I'd like to clarify something about furlough

fez

fez

Caporegime
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We were supposed to have rolling furlough. During the lockdown we only needed 1/3 of our drivers. So it was worked out and agreed that it'd be 3 weeks working, 3 weeks furlough.

The first 1/3 cried like babies that they were first then when they went on furlough they refused to come back, many citing they weren't coming back as it was not safe.

Unfortunately our managers caved and many, including myself, ended up working all the way through.

This is just how the world works now. The idea that people should be resilient or able to suffer any kind of adversity is dying and all people need to do is drop the words "mental health" into a conversation and HR starts bowing and backing away.

My partner works for the NHS and has done throughout COVID. At its peak she was working long hours, constantly watching people die, coming home and having a bath every night to make sure she was as clean as possible, sleeping in a separate room to me in case she caught COVID and watching various members of her staff take the **** and basically lie and cheat to get time off work. It was always the same ones that were a problem before COVID as well. The lazy ones, the entitled ones, the ones that complained about everything. The other week one of her new team went off for stress for 4 days because a meeting was overrunning and the chair of the meeting interrupted her and said "I'm sorry, we don't have any more time for each person to go over their department report today so can you please put it in an email". She went to HR because he interrupted her after some other people had been allowed to give their update and she wasn't. ******* ridiculous.

If I was you boss I would kick those drivers to the curb so fast they wouldn't have a chance to say "I take it back. The world is getting to the stage where there are 2 classes of people. Those who do things and get on with it and those that whinge and complain. You used to get short shrift if you were in the latter group, now we just encourage that behaviour and reward it with benefits. Benefits that are taken from the hard working and those willing to do a days work.
 
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SHock horror - large portion of people who were furloughed don't want to return to work / part time / retire / realise how happy they are not working.

That would change if furlough meant no money.

Being paid (80%, often 100% if you had a nice employer) to not work and pursue ones own hobbies 100% of the time would be magical. WHo honestly wouldnt want that? I can see for some if work is a massive part of their "psyche" that it could be difficult, but for a large part of society being paid to essential do all the things you otherwise have to cram into weekends?
 
Soldato
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SHock horror - large portion of people who were furloughed don't want to return to work / part time / retire / realise how happy they are not working.

That would change if furlough meant no money.

Being paid (80%, often 100% if you had a nice employer) to not work and pursue ones own hobbies 100% of the time would be magical. WHo honestly wouldnt want that? I can see for some if work is a massive part of their "psyche" that it could be difficult, but for a large part of society being paid to essential do all the things you otherwise have to cram into weekends?
Was COVID an invention by the government to test out UBI at scale? :eek:
 
Soldato
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One of customers furloughed all his staff as he made more profit by not having to pay their wages. He absolutely could have kept them on, but because of the monthly contract revenue coming in regardless, he fancied more money in his own pocket instead.
 
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Real resentment is where half the workforce are on furlough and the others 'working from home'.

Half have to put in their 37+ hours a week and the others get paid to do sod all.

That's what is going on at my sister's company.
 
Soldato
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One of customers furloughed all his staff as he made more profit by not having to pay their wages. He absolutely could have kept them on, but because of the monthly contract revenue coming in regardless, he fancied more money in his own pocket instead.
How dare business man run a business like it is a business
 
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One of customers furloughed all his staff as he made more profit by not having to pay their wages. He absolutely could have kept them on, but because of the monthly contract revenue coming in regardless, he fancied more money in his own pocket instead.

What does he do? How can the business still run efficiently without its staff?
 
Soldato
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What does he do? How can the business still run efficiently without its staff?
Run inefficiently and promise things will get better when the staff return?

Subscription revenues will always mean squeezing cost is an imperative. This is just smart business if you can use the furlough scheme to do that whilst not losing (or only losing an acceptable amount) Customers.
 
Caporegime
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Agreed OP

Our company would have gone bust ages ago if they hadn't been able to furlough us.

A lot of companies and people had no choice.
 

fez

fez

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How dare business man run a business like it is a business

Ahh, the old "if they are allowed to do it then we shouldn't call them out for being selfish *****".

Personally I love a world where we tell everyone its OK to **** over your fellow man to get ahead in life. Makes for a wonderful society.
 
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A lot of companies and people had no choice.

^^^^
That's exactly my point about people on furlough not having a say in the matter. To use an exscuse used by theJapanese/Nazis in world war two
'I only was following orders' (this wouldn't stand up as a valid reason). Being furloughed for a few weeks/the first tw months was alright but aftet so long I started to get cabin fever an wanteing to go back to work.

It'd be a good way to find out who the lazy sods are as an experiment.
 
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Being on furlough isn't all its cracked up to be, during my period on furlough, every day I was expecting a p45 to come through the door, as the company was shedding staff like there was no tomorrow. And if they can run without me, they can afford to make me redundant. Its also shown that I'm the first in the scope for redundancies if they do come along as i have / had more customer knowledge but was first out the door on furlough without so much as a bat eylid.
 
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The first 1/3 cried like babies that they were first then when they went on furlough they refused to come back, many citing they weren't coming back as it was not safe.

Unfortunately our managers caved and many, including myself, ended up working all the way through. 11
With people crying out for jobs, I'd have thought the company could have just dismissed them for gross misconduct (ie refusing to work) and employed new drivers. 12
 
Soldato
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This is just how the world works now. The idea that people should be resilient or able to suffer any kind of adversity is dying and all people need to do is drop the words "mental health" into a conversation and HR starts bowing and backing away.

My partner works for the NHS and has done throughout COVID. At its peak she was working long hours, constantly watching people die, coming home and having a bath every night to make sure she was as clean as possible, sleeping in a separate room to me in case she caught COVID and watching various members of her staff take the **** and basically lie and cheat to get time off work. It was always the same ones that were a problem before COVID as well. The lazy ones, the entitled ones, the ones that complained about everything. The other week one of her new team went off for stress for 4 days because a meeting was overrunning and the chair of the meeting interrupted her and said "I'm sorry, we don't have any more time for each person to go over their department report today so can you please put it in an email". She went to HR because he interrupted her after some other people had been allowed to give their update and she wasn't. ******* ridiculous.

If I was you boss I would kick those drivers to the curb so fast they wouldn't have a chance to say "I take it back. The world is getting to the stage where there are 2 classes of people. Those who do things and get on with it and those that whinge and complain. You used to get short shrift if you were in the latter group, now we just encourage that behaviour and reward it with benefits. Benefits that are taken from the hard working and those willing to do a days work.

Oh I fully agree and have already made my feelings clear to the MD. Sadly it's PO'd so many of the good, decent employees that they've upped and left for other jobs which now means the "in it for themselves" crowd are left. As a company we're struggling to cover the work as a result and it's a public service so the public are suffering the lack of service.

With people crying out for jobs, I'd have thought the company could have just dismissed them for gross misconduct (ie refusing to work) and employed new drivers.

Unfortunately the company isn't in a position to dismiss them, as above, we're already short on drivers and we can't train them quick enough to replace the ones that are already leaving as there's a 4-6 week lead time with DVSA before we can get candidates in for training (PCV) then it's 4 weeks training to pass the practical test and then another 3-4weeks of route learning. Training dept only has enough vehicles to train 9 at once but we lost 38 drivers (through leaving or fired) in a 2 week period last month.
 
Soldato
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Didn't get a chance to find out. I reckon I could live with 80% wages for a year and all that free time. Got fed up of hearing friends and colleagues moan about being bored while I had to work, longer hours and more stress than before too.
 
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