Never going back to the office

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
The highlight of my working day used to be the lunchtime card game. After lockdown started we carried on with it for a couple of months using the online phone system and a mobile app, but after a while it fizzled out and now nobody can be arsed, which is a shame.
 

martin

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We’re on an optional “go in once a week if you need to” basis. Helps that the new bossman lives near Wales, and that somebody else in the company has been talking about moving abroad, where the supermarket shelves are paved with lemongrass.

I went in one day in August for a few hours (purely so they couldn’t say “Hmm… Martin’s not been in at all!”) and there were bags of trash from March 2020. So much for the fastidious new office-cleaning regime. I couldn’t type a single sentence using the clunky office keyboard – I’m so used to using my laptop at home. Did a mini-pub crawl afterwards with one co-worker and a contractor we know. Very subdued atmosphere in the pubs; interesting to see which local shops/pubs didn’t survive.

Our receptionist got made redundant, they didn’t even give her a Zoom send-off after working there for 12+ years. Just some mealy-mouthed group email saying it was unfortunate, but, y’know. Last time I saw her, she was bricking herself about catching the virus. We have to do some ‘tick the boxes’ online diversity course soon, but I feel like doing a Paxman vs Galloway and asking the boss, “How do you feel having got rid of one of the few black women in the company?” Of course, I won’t: I’ll just speed-click my way through yes, yes, yes, muh privilege, then sod off down the park.
 

luka

Well-known member
in america it makes sense to say, well, i dont need to live in new york anymore, i will build a cabin a redwood forest
or i'll join a commune in Sedona and tap into the vortexes but the UK doesnt really allow for this decentralisation.
you cant move out of London becasue if you did you would be in Yeovil or Basingstoke. you can only emigrate. you
can;t move internally.
 
in america it makes sense to say, well, i dont need to live in new york anymore, i will build a cabin a redwood forest
or i'll join a commune in Sedona and tap into the vortexes but the UK doesnt really allow for this decentralisation.
you cant move out of London becasue if you did you would be in Yeovil or Basingstoke. you can only emigrate. you
can;t move internally.

Some of the Scottish islands are as far-flung and off-grid as it gets. I know this from the works of Ben Fogle.
 

catalog

Well-known member
But also don't forget that a lot thed America that ppl have actually moved to, coff remote working, like where spenna lives, is actually like a drab bit of the m4 corridor, with a bit more open space. No-one is actually going to a redwood forest cos they are still expensive and you need WiFi.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Portugal sounds cool;
Interesting. Despite such measures the lockdown had quite a sad effect on the working lives (and therefore also the rest of their lives) of a lot of people I know. Before Covid hoved into view most of them worked in bars a few days a week and spent the rest of their time (and some of that time in fairness) taking drugs and occasionally doing something creative vaguely related to their art degrees. With the advent of the pandemic virtually all of them were unceremoniously laid off, in most cases they were vulnerable cos when they were given the job they were forced to take them as cash-in-hand with no contracts. They were properly fucked over - some places didn't even give them any notice, they simply stopped phoning them with their hours for the week and assumed that they would get the message. No pay off of course, and in the above cases, because of their previous dubious status they won't be recorded as newly jobless.

One by one they took jobs in the only industry that is here in Lisbon, call centres. There are loads of them here and it feels a real shame that all of my friends had to quit their bar jobs and, more importantly, their dreams to answer stupid questions from customers of AirBnB or Youtube or something. Luckily quite a few of them were able to get the equipment from the company and work from home, so most of them didn't let it impinge on their main vocation though - for example Liza would often go for a walk and then meet up with our friend Luis who got shifts for the AirBnB call centres dealing with queries in the evenings. She would keep him company throughout the shift, I guess at least partly cos they would work their way through quite a few cans and he always had a good stock of K so would get increasingly wankered. Another guy we know, Alex, worked for the Chinese delivery thing called Far Fetch, when I nipped round to visit him and Augustus for some reason I noticed that he also had several different piles of white powder neatly positioned by the phone. I formed this image of thousands of sad young hipsters sitting alone in dark bedrooms across Lisbon, boshing endless lines to get through the boredom of the endless stupid questions, ending each day having sniffed more than they earned.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Interesting. Despite such measures the lockdown had quite a sad effect on the working lives (and therefore also the rest of their lives) of a lot of people I know. Before Covid hoved into view most of them worked in bars a few days a week and spent the rest of their time (and some of that time in fairness) taking drugs and occasionally doing something creative vaguely related to their art degrees. With the advent of the pandemic virtually all of them were unceremoniously laid off, in most cases they were vulnerable cos when they were given the job they were forced to take them as cash-in-hand with no contracts. They were properly fucked over - some places didn't even give them any notice, they simply stopped phoning them with their hours for the week and assumed that they would get the message. No pay off of course, and in the above cases, because of their previous dubious status they won't be recorded as newly jobless.

One by one they took jobs in the only industry that is here in Lisbon, call centres. There are loads of them here and it feels a real shame that all of my friends had to quit their bar jobs and, more importantly, their dreams to answer stupid questions from customers of AirBnB or Youtube or something. Luckily quite a few of them were able to get the equipment from the company and work from home, so most of them didn't let it impinge on their main vocation though - for example Liza would often go for a walk and then meet up with our friend Luis who got shifts for the AirBnB call centres dealing with queries in the evenings. She would keep him company throughout the shift, I guess at least partly cos they would work their way through quite a few cans and he always had a good stock of K so would get increasingly wankered. Another guy we know, Alex, worked for the Chinese delivery thing called Far Fetch, when I nipped round to visit him and Augustus for some reason I noticed that he also had several different piles of white powder neatly positioned by the phone. I formed this image of thousands of sad young hipsters sitting alone in dark bedrooms across Lisbon, boshing endless lines to get through the boredom of the endless stupid questions, ending each day having sniffed more than they earned.
I was about to say, how much can you earn doing call-centre work that it pays for you to be able to do drugs more or less continuously while you're answering phones, then I read to the end, and the answer, predictably, is not enough.

God, that's a sad story, though.

It's only lightened up by the idea of the sort of replies some of the customers might have got if they were put through to someone nearing the end of an eight-hour shift...
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
my office is in a kind of shared workspace thing, and both resident advisor and bandcamp have 'space' there. i'm determined to make friends with them but they are abolutely refusing so far
update on this: i went there today and any attempt at engagement is met with suspicion. i'm going to get there. i will grind them down. there's a company there which hires influencers for parties and they are both the most numerous and the most receptive so far. one of the guys at bandcamp has an utterly ridiculous haircut which i very much respect. no-one at resident advisor has ever shown up which seems appropriate. there are some people from a hipster bakery who once left a load of sugary biscuits for everyone to eat, not sure i approve of them, they're a bit matronly.
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
on the subject of american biscuits, called 'cookies' in the local patois, they are so fucking sugary. it's out of control. it's even worse than the south asian sweet tooth. i feel like i've taken drugs when i eat one. i always regret it. all i want is some custard creams. a bourbon.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
My partner's a civil servant so she's getting caught in the fallout from this Rees Mogg "bums on seats or it didn't happen" fuckwittery.
 
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