London: the unlockening/relockening
- Thread starter teuchter
- Start date
Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
Which is pretty high considering they are no longer required on public transport.
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
It's more prevalent in central than it is out here in outskirts. I get on tube in zone 6 and maybe 3 people in the carriage have a mask. I change to overground in zone 2 and it's maybe 30-40 percent.
platinumsage
HaveMyPassword123
Yesterday was the first I time I went to central London since 2020. It seemed busier than it ever was, I avoided the tube but perhaps other people had the same idea because there were so many pedestrians throughout the afternoon and evening. Also it seems Thursday is the new Friday because all the pubs had people outside, I guess Friday is a WFH day.
I saw about three people wearing masks the whole day.
I saw about three people wearing masks the whole day.
Yeah, I think things are largely getting back to normal, I was at a gig at Brixton Academy the other week and it was glorious getting up close and sweaty with strangers. Still see maybe 5-10% of people wearing masks on the tube and I'll tend to give them a wide berth, if that's not possible I do still carry one and will put it on.
I would imagine the majority of office workers are doing fewer than five days and will stay that way. People want it and they'll leave companies that don't offer flexibility.
Elpenor
a clown’s heart and a mandolin
That feels about right. Thinking back to my brief time working in London (Jan - early March 2020) the tube was always rammo, admittedly this was either going from the City to Paddington or down to London Bridge but even still it was quiet and dare I say it pleasant
Mrs Miggins
Eternal
It's absolutely back to normal on the Northern line at rush hour. Busses are rammed again in South london too.
hash tag
Books, not bombs
Are you a tube train driver on the Northern line?
hash tag
Books, not bombs
I suspect this was the tip of the ice berg, just the few who were penalised
BBC News - Covid: Nearly 4,000 maskless London passengers hit with fines
BBC News - Covid: Nearly 4,000 maskless London passengers hit with fines
Covid: Nearly 4,000 maskless London passengers hit with fines
Compulsory face coverings were reinstated amid rising concerns about the Omicron variant in November.
www.bbc.co.uk
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
I suspect this was the tip of the ice berg, just the few who were penalised
BBC News - Covid: Nearly 4,000 maskless London passengers hit with fines
Covid: Nearly 4,000 maskless London passengers hit with fines
Compulsory face coverings were reinstated amid rising concerns about the Omicron variant in November.www.bbc.co.uk
They were never going to catch anything like the majority of cases were they. I think the point was just to make people aware that they might be caught and fined - at one point they'd done virtually nothing about it iirc.
Mrs Miggins
Eternal
It was always vanishingly unlikely that anyone at all would be "caught" not wearing a mask given there was nobody out enforcing it. I worked and travelled on public transport throughout the whole thing and saw enforcement people once during that time on a bus. Never on the tube or in mainline railway stations. I don't think any of my colleagues saw anyone at all.
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
Yeah no consequences at all for not donning up.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
London. Unlocked
Mrs Miggins
Eternal
Is that Gary Barlow?
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
London UNLOCKED. Love to see it
teuchter
je suis teuchter
There is some interesting stuff here.
www.centreforcities.org
The actual report is here:
www.centreforcities.org
Return to the office: How London compares to other global cities, and why this matters - Centre for Cities
This report presents the latest data documenting how the central London return to the office has continued in 2024 and where it might go in the future, compared to the city centres of five of its international competitors: Paris, New York, Singapore, Sydney, and Toronto
www.centreforcities.org
The actual report is here:
Return to the office - Centre for Cities
www.centreforcities.org
The scale on that graph overemphasises the differences. So London seems to average about 2.75 whereas New York is more like 3.05. Is that really such a big difference?
My experience of the politics of WFH is that:
(1) Geography matters. London is sprawling and many of its workers commute through that sprawl, which can take 60, 90 or even 120 minutes each way. As a consequence, workers who live further out are more likely to find travelling into the office a difficult experience to manage. These are more likely to be older, more settled individuals with kids and other commitments. By contrast, the younger people in our office, who tend to live closer to the centre, are way more likely to spend 4 or 5 days a week in the office itself, where they can be both more comfortable and have a peer group for company. I think this means comparisons between cities are difficult — you have to take all these material factors into account.
(2) Culture matters. In particular, this includes the culture of resistance, including both whether resistance is a norm and the manner in which things are resisted. It is extremely effective for office workers to resist demands to come to the office by simply not doing it. This kind of passive aggressive, implacable contrarian bloody-mindedness seems to come quite naturally to British office workers. I don’t see people organising and making demands for different WFH conditions. I see them just… doing what they want. You could almost set a clock by the pattern by which my company sends emails reminding everybody that 3 days per week in the office is the rule now and making vague but dire threats about what will happen if this isn’t abided by. It doesn’t make any difference because people know that in reality, it isn’t going to be worth the hassle and fallout of the company going to war against half its workforce.
My experience of the politics of WFH is that:
(1) Geography matters. London is sprawling and many of its workers commute through that sprawl, which can take 60, 90 or even 120 minutes each way. As a consequence, workers who live further out are more likely to find travelling into the office a difficult experience to manage. These are more likely to be older, more settled individuals with kids and other commitments. By contrast, the younger people in our office, who tend to live closer to the centre, are way more likely to spend 4 or 5 days a week in the office itself, where they can be both more comfortable and have a peer group for company. I think this means comparisons between cities are difficult — you have to take all these material factors into account.
(2) Culture matters. In particular, this includes the culture of resistance, including both whether resistance is a norm and the manner in which things are resisted. It is extremely effective for office workers to resist demands to come to the office by simply not doing it. This kind of passive aggressive, implacable contrarian bloody-mindedness seems to come quite naturally to British office workers. I don’t see people organising and making demands for different WFH conditions. I see them just… doing what they want. You could almost set a clock by the pattern by which my company sends emails reminding everybody that 3 days per week in the office is the rule now and making vague but dire threats about what will happen if this isn’t abided by. It doesn’t make any difference because people know that in reality, it isn’t going to be worth the hassle and fallout of the company going to war against half its workforce.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
I know someone who recently started working in the civil service and it seems they don't really want people to come in - they have reduced the amount of office space available and made it hotdesking for everyone but the more senior people. There's not physically space for everyone to come in at the same time, you have to book a desk in advance and as a result it's not possible to sit with the team that you are actually working with.
That's the Whitehall office - it seems that their offices in other places outside of London are a bit more relaxed and have better attendance.
One factor seems to be that quite a lot of the more senior people nominally working in the London office have actually moved out of London in the past few years and it's now quite time consuming and expensive for them to come in.
My impression is that the more senior people don't really get it that a quite alienating work environment has been created for the younger folk who might have a less comfortable home setup and who actually want to live in London rather than two hours away.
I still think there's an understimation of the long term effects (in all sorts of organisations) of the experienced staff hiding away in their comfortable home offices.
One thing that report says/claims is that London has a different age profile to other cities - in London there's a marked tendency for the older staff to be less likely to come in, while in other cities they are actually more likely to come in than the younger ones.
That's the Whitehall office - it seems that their offices in other places outside of London are a bit more relaxed and have better attendance.
One factor seems to be that quite a lot of the more senior people nominally working in the London office have actually moved out of London in the past few years and it's now quite time consuming and expensive for them to come in.
My impression is that the more senior people don't really get it that a quite alienating work environment has been created for the younger folk who might have a less comfortable home setup and who actually want to live in London rather than two hours away.
I still think there's an understimation of the long term effects (in all sorts of organisations) of the experienced staff hiding away in their comfortable home offices.
One thing that report says/claims is that London has a different age profile to other cities - in London there's a marked tendency for the older staff to be less likely to come in, while in other cities they are actually more likely to come in than the younger ones.
I don’t think this is being underestimated at all. It’s exactly what the leadership of companies are most worried about, in my experience.
