Death Of London

[stop_the_craziness]

2 minutes ago, Anglepoise said:

Meatrack looks quiet!

Is that still a Thing?

[Roger_Mellie]

On 28/09/2020 at 22:57, Errol said:

Piccadilly Circus - today. Lunchtime.

It looks virtually empty. You'd expect it to look like this at 6am in the morning, possibly.

 

Looks like the 60s

[DoINeedOne]

 

[leggers]

7 hours ago, DoINeedOne said:

 

But I thought they said 60-odd plus percent were "back in the office", the other day?

[goldbug9999]

Its interesting because the provincial cities in my neck of the woods, the west, so bristol etc, seem more or less back to normal. 

I guess it underlines just how few people will voluntarily go into central London for anything other than work. London is surely heading for complete financial meltdown without the 3 million odd daily commuters. Bonus points for those fuckers at great western railway getting utterly annihilated.

[Frank Hovis]

7 hours ago, goldbug9999 said:

Its interesting because the provincial cities in my neck of the woods, the west, so bristol etc, seem more or less back to normal. 

I guess it underlines just how few people will voluntarily go into central London for anything other than work. London is surely heading for complete financial meltdown without the 3 million odd daily commuters. Bonus points for those fuckers at great western railway getting utterly annihilated.

As well as working in the City I was one of the few who also lived there.

At weekends I almost had the place to myself and would wander around the silent old buildings and churchyards on sunny days.

There are probably even fewer people living there these days and it looks like my weekends of solitude are the "new normal".

[Gloommonger]

22 minutes ago, Frank Hovis said:

As well as working in the City I was one of the few who also lived there.

At weekends I almost had the place to myself and would wander around the silent old buildings and churchyards on sunny days.

There are probably even fewer people living there these days and it looks like my weekends of solitude are the "new normal".

I went to our city office on Tuesday, took the train for the first time. Very few taxpayers can afford to live a short commute from their place of work and now  people realise that the commute is an unpleasant ballache and costs a lot of money. We have 60 in our office, last week attendance was; mon 8, tues 13, wed 21, thur 23, fri 6.

[UnconventionalWisdom]

9 hours ago, leggers said:

But I thought they said 60-odd plus percent were "back in the office", the other day?

Prob people who don't have an annoying, busy commute- so not london offices. Our office (only 12 people) are prob about 60% in at a time but we all mainly drive in or walk.

[Frank Hovis]

9 hours ago, leggers said:

But I thought they said 60-odd plus percent were "back in the office", the other day?

 

4 minutes ago, UnconventionalWisdom said:

Prob people who don't have an annoying, busy commute- so not london offices. Our office (only 12 people) are prob about 60% in at a time but we all mainly drive in or walk.

This.

That 60% average hides a huge variation.  IME public sector and private sector project-based offices (mainly construction projects) are at about 10% even outside of London.

In London as has been said in order to avoid the horrendous commute people are prepared to work much harder in order to demonstrate that they don't need to be in the office so that's going to be about 10% in the office.

That leaves private sector in which there has already been a push, I wouldn't say a huge push but there has been some, to close down offices.  Local offices of national auditors have been closed in the last three years (PWC and KPMG in my direct experience) and pure IT companies have been basing people from their homes for years.

That's leaving private sector office workers not working in London who cannot readily do their jobs from home making up most of that 60% who must be in at about the 90% mark.

[Chewing Grass]

5 minutes ago, Frank Hovis said:

private sector project-based offices (mainly construction projects) are at about 10% even outside of London

You are spot on there, probably about 10-20% as project offices are notoriously overpopulated and under toileted so bugs go round like the plague. There would be too much business risk in risking putting more people back in.

[spygirl]

29 minutes ago, Gloommonger said:

I went to our city office on Tuesday, took the train for the first time. Very few taxpayers can afford to live a short commute from their place of work and now  people realise that the commute is an unpleasant ballache and costs a lot of money. We have 60 in our office, last week attendance was; mon 8, tues 13, wed 21, thur 23, fri 6.

Nice of companies to offload their inability to pay andor run smaller offices by getting the employee to pay ~15k+ gross on commuting to the office.

The tumble weeds pics just go to show how much London has been emptied by Brit s, and filled up with non Brits benefit scum.

[spygirl]

12 minutes ago, Frank Hovis said:

 

This.

That 60% average hides a huge variation.  IME public sector and private sector project-based offices (mainly construction projects) are at about 10% even outside of London.

In London as has been said in order to avoid the horrendous commute people are prepared to work much harder in order to demonstrate that they don't need to be in the office so that's going to be about 10% in the office.

That leaves private sector in which there has already been a push, I wouldn't say a huge push but there has been some, to close down offices.  Local offices of national auditors have been closed in the last three years (PWC and KPMG in my direct experience) and pure IT companies have been basing people from their homes for years.

That's leaving private sector office workers not working in London who cannot readily do their jobs from home making up most of that 60% who must be in at about the 90% mark.

And the slow dawning truth that the London offices are no longer staffed by people living in London.

Orgs now face having to pay people enough to live in London.

Or moving out.

 

 

[ashestoashes]

1 minute ago, spygirl said:

And the slow dawning truth that the London offices are no longer staffed by people living in London.

Orgs now face having to pay people enough to live in London.

Or moving out.

 

 

will business rates have to increase to cover the shortfall from those moving out ?

[onlyme]

23 minutes ago, spygirl said:

And the slow dawning truth that the London offices are no longer staffed by people living in London.

Orgs now face having to pay people enough to live in London.

Or moving out.

 

 

Or pretty much online.

[AWW]

I have to confess that I don't get the love that many people have for working from home. My working day used to consist of a 14 mile bike ride to the office, nice hot shower that I never had to clean, spot of breakfast, a few hours work, couple of pints with friends, few more hours work, then bike ride home.
 

Working from home substitutes all that for trying to get five minutes peace from the kids to actually get something done, constantly being interrupted by Mrs AWW to just do this or just do that, no exercise, no socialising. It's crap!

[Frank Hovis]

8 minutes ago, AWW said:

I have to confess that I don't get the love that many people have for working from home. My working day used to consist of a 14 mile bike ride to the office, nice hot shower that I never had to clean, spot of breakfast, a few hours work, couple of pints with friends, few more hours work, then bike ride home.
 

Working from home substitutes all that for trying to get five minutes peace from the kids to actually get something done, constantly being interrupted by Mrs AWW to just do this or just do that, no exercise, no socialising. It's crap!

I couldn't agree more.

School, then college, then career are where you develop yourself through working hard and having to get one with a wide range of people.

If you spend your college years studying online from home and then progress to working online from home you will have the experience, social skills and maturity of a teenager your whole life.  You will only live half a life.

I've had a couple of jobs I really disliked where if the opportunity had arisen to do them from home and never go to work again I'd have jumped at that.  Yet through doing them I learned to motivate myself when the work itself was no motivation and to be pleasant to people who weren't pleasant to me.  I grew as a person.

As a minor example I was in a sports team a few years ago that won a big tournament (the level was pretty low though!) and because I had organised the team the tournament organiser gave me the cup and asked me, with no prior notice, to say a few words to a hall of a hundred people who, barring my own team, I didn't know other than the odd chat before games.  I happily trotted out a few sentences with some self-deprecation and ended on a joke that had everyone laughing.  If I had spent my life working from home, and well I probably wouldn't have been there in the first place, I would have been really embarrassed and muttered something whilst looking at the floor as my teenage self would have done.  

Working from home long term is IMO a real brake upon your developing as a person.

IT people for example threw off the nerd image that they rightly had in the 80s and early 90s by becoming an integral part of the company and are going to now reacquire it by becoming shed-dwelling hermits.

[feed]

57 minutes ago, AWW said:

I have to confess that I don't get the love that many people have for working from home. My working day used to consist of a 14 mile bike ride to the office, nice hot shower that I never had to clean, spot of breakfast, a few hours work, couple of pints with friends, few more hours work, then bike ride home.
 

Working from home substitutes all that for trying to get five minutes peace from the kids to actually get something done, constantly being interrupted by Mrs AWW to just do this or just do that, no exercise, no socialising. It's crap!

Because it consists of a 45 min 20 mile drive, a miserable noisy open plan office, converted from a workshop so there are more or less no facilities, with agency personnel coughing around you (they don’t get sick pay) for 8 hrs with limited breaks and no lunch as 11-13 is prime time to get the US/EU/India talking at a reasonable time for everyone.   

A 45 min 20 mile drive home with a 20 min walk from desk to car park, even if you did get in at 7:00.  

[AWW]

In London, feed?

[feed]

Just now, AWW said:

In London, feed?

essex.  London would be worse than that. 

Edited October 1, 2020 by feed

[JoeDavola]

10 hours ago, goldbug9999 said:

Its interesting because the provincial cities in my neck of the woods, the west, so bristol etc, seem more or less back to normal. 

I guess it underlines just how few people will voluntarily go into central London for anything other than work. London is surely heading for complete financial meltdown without the 3 million odd daily commuters. Bonus points for those fuckers at great western railway getting utterly annihilated.

Yup Belfast busy enough. People must just really hate London

[feed]

It’s the commute.  Of course if there are fewer commuters, then the commute will be easier/better.  

So more commuters. 
 

[JoeDavola]

1 hour ago, Chewing Grass said:

You are spot on there, probably about 10-20% as project offices are notoriously overpopulated and under toileted so bugs go round like the plague. There would be too much business risk in risking putting more people back in.

This is one of the big reasons I never wanna go back. The bean counters moved us into a smaller office about a year ago and it's a trek to get to a toilet from it - the toilet to staff ratio is way off and I sometimes have to check 3 different floors of the building before I can find somewhere to take a shit...

...thankfully, most of the time, it's a toilet

Edited October 1, 2020 by JoeDavola

[JoeDavola]

1 hour ago, AWW said:

I have to confess that I don't get the love that many people have for working from home. My working day used to consist of a 14 mile bike ride to the office, nice hot shower that I never had to clean, spot of breakfast, a few hours work, couple of pints with friends, few more hours work, then bike ride home.

The reason you miss it is that your day at work sounds more fun than most working people's days off work are.

[apples]

2 hours ago, AWW said:

14 mile bike ride to the office

Been there, done that. Great fun when it was pouring with rain and a fifty mile an hour headwind, which inevitably became a headwind in time to go home too!

[Stuey]

2 hours ago, JoeDavola said:

This is one of the big reasons I never wanna go back. The bean counters moved us into a smaller office about a year ago and it's a trek to get to a toilet from it - the toilet to staff ratio is way off and I sometimes have to check 3 different floors of the building before I can find somewhere to take a shit...

...thankfully, most of the time, it's a toilet

I don't understand why anyone would need or want to take a shit at work or at any public bog.