What is the tax relief like? Seems a bit sneaky that companies can essentially dump the costs of office rent and heating bills directly onto the worker.
What is the tax relief like? Seems a bit sneaky that companies can essentially dump the costs of office rent and heating bills directly onto the worker.
There’s probably something there, but I’ve not bothered thinking about it.
I’d imagine for most the commuting cost vs. WFH cost will be in a similar ball park.
What? Most people's commuting costs are far more than some heat/electric (or maybe previously so, before Boris and friends let energy companies run amok)
Same here. A fucking euro a litre for Kero now.
My missus is saving 7k a year on travel.Originally Posted by Foe
I'm saving about £4k p/a compared to what I was spending in London
I was talking more about companies being suddenly more profitable due to less overheads and probably not passing it on in increased wages. If there’s more money to be had in wages, there needs to be a collective movement to claim it, especially if you’re sacrificing space in your house.
Just being happy that your savings in commuting cost outweighs heating bills isn’t enough. We are exploited too much as it is.
It's unlikely they have less overheads - leases are mostly still in place in a lot of cases. I know my company has let a few offices go for the time being though
I worded this terribly. What I meant is there will be few who will be worse off WFH rather than commuting.
Admittedly that’s not what I said, but it’s what I meant.
My company have downsized office to the point not everyone can be in on a regular desk at the same time.
They are absolutely rinsing it to save cost.
Those whose partners batter them and, umm, that’s it.
I'm a twit
The biggest gain I've got from WFH is saving on Greggs. Something in the region of £500 a year. Travel will eat that right back up but it was nice whilst it lasted. As for downsizing, I'm sure our company's thought about it. Since the 30 bodies went in 2020, it's stark how few desks are taken up. They really, really don't need a building of this size.
London train commuters dropping 6k a year on the commute also have my sympathies (I'm posting this from a rare trip on London train which has sharpened the senses somewhat).
Our most recent recruit - the most annoying man I have ever met in my life - commutes in over an hour each way, but he took the job when petrol wasn't even a quid a litre. Now he's significantly worse off than he was in his old job lol.
2 job offers.
Second firm has offered me a bit more than expected / I originally asked for, which is nice. Better work/life balance, easy going culture and really exciting tech clients probably makes it an easy choice over the higher paying firm, but might as well wait and see how much more the other firm is willing to pay.
Dreading handing in the notice, mind. It'll no doubt be a sweet ride for 3 months but I do genuinely like my team so it'll be a little bittersweet.
I travel for free so save nothing but my time when WFH. Ironically the last day in the office before the world went home I got an early finish and then took 3 hours to get home due to cancellations resulting from a suicide at my home station.
It's nice not having to constantly watch the departure boards to see if my day is going to be fucked over by the railway crumbling.
One of my uncles is some sort of engineer and be used to commute to Abu Dhabi WEEKLY.
I get the feeling that was paid for. Still wouldn't fancy doing it.
Couldn't be arsed with that shit. Fortnightly maybe.
Oh yeah it was absolutely paid for. Just mental.
No fucking wonder you think people can't work from home--your job literally requires not being home.
I was lucky that I already had a three monitor/desk setup at home for my docked laptop/PS so it was as easy as hooking up the work laptop and dock and running with it. The only downside is the work/life split Foe is talking about. I find I need get away from my desk for a while to really 'switch off' before hitting looking at my own laptop.
People can’t work from home regardless, because they’re people. The job doesn’t matter.
We're not all children who need constant supervision.
I have targets that I have to meet or I'm in bother. The only difference between being in the office and WFH is that when I'm up to date, I can chill a bit rather than having to scratch about for work.
Similarly it's no more difficult for our managers to see what we're doing WFH than in the office.
There’s a Scottish sparky at my place who works 8 on, 6 off and commutes from Murcia.
If I don't meet my deadlines to the requisite quality every week while working from home I'd be finished on poor performance sharpish. I have worked harder in this continous period at home than in the office, because it has resulted in a higher workload.
I still find it weird that I’m expected to chair meetings.
I'm a twit
We spent over 70% of the last working year working from home and had the best financial year we've ever had. WFH absolutely can work, and those that doss around would get quickly found out. It's not been a problem I've had to handle (yet).
Dossing will happen to an extent, but it probably just replaces the inevitable chatting that happens when people are together, so there's no real impact of it. Whether you're at work or at home, there's no cunt that actually works for the entirety of their shift.
Of course, I just meant those that decide to spend the day playing on their Xbox instead of working.
Why not both?
My sister works for the Scottish government (from England, these days). Since Nicola said hybrid working could resume from 31 January, a large number of staff in her department of the Scottish civil service have gone utterly militant, with any attempt to get even one day a week in the office going again being met with blank refusals and people getting trade unions involved to ensure permanent working from home for all staff.
Being alone and not having met a colleague in person for two years, she is beside herself and thankfully has just got a new job in the English civil service which will allow office work.
In a year's time this will be yet another public/private sector divide.
My colleague once went from "I'm meeting up with some old school friends in London" to "I wouldn't feel safe in the office at the moment" within about 5 minutes. Bless.
At somepoint people will just be told to shut the fuck up and get on with it. It may take a little while longer in Scotland as they have revealed themselves to be particularly moist over the last year or so.
Had a great day today.
1. The world is seething, but let me tell you, the bonus factor for this year is something real nice.
Selling shares left right and centre too before the hedge funds cancel us.
2. Email received that the office Xmas lunch is now scheduled at the end of feb given it was postponed.
Going into the office for the first time in 3 months tomorrow. Lunch better be good.
Also very likely they want me offshore in may which will be the first time off in about 2.5 years.
The Arab's attempts to deal with English names are hilarious. Just now he was on the phone with a Scotsman named Stephen. He had only seen this written down, so had a stab with the result that he kept calling the guy 'Stephanie'. He is so cocksure of himself that he won't change ever, no matter how batshit confused the customer was or no matter how many times I shouted 'Steven! Steven! Steven!' from the back of the office like an even worse dressed Alan Partridge.
He also refuses to accept that a cold is a virus, and not an illness you can 'catch' via being outside in cold weather.
There's plenty to lol at there but I had a proper chuckle at "like an even worse dressed Alan Partridge."
We have a customer where one of the guy in whatever country they're based in seems to think that despite me otherwise capitalising my updates/emails properly that I must be getting it wrong with my own name and that it must be Lan, so he calls me that. I thought it was just him, but I got updates from one of his colleagues the other day who did the exact same thing so clearly they see a name starting I and just go "Nah, not having that, must be an L."
Don't take it personal, Lan.
Maybe they're all big Wheel of Time fans and they think I give off 'big fighty badass' energy rather than 'big fatty lard-ass' energy and it's a reference to that.
The new starters are penciled in for the end of the month. Training them and then immediately fucking off for a fortnight.
Lord of the Seven Towers.
3 days in the office confirmed, only 1 of which will have the full team in.
The Stephen fiasco has clearly unnerved him, so I've just had to do a ten minute session on how to pronounce 'Duncan'.
He rang the guy and nailed it. So proud.
This is why you're worth 40k a year. What a man.
*44k
Barney has no right to be seething.
You should convince him to start saying Barney's name the wrong way.
Yanrab?
The annoying bastard I mentioned earlier is called Ian, so I say it's short for Brian and it makes him seethe an unreasonable amount.
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