've read? 

 

That's not a loaded question I'm honestly curious. 

[FoxesDeb]

15 minutes ago, Tommy G said:

I meant  management don’t just work in the office. Nevermind - it was a throwaway comment about *in my opinion* I just don’t think wfh is effective for *the majority* of the U.K. workforce, millions of people. Which has led to advocates of WFH to justify how productive they are - OK fine with me. It’s not that deep! 
 

I wonder if John Rudkin works from home 5 days a week, reckon there would be an uproar 

I'm not sure he works at all anymore does he?!

[Tommy G]

30 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

Sorry if I missed you stating this but is this anecdotal or is your opinion based on studies you've read? 

 

That's not a loaded question I'm honestly curious. 

It’s my opinion having worked in different environments and businesses for the last 15+ years. Working from effectively photocopying and making tea to now jointly looking after a multi national business that employs over 400 people. 
 

I’m not really fussed whether people agree, and I know I’m like marmite but I truly believe in myself and my ability to lead,  deliver and get results. I think everyone is entitled to that - being an opinion and to stand by it. 
 

 

[Tommy G]

26 minutes ago, FoxesDeb said:

I'm not sure he works at all anymore does he?!

I wish at 35 

[MPH]

So Elon Musks’s startup company Neuralink has began recruiting people for its first human trial. It plans to insert a small computer interface into the brain to communicate with computers. A robot will help implant a BCI ( brain computer interface)  that will let them control a computer cursor, or type, using thoughts alone. 
 

satirically:

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 20 September 2023 by MPH

[MPH]

But seriously,  I wouldn’t have a  a problem with this if it’s intention was indeed to help disabled people  I can’t help thinking it’s more about testing this on disabled people.. which feels a bit weird to me…

[dsr-burnley]

5 hours ago, Tommy G said:

It’s my opinion having worked in different environments and businesses for the last 15+ years. Working from effectively photocopying and making tea to now jointly looking after a multi national business that employs over 400 people. 
 

I’m not really fussed whether people agree, and I know I’m like marmite but I truly believe in myself and my ability to lead,  deliver and get results. I think everyone is entitled to that - being an opinion and to stand by it. 
 

 

I'm pretty sure that if your first job was photocopying and making tea, and you were doing it working from home, you'd never have got on to your second job!

 

That's a big problem with WFH. How do the trainees learn?  

 

I wonder how much the abysmal service by HMRC is to do with working from home?  I had a series of letters this week from HMRC about deregistering someone from VAT.

 

6th - a receipt for the July VAT return, submitted a day before the deadline.

8th - a letter asking for another form before they could deregister.

9th - confirmation that my application had been accepted.

11th -  confirmation that the deregistration was effective from April 2023.

13th - a penalty notice for not submitting the July VAT return.

 

This is about the standard of efficiency we have come to expect.  Of course, there may be other reasons why they are not currently fit for purpose.

 

(For another client, I wrote a letter to HMRC beginning "With reference to your letter of 4th August 2023 replying to my letter of 11th November 2021 ..."

Edited 21 September 2023 by dsr-burnley

[Jon the Hat]

16 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Vested interests making too much off renting office space.

Hybrid working still needs a fair chunk of office space tbh.

[WigstonWanderer]

1 hour ago, dsr-burnley said:

I'm pretty sure that if your first job was photocopying and making tea, and you were doing it working from home, you'd never have got on to your second job!

 

That's a big problem with WFH. How do the trainees learn?  

 

I wonder how much the abysmal service by HMRC is to do with working from home?  I had a series of letters this week from HMRC about deregistering someone from VAT.

 

6th - a receipt for the July VAT return, submitted a day before the deadline.

8th - a letter asking for another form before they could deregister.

9th - confirmation that my application had been accepted.

11th -  confirmation that the deregistration was effective from April 2023.

13th - a penalty notice for not submitting the July VAT return.

 

This is about the standard of efficiency we have come to expect.  Of course, there may be other reasons why they are not currently fit for purpose.

 

(For another client, I wrote a letter to HMRC beginning "With reference to your letter of 4th August 2023 replying to my letter of 11th November 2021 ..."

Useless twats.

 

For ages my wife was trying to register for online access to submit a tax return from here in Australia. It required a code that they had to send by post. However they sent it by some second class Mail, presumably ship, and by the time it got here the code had expired. Tried it a few times before giving up and just filling paper returns.

 

No one we spoke to could offer any alternative at the time, it was just the way the system worked, tough.

Edited 21 September 2023 by WigstonWanderer

[Jon the Hat]

1 hour ago, WigstonWanderer said:

Useless twats.

 

For ages my wife was trying to register for online access to submit a tax return from here in Australia. It required a code that they had to send by post. However they sent it by some second class Mail, presumably ship, and by the time it got here the code had expired. Tried it a few times before giving up and just filling paper returns.

 

No one we spoke to could offer any alternative at the time, it was just the way the system worked, tough.

Ah yes the infamous ATO linking code.  We spent hours on the phone sorting those out.  Also MyGovID and so on, all nice once they are working, pain in the arse to get up and running.

Edited 21 September 2023 by Jon the Hat

[WigstonWanderer]

19 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

Ah yes the infamous ATO linking code.  We spent hours on the phone sorting those out.  Also MyGovID and so on, all nice once they are working, pain in the arse to get up and running.

Actually I was talking about HMRC but Aussie services have completely gone to pot recently as well 

[WigstonWanderer]

Duplicate 

Edited 21 September 2023 by WigstonWanderer

[Guesty]

HMRC were useless long before WFH and not just for the regular person. I used to work in the payroll department for a large public sector organisation they were just as bad to us. We regularly had to contact them due to errors they'd made and it was rarely simple.

 

I remember one case where a colleague had been on hold for over two hours - been passed to different three people. Then back to the first person she originally spoke to - it turned out they were the person she needed to speak to. When she queried why and said she didn't have two hours to waste they hung up on her because they have a zero tolerance policy for abuse. All she did was query it.

[fox_up_north]

As above - HMRC were like that long before covid. Same with DVLA and every other government department.

[ClaphamFox]

This is genius. The Tories are promising to halt proposals that never even existed in the first place. I've never voted Tory in my life, but if they promise to prevent the reintroduction of capital punishment for children for petty offences I might be tempted...

[FoxesDeb]

8 hours ago, dsr-burnley said:

That's a big problem with WFH. How do the trainees learn?  

If the nature of the job allows 100% wfh the training can be done at home too. 

 

I haven't stepped foot inside an office since the day I was sent home with a laptop in March 2020, but I've since changed roles within the same company I was working for at the time, and then last year started a new job at a new company. All my training was done over Teams, and all my interactions with my colleagues has been done the same way.

 

Understandably this wouldn't suit everyone, but it can be done, and successfully too!

[leicsmac]

14 minutes ago, ClaphamFox said:

This is genius. The Tories are promising to halt proposals that never even existed in the first place. I've never voted Tory in my life, but if they promise to prevent the reintroduction of capital punishment for children for petty offences I might be tempted...

And they still haven't explained quantitatively how this latest raft of measures would still make sure the UK adheres to its commitments to the world and the future anyway. It's all soundbites. But I guess that's to be expected.

[dsr-burnley]

41 minutes ago, FoxesDeb said:

If the nature of the job allows 100% wfh the training can be done at home too. 

 

I haven't stepped foot inside an office since the day I was sent home with a laptop in March 2020, but I've since changed roles within the same company I was working for at the time, and then last year started a new job at a new company. All my training was done over Teams, and all my interactions with my colleagues has been done the same way.

 

Understandably this wouldn't suit everyone, but it can be done, and successfully too!

There's a big difference between someone who is used to office life learning to work in a different office job, and someone who is taking their first job learning to work in an office.  If you're sat in a poky bedroom (because not all schoolleavers have big houses and their own office) then it's not easy to ask someone about the things you don't know, and it's even harder to watch what they do and learn by experience.

[FoxesDeb]

Just now, dsr-burnley said:

There's a big difference between someone who is used to office life learning to work in a different office job, and someone who is taking their first job learning to work in an office.  If you're sat in a poky bedroom (because not all schoolleavers have big houses and their own office) then it's not easy to ask someone about the things you don't know, and it's even harder to watch what they do and learn by experience.

Agreed, hence why I said this wouldn't suit everyone 

[Daggers]

• Cost of First Class with BA, return to JFK, leaving today: £8,275
• Cost of Oliver Dowden's almost empty RAF Voyager flight: £365,693

Tough on the environment, tough on the causes of the environment.