Coronavirus

[Jairzinho]

16 minutes ago, Chip Butty said:

Just had the Pfizer Vaccination, to say I'm over the moon is an understatement.

 

I've lost me dad and a match going mate in the last 8 weeks, to this bastard virus and getting this vaccination, is as much to give me mam some comfort that she's not going to be left on her own, than it is for me bird and the kids.

 

A well done and a big thank you to the scientists and a gigantic fuck off, to this shitehawk self serving Tory government. 

 

 

 

 

Sorry to hear that, mate. Happy you've had the jab now though. 

 

[Bruce Spanner]

42 minutes ago, Scooby Dudek said:

No, that is the government narrative. I thought exactly the same. 

 

The lawyer basically says that is bollocks, they were on "average" 17 days later on releasing reports but some were months late and him and Johnson held them back on purpose to wait until better optics to bury the particularly bad ones. Lawyer gave it, I am a lawyer and know the meaning of the word but what it is is corruption. 

Cheers for that, really enjoyed it, apart from Owen Jones doing his best, smug  ‘I’m really clever me’ face throughout.

 

The cases they have pending with two of the really dodgy contracts, they ones the were in court this week to limit liabilities for, will be interesting as they are dodgy as fuck. Cayman island shell companies etc, absolutely no doubt they’re corrupt.

[Stickman]

[sh#t waffle]

If he means singing in tune then I absolutely believe him.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, sh#t waffle said:

If he means singing in tune then I absolutely believe him.

Yeah, Ian Brown saying he won't sing in front of an audience is like Eddie The Eagle saying he won't ski jump in front of an audience. 

[Sugar Ape]

Back to the ‘you must commute to the office whether you need to or not’ stage. Think he’s in for a surprise tbh.
 

When people talk about returning to the offices in papers they mean the City of London hence the Goldman Sachs quotes and I’m no expert on that but in the wider country I know of three separate firms who employ between 30-50 staff that have given up their offices and moved remote permanently. 
 

Of course loads of places will get their staff back in fully but tons will be going to hybrid working permanently. There’s no way it’s completely going back to the way it was. 
 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/27/coronavirus-boris-johnson-workers-will-return-to-offices-in-a-few-short-months

 

Boris Johnson: workers will return to offices in ‘a few short months’

 

Commuters will return to offices “in a few short months”, Boris Johnson has predicted, dismissing the idea that lockdowns will lead to a permanent shift towards working from home.

 

Speaking at a rail industry conference via video call on Friday, the prime minister said he was confident workers would return to traditional work patterns when lockdown restrictions were eased.

 

“I know that some people may imagine that all conferences are going be like this, held over Zoom, Teams or what have you and we’ve got to prepare for a new age in which people don’t move around, do things remotely, they don’t commute any more,” he said.

 

“I don’t believe it. Not for a moment. In a few short months, if all goes to plan, we in the UK are going to be reopening our economy. And then, believe me, the British people will be consumed once again with their desire for the genuine face-to-face meeting that makes all the difference to the deal or whatever it is.”

 

The government is expected to instruct people to continue remote working until 21 June, when wider lockdown restrictions are set to end.

 

The chair of Network Rail said the pandemic had accelerated existing changesin commuting patterns, adding that sales of season tickets had dropped significantly even before coronavirus hit the UK.

 

Numbers of travellers on national rail currently stand at around 14% of 2019 levels, and Sir Peter Hendy predicted that it would take several years before rail use returned to more than 80% of normal levels.

 

Earlier this week, the boss of Goldman Sachs also rejected the idea that working from home would become the “new normal”, describing it as an “aberration”.

 

Having had less than 10% of Goldman Sachs staff in the office throughout 2020, David Solomon said that remote working did not suit the working culture at the bank.

 

“I do think for a business like ours, which is an innovative, collaborative apprenticeship culture, this is not ideal for us. And it’s not a new normal. It’s an aberration that we’re going to correct as soon as possible,” he told a conference on Wednesday.

 

However, other firms including Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter have announced that their employees will have the option of working from home permanently.

 

According to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics, less than half of UK adults travelled to work in the week ending 7 February. About 47% travelled to work, either every day or in combination with remote working, and 36% exclusively worked from home.

[Rico1304]

The wife has just had hers.  

[Jairzinho]

Quote

 

Having had less than 10% of Goldman Sachs staff in the office throughout 2020, David Solomon said that remote working did not suit the working culture at the bank.

 

“I do think for a business like ours, which is an innovative, collaborative apprenticeship culture, this is not ideal for us. And it’s not a new normal. It’s an aberration that we’re going to correct as soon as possible,” he told a conference on Wednesday.

 

Strange way of spelling "cunt".

[tokyojoe]

Had mine a couple of hours ago. Haven't started to walk around speaking like a Dalek and trying to communicate with other solar systems.

 

 

 

Yet...

[Chip Butty]

1 minute ago, tokyojoe said:

Had mine a couple of hours ago. Haven't started to walk around speaking like a Dalek and trying to communicate with other solar systems.

 

 

 

Yet...

Its how quickly your breasts start developing that can be the biggest shock. 

 

[Sugar Ape]

30 minutes ago, Chip Butty said:

Its how quickly your breasts start developing that can be the biggest shock. 

 

On that criteria Stig had his jab a couple of years ago. 

[Colonel Bumcunt]

The home working has definitely led to more discussions about corporate estates. 

It's been revolutionary, whether or not it suits everyone, it's happening. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, tokyojoe said:

Had mine a couple of hours ago. Haven't started to walk around speaking like a Dalek and trying to communicate with other solar systems.

 

 

 

Yet...

How weird, I took my ma for hers today and she said she'd had covid within the last 28 days. I said to the lady behind the counter if the worst she could expect is she starts walking around saying exterminate that it'd be better she has the vaccination, but they said it's necessary to wait at least 28 days from testing positive to get vaccinated. Something about an appropriate response from the immune system. 

 

Still, first time she'd been out of the house in over a year. It put a spring in her step, so worthwhile. She just has to rebook it for a couple of weeks time. 

[Bjornebye]

2 hours ago, tokyojoe said:

Had mine a couple of hours ago. Haven't started to walk around speaking like a Dalek and trying to communicate with other solar systems.

 

 

 

Yet...

You're only like that after a few pints 

[Bjornebye]

2 hours ago, Sugar Ape said:

On that criteria Stig had his jab a couple of years ago. 

They told me silicone would combat any virus. Lying bastards mate all of them 

[Rico1304]

We’ve just been bought by Goldmans. I won’t be working from home when it all calms down, but to be honest I don’t mind.  
 

One consequence of this is the return of the regional accent.  I’ve noticed a few people who normally have an RP accent are now slipping back to their original accent as they are at home and hearing ‘normal’ speech.  

[Red74]

[tokyojoe]

44 minutes ago, Red74 said:

He lives in fucking Luton. If that isn't bad enough....

[Mudface]

Scum.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/28/uline-dick-liz-uihlein-workers-covid-safety

 

Workers at firm owned by top Trump donors exposed to higher Covid rates
Employees at Uline, owned by billionaires Dick and Liz Uihlein, have filed numerous safety complaints, investigation finds


Employees at a private Wisconsin company owned by two top Republican donors in the US have faced significantly higher rates of Covid-19 infection and have filed numerous complaints about workplace safety to federal authorities, according to a Guardian investigation into Uline.


Dick and Liz Uihlein, the billionaire founders of the Uline packaging and office supply company who were once dubbed the “most powerful conservatives you never heard of”, have been critics of Wisconsin stay-at-home orders and, some employees fear, used their considerable political clout to try to challenge safety rules in the state.

An internal document seen by the Guardian shows that at least 14% of Uline’s corporate workforce has tested positive for Covid-19 since last April, compared to 8.7% of the population in Kenosha county, where the company’s corporate office is located.

Nearly 19% of the company’s Illinois workplace has tested positive, 23% of its California-based workforce, and nearly 27% of its workforce in Texas.

One complaint filed to federal worker safety regulators, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which was received in July 2020, described workplace hazards including: social distancing guidance not being enforced; lax mask-wearing inside the office; symptomatic employees being allowed to continue to work without face coverings; and employees being forced to return to work in close contact with others even when they could feasibly work from home.

In one case, the complaint also pointed to the company’s hosting of a “lunch-and-learn” meeting with former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker. A photograph of the meeting showed unmasked employees sitting closely together listening to Walker, a Republican, also standing without a mask.

Uline declined to comment.

In response to Osha, documents seen by the Guardian show that Uline told federal regulators in its July response that it had maintained its “in-office culture” but had allowed employees to work remotely “where possible”.

The company also said it had made special accommodations for people who were considered to be “high risk” according to CDC guidelines on a “case-by-case” basis.

Uline also said it “encouraged” mask-wearing in common areas and when traveling throughout the building and that disposable masks had been made available to guests and employees “free of charge”.

Osha said in a letter to the employee who filed the complaint that it felt the “case can be closed” based on Uline’s response.

Current and former employees interviewed by the Guardian describe a work environment that they believe takes a haphazard approach to safety, and one in which the founders’ conservative political views – including its opposition to Wisconsin’s stay-at-home orders, which Uline said it abided by – pervade the work environment.

Workers at Uline’s corporate offices are also made to follow strict rules on attire, including, for women, making sure their suit jacket is closed when walking through the building, and wearing pantyhose with skirts from November to April.

“The official stuff from HR will say to ‘distance’, but most people don’t really distance. Liz has meetings without masks,” said one employee who agreed to speak to the Guardian.


“I honestly feel like Liz and Dick are so powerful that they can do whatever they want. I feel the government isn’t even able to protect the people here,” the employee said.

Part of the feeling of helplessness, the person said, stemmed from knowing how politically powerful the Uihleins are. The couple donated $80m to Republican candidates and causes in the 2020 election, including to support Donald Trump’s campaign.

Richard Uihlein has nearly single-handedly financed an Illinois-based political action committee with a $24.5m donation in the 2020 election cycle. The group, called Restoration Pac, spent nearly $19m attacking Democratic candidates in the last election cycle – in eight races. Seven of the eight Democrats the group attacked, including Joe Biden, Jon Ossoff, and Raphael Warnock, won their races. Restoration PAC lists four main priorities on its website: “stopping antifa”, defunding Planned Parenthood, “supporting the police”, and implementing voter ID laws.

The Guardian previously reported that the Uihleins lobbied against Wisconsin’s stay-at-home rules during the earlier stage of the pandemic, and claimed the crisis had been “overhyped”. The couple later tested positive for Covid-19. Among other action, the couple circulated a petition to employees to have the Democratic governor, Tony Evers, removed from office. At the time, last April, Liz Uihlein told the Guardian in a short phone interview that only 15 Uline employees had tested positive for the virus.

Experts who closely follow Wisconsin politics say the Uihleins have been a powerful force is shaping statewide politics, including support for Republican state lawmakers and former governor Walker, whose allies now serve as judges in the state supreme court.

“During the pandemic we had heard a lot of complaints that they were not taking the public health guidance as seriously as they should and that employees were being told they had to come in to work in person, even though you know they knew that they could do their job remotely,” said Melissa Baldauff, a Democratic strategist and former senior aide to Governor Evers.

She added: “They were were definitely one of the loudest voices objecting to the governor’s efforts to keep people safe … It is a pretty great strategy if you can afford it, to buy the legislature, and buy the [state] supreme court. That way you’re guaranteed a victory, no matter what. They essentially got two out of three branches of government.”

[Barrington Womble]

23 hours ago, Sugar Ape said:

Back to the ‘you must commute to the office whether you need to or not’ stage. Think he’s in for a surprise tbh.
 

When people talk about returning to the offices in papers they mean the City of London hence the Goldman Sachs quotes and I’m no expert on that but in the wider country I know of three separate firms who employ between 30-50 staff that have given up their offices and moved remote permanently. 
 

Of course loads of places will get their staff back in fully but tons will be going to hybrid working permanently. There’s no way it’s completely going back to the way it was. 
 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/27/coronavirus-boris-johnson-workers-will-return-to-offices-in-a-few-short-months

 

Boris Johnson: workers will return to offices in ‘a few short months’

 

Commuters will return to offices “in a few short months”, Boris Johnson has predicted, dismissing the idea that lockdowns will lead to a permanent shift towards working from home.

 

Speaking at a rail industry conference via video call on Friday, the prime minister said he was confident workers would return to traditional work patterns when lockdown restrictions were eased.

 

“I know that some people may imagine that all conferences are going be like this, held over Zoom, Teams or what have you and we’ve got to prepare for a new age in which people don’t move around, do things remotely, they don’t commute any more,” he said.

 

“I don’t believe it. Not for a moment. In a few short months, if all goes to plan, we in the UK are going to be reopening our economy. And then, believe me, the British people will be consumed once again with their desire for the genuine face-to-face meeting that makes all the difference to the deal or whatever it is.”

 

The government is expected to instruct people to continue remote working until 21 June, when wider lockdown restrictions are set to end.

 

The chair of Network Rail said the pandemic had accelerated existing changesin commuting patterns, adding that sales of season tickets had dropped significantly even before coronavirus hit the UK.

 

Numbers of travellers on national rail currently stand at around 14% of 2019 levels, and Sir Peter Hendy predicted that it would take several years before rail use returned to more than 80% of normal levels.

 

Earlier this week, the boss of Goldman Sachs also rejected the idea that working from home would become the “new normal”, describing it as an “aberration”.

 

Having had less than 10% of Goldman Sachs staff in the office throughout 2020, David Solomon said that remote working did not suit the working culture at the bank.

 

“I do think for a business like ours, which is an innovative, collaborative apprenticeship culture, this is not ideal for us. And it’s not a new normal. It’s an aberration that we’re going to correct as soon as possible,” he told a conference on Wednesday.

 

However, other firms including Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter have announced that their employees will have the option of working from home permanently.

 

According to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics, less than half of UK adults travelled to work in the week ending 7 February. About 47% travelled to work, either every day or in combination with remote working, and 36% exclusively worked from home.

I know Goldman's pretty well. And I think they're right, it doesn't suit them. I think there is a mixture across capital markets, lots have just continued to go almost as normal through this (hedgefunds), the tier 1 banks have had a smallish number of people and the tier 2 type banks have barely had anyone in. That last group is shooting towards WFH going forward (and tons more offshoring, I reckon 20% has already gone as a direct consequence of this pandemic). The group's like Goldman's though have realised they're losing their edge and are desperate to get back. As for the rest of the economy.... Well it all remains to be seen. I know the data centre business has done massively well from medium sized companies who had the majority of their compute on site in the office and has moved to co-lo in order to vacate their office. 

[johnsusername]

We go to agile working from 1st April, all signed and sealed. I'll probably go in the office 2 days a week. 

[Elite]

1 hour ago, johnsusername said:

We go to agile working from 1st April, all signed and sealed. I'll probably go in the office 2 days a week. 

Sounds like hard work

 

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

I see that Peter Hitchens has upset his conspiracy theorist following by admitting that he's been vaccinated. 

[Mudface]

3 minutes ago, Nelly-Torres said:

I see that Peter Hitchens has upset his conspiracy theorist following by admitting that he's been vaccinated. 

He did it for freedom (well, so he could piss off abroad and hopefully not come back) though, the brave little soldier- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9307363/PETER-HITCHENS-Ive-Covid-jab-cost-freedom.html

[johnsusername]

18 minutes ago, Mudface said:

He did it for freedom (well, so he could piss off abroad and hopefully not come back) though, the brave little soldier- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9307363/PETER-HITCHENS-Ive-Covid-jab-cost-freedom.html

God what a spineless shameless twat.