Working during coronavirus

[StanSP]

12 hours ago, AllGoneTitsSchlupp said:

was furloughed on 1st april, took up a couple of different warehouse jobs to pass the time while on furlough, ended up quitting my main job and decided to go 'travelling' around europe wherever i can get into. currently sat in florence and spending the rest of october in italy, and then coming back to blighty around christmas time, travel restrictions permitting 

I thought you weren't allowed to work another job while on furlough? 

[GlennyFox55]

2 minutes ago, StanSP said:

I thought you weren't allowed to work another job while on furlough? 

My understanding was you can, you just have to notify your employer, they were actively encouraging it at one point for supermarket warehouse jobs etc

[Bellend Sebastian]

I'm in financial services. Worked from home for best part of six months but most of us are back in now - fortunate our offices are big so we can space out (I don't mean get high).  Been busy throughout.

 

Wife works in grotesquely underfunded NHS department (although able to work from home), so we've both been flat out. We're of course grateful that there's been no interruption to our income but it's been exhausting

[FoxesDeb]

10 minutes ago, StanSP said:

I thought you weren't allowed to work another job while on furlough? 

Yeah as long as your employer gave permission it was/is fine 

[StanSP]

9 minutes ago, GlennyFox55 said:

My understanding was you can, you just have to notify your employer, they were actively encouraging it at one point for supermarket warehouse jobs etc

 

1 minute ago, FoxesDeb said:

Yeah as long as your employer gave permission it was/is fine 

I see. Thanks. 

 

 

As you were! 

[Brenfox]

Service engineer for the hospitality industry. I was Furloughed at the end of March. Fortunately my missus has a little business working from home & that went really busy for a few months. I got made redundant 3 weeks ago so job hunting at the minute which is a soul crushing experience. We've been lucky though & we are ok financially for quite a while.

[Strokes]

It didn’t start off great for me, I only went self employed in October 19, so like @Babylon I didn’t think I was entitled to anything. My work vanished and if it wasn’t for mortgage relief I’d have been scraping the barrel to pay the bills.

Then I found I could claim some back and it ended up back dated to March, so I used that money to remodel and haven’t looked back since. I actually have more work than I can cope with but I can’t bring myself to Subcontract it out yet, as I’m worried it will just stop with a halt again soon.

[Crinklyfox]

I'm retired so not directly affected.  Both my lads have been though.

 

My eldest works in a care home.   He's been doing extra shifts plus going into work to be tested on his days off on a regular basis.  My youngest works from home as a freelance doing coding.  His work is contract-based and although he was really busy earlier this year the contracts have been drying up in recent times.

[Milo]

3 hours ago, Strokes said:

It didn’t start off great for me, I only went self employed in October 19, so like @Babylon I didn’t think I was entitled to anything. My work vanished and if it wasn’t for mortgage relief I’d have been scraping the barrel to pay the bills.

Then I found I could claim some back and it ended up back dated to March, so I used that money to remodel and haven’t looked back since. I actually have more work than I can cope with but I can’t bring myself to Subcontract it out yet, as I’m worried it will just stop with a halt again soon.

It's painful, but the only way to grow, mate. 

 

 

[Strokes]

1 hour ago, Milo said:

It's painful, but the only way to grow, mate. 

 

 

Oh I know, normally I wouldn’t hesitate but it’s easy to delay at the moment and build my order book up longer than is normally acceptable, because of supply shortages. So I’d rather work around the clock and keep the horizon busy for me, in case we lockdown again. Then I go into it with enough work to carry on. I can’t rely on government help and I’ll kick myself if I come up short by not playing smart.

[Miquel The Work Geordie]

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Edited 10 October 2020 by Miquel The Work Geordie

[Miquel The Work Geordie]

Stan the grass tryna catch the doblé job crowd out

[Facecloth]

7 hours ago, StanSP said:

I thought you weren't allowed to work another job while on furlough? 

Depends on your contract with your employer.

[Wolfox]

Instead of sitting in an office spending my day speaking to Americans I’m now doing it from a home office….

 

I miss the social interaction… I never thought I’d say it but, I miss aspects of the travel (although not feeling knackered after long flights etc.)

 

i miss the punctuation to my day the most…. Home and work gets a bit blurred at times  and I don’t like that…. I’ll probably balance office and home a bit more when we start heading back…

 

So sorry to read about those who’ve struggled... I’ve been very fortunate 

[SystonFox]

I work in healthcare. My company provide and service specialist beds, mattresses and other important hospital equipment. Been ridiculously busy. Been involved in numerous nightingale hospitals as a company and personally have attended Birmingham and Harrogate.

 

unfortunately due to this pandemic our company has boomed and is growing rapidly as the days pass. It’s a sad way to develop but there are two things you can be sure of in this life and we know what one of those is.

 

 

[AllGoneTitsSchlupp]

3 hours ago, Miquel The Work Geordie said:

Stan the grass tryna catch the doblé job crowd out

i pay my taxes

[steve555]

I'm a postman based at Meridan in Leicester, obviously we've been working all through the pandemic. When lockdown started & people couldn't get out, they obviously took to ordering online, parcels just didn't stop & it was like Christmas everyday, we struggled to cope at times but tried our best. It's died down a bit since all the shops reopened but still remains busy & I'm dreading the build up to Christmas, which will be my 34th year with Royal Mail, especially if some sort of lockdown is re-introduced. But the customers have been grateful & people have thanked me for continuing to bring their stuff, & I'm lucky that I've had full wages unlike some. My wife works as  a shop assistant locally, so we have both been working throughout, & suffered no financial hardship, but in contrast to the goodwill I receive from my customers the verbal abuse shop assistants receive is completely unjust. Some people will just lean right across her while shelf stacking etc. with no regard to social distancing or if she asks them to stand back to the 2 metre line at the till she will receive a mouth full of abuse for her trouble, all this for just above the minimum wage, obviously not all people respond like this, but it seems like some people don't have much respect for the rules, & a lot of these are middle-aged people who you would think would know better.

[Trav Le Bleu]

It's been manic.

 

Online shopping has of course increased and the number of posties working is decreased. Every day for the past six months has been like Christmas levels of parcels. Not looking forward to Christmas at all. We had the area manager in this week and asked what plans Royal Mail had for Christmas, the answer was, nobody can tell, we have to wait and see. Well I can make a pretty good guess.

 

In all of the past six months there has been zero social distancing at work, no one-way systems, no hand cleaning stations... by the time you receive your mail there's every chance it's been through 5-6 pairs of unwashed hands. We've been given hand sanitizer to put in our vans, which I regularly use and I tried using gloves at the start, but the first 20-30 letterbox will soon rip them to shreds, so don't bother any more. We have masks, but since no one else wears them, there's not really any point (at least from a selfish viewpoint).

 

Thoroughly demoralised.

[Trav Le Bleu]

17 minutes ago, TOMMYG said:

I'm a postman based at Meridan in Leicester, obviously we've been working all through the pandemic. When lockdown started & people couldn't get out, they obviously took to ordering online, parcels just didn't stop & it was like Christmas everyday, we struggled to cope at times but tried our best. It's died down a bit since all the shops reopened but still remains busy & I'm dreading the build up to Christmas, which will be my 34th year with Royal Mail, especially if some sort of lockdown is re-introduced. But the customers have been grateful & people have thanked me for continuing to bring their stuff, & I'm lucky that I've had full wages unlike some. My wife works as  a shop assistant locally, so we have both been working throughout, & suffered no financial hardship, but in contrast to the goodwill I receive from my customers the verbal abuse shop assistants receive is completely unjust. Some people will just lean right across her while shelf stacking etc. with no regard to social distancing or if she asks them to stand back to the 2 metre line at the till she will receive a mouth full of abuse for her trouble, all this for just above the minimum wage, obviously not all people respond like this, but it seems like some people don't have much respect for the rules, & a lot of these are middle-aged people who you would think would know better.

What's the corona virus measures like at Meridian?

[Trav Le Bleu]

10 hours ago, StanSP said:

 

I see. Thanks. 

 

 

As you were! 

Seems a little against the spirit of the whole thing though, when some people will have completely lost their jobs and need employment.

[steve555]

36 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

What's the corona virus measures like at Meridian?

There's PPE available if you ask for it. Social distancing is a joke & as been from the start. The managers just turn a blind eye to it because they know the mail won't get sorted if the 2 metre rule is enforced, most days there's 5 or 6 people sorting packets out of a york, that's 6 people all within a space of 3 or 4 metres. The walk prep frames are all side by side & the gap between the board opposite you is about a metre, so it's cramped. Van sharing was obviously stopped back in March, but from Monday that is back in operation on an voluntary basis, providing masks are used & van windows down a little, I suspect this is returning because it's costing too much to keep hiring vans. Like you I used gloves at first ,but they just ripped 5 minutes into your walk. I too, share your fears of Christmas, it seems every year it catches  Royal Mail out, like they don't know it's coming,  I sincerely hope they are better prepared this year or I can see it being carnage.

[MrsJohnMurphy]

I work for DPD as a delivery driver so like Trav and Tommy above its been a bit mad. Unlike them however I'm a self employed owner driver so the busier it gets, the more deliveries I do, the more I earn. I'm only doing 4 days a week it the minute and I'm earning more than I did in 5 days pre Covid.

 

DPD have been quite good staggered starts for drivers so were not in all at the same time, sanitising stations dotted around and the depot is really airy with all the bay doors open so we can get our vans in and load up.

[Paninistickers]

2 hours ago, Wolfox said:

Instead of sitting in an office spending my day speaking to Americans I’m now doing it from a home office….

 

I miss the social interaction… I never thought I’d say it but, I miss aspects of the travel (although not feeling knackered after long flights etc.)

 

i miss the punctuation to my day the most…. Home and work gets a bit blurred at times  and I don’t like that…. I’ll probably balance office and home a bit more when we start heading back…

 

So sorry to read about those who’ve struggled... I’ve been very fortunate 

I'm fortunate that I've never taken work home with me or in my WFH life now, soon as the laptop is off I switch off (often I've switched off long before the laptop has gone down.... sometimes even before the laptop has gone up)

 

. I've always carried a healthy/unhealthy disgust for work in general. It's an inconvenience to me doing what I like to do, namely whatever the f I want. 

 

In a way, be grateful if you take work home with you. It must mean you like it a bit.

[Richard]

Work for a Waitrose in posh central London. Customers where money is no object would drop up to £1000 on a shop just in case they needed/fancied something. We were basically restocking a whole shop every day. Dread to think what a 2nd lockdown + Christmas shopping would do. 
 

oh and John Lewis is tanking so despite everyone’s hard work we’ve stil somehow made a loss this year 

[Kopfkino]

1 hour ago, Richard said:

Work for a Waitrose in posh central London. Customers where money is no object would drop up to £1000 on a shop just in case they needed/fancied something. We were basically restocking a whole shop every day. Dread to think what a 2nd lockdown + Christmas shopping would do. 
 

oh and John Lewis is tanking so despite everyone’s hard work we’ve stil somehow made a loss this year 

People actually spend 1k on a Waitrose shop? 

 

Which store? Big fan of the KX Waitrose, the one at Bloomsbury is alright but not so keen on the Marylebone one. Think they're the only properly central ones?

The one at White City isn't great, Gloucester Rd is good, Finchley Rd is okay, Angel, Barbican and Brent Cross all crap. 

And all the ones in Leicestershire are rubbish although think there's only two left now.

 

Just in case anyone wanted my reviews of Waitrose stores.