War on Woke: Conservative Cultural Campaigning

[8ball]

Why is working from home supposedly "woke", anyway? Is this some kind of foetid spillover from the batshit politicisation of the pandemic in the US?

Also confused here. And confused about the shitting in the sea thing.
And am working in the office. So am totally unwoke on every level.

 

[NoXion]

Also confused here. Also confused about the shitting in the sea thing.
And am working in the office. So am totally unwoke on every level.

I think the "shitting in the sea" is a reference to the fact that a load of raw sewage has recently been let out into the sea, because apparently for some reason water treatment plants aren't doing their job properly.

 

[Cloo]

Wfh is 'woke' because a certain kind of older person doesn't understand it. They think that surely, without a 'boss' breathing down their neck, lazy young people won't do any work because surely there's no way to tell how much work is being done (other than, you know, the email/message trail, the fact that results happen, widgets get shifted, content gets published etc). And wokeness is just against all their values, which include 'hard work', so obviously they're lazy.

 

[8ball]

I think the "shitting in the sea" is a reference to the fact that a load of raw sewage has recently been let out into the sea, because apparently for some reason water treatment plants aren't doing their job properly.

I still don't understand the woke connection but thanks anyway.

 

[8ball]

Wfh is 'woke' because a certain kind of older person doesn't understand it. They think that surely, without a 'boss' breathing down their neck, lazy young people won't do any work because surely there's no way to tell how much work is being done...

I'm in the office and my boss is WFH, so the joke is on them.

 

[killer b]

Wfh is 'woke' because a certain kind of older person doesn't understand it. They think that surely, without a 'boss' breathing down their neck, lazy young people won't do any work because surely there's no way to tell how much work is being done (other than, you know, the email/message trail, the fact that results happen, widgets get shifted, content gets published etc). And wokeness is just against all their values, which include 'hard work', so obviously they're lazy.

it's a fair cop, I get fuck all done when I'm working from home.

 

[Cloo]

I'm in the office right now. My company is split on the matter.

They know there will be a rebellion if they try to force everyone in, though that is what most of the bigwigs want.

Certainly if moving to another job now in my field it would seem pretty antisocial of any employer to be asking for full time office attendance in my field, which is eminently doable from home (editorial). The other thing people forget is that plenty of teams have been working flexibly for years. I think there were only ever 2 days a week when my entire team was in and I'm sure that was not uncommon, in London at least, and if we do go 'back to the office', it'll probably feel the same as it did before for us as a team.

 

[Voley]

We've had a couple of Covid cases in our office recently. I've only been back a handful of times anyhow but mentioned to my boss I'd be giving the place a wide berth until after Xmas and then I'll see what infection rates are like. She said she's doing the same. Then we had a chat about current workload / priorities and how things were looking in programme delivery. Going well, we both agreed.

And that's how us awful woke snowflakes operate, dreadful blight on society that we are.

 

[8ball]

Certainly if moving to another job now in my field it would seem pretty antisocial of any employer to be asking for full time office attendance in my field, which is eminently doable from home (editorial). The other thing people forget is that plenty of teams have been working flexibly for years. I think there were only ever 2 days a week when my entire team was in and I'm sure that was not uncommon, in London at least, and if we do go 'back to the office', it'll probably feel the same as it did before for us as a team.

One thing that occurs to me is that WFH must be tough for young people in shared houses etc. who might not be supplied decent kit or have a suitable environment in which to use it.
Same for all sorts of people who can't set aside some part of a room up with relative calm and a decent workspace etc.

 

[killer b]

TBH I have reservations about working from home not a million miles from what Littlejohn talks about in the subheading on that article (obv I won't be reading the full thing) - collaboration and communication between members of the team is more difficult however you cut it, and especially for people new to a job or a position there's a lot lost.

I think many of the people who are keen to remain working from home are established in their careers, experienced in doing what they do, and the extra costs and inconveniences of working from home are outweighed by the savings in time and travel costs etc of getting into the office. Understandable, but it feels to me like there's an element of pulling up the drawbridge to this a lot of the time - while there may be little value personally for an experienced and fully skilled worker to being in the office, their absence is a detriment to junior colleagues, who are unable to easily call on their experience and advice.

 

[8ball]

TBH I have reservations about working from home not a million miles from what Littlejohn talks about in the subheading on that article (obv I won't be reading the full thing) - collaboration and communication between members of the team is more difficult however you cut it, and especially for people new to a job or a position there's a lot lost.

I think many of the people who are keen to remain working from home are established in their careers, experienced in doing what they do, and the extra costs and inconveniences of working from home are outweighed by the savings in time and travel costs etc of getting into the office. Understandable, but it feels to me like there's an element of pulling up the drawbridge to this a lot of the time - while there may be little value personally for an experienced and fully skilled worker to being in the office, their absence is a detriment to junior colleagues, who are unable to easily call on their experience and advice.

Bloody good point. I wouldn't want to be just starting in my job from home at a time like this.

 

[strung out]

TBH I have reservations about working from home not a million miles from what Littlejohn talks about in the subheading on that article (obv I won't be reading the full thing) - collaboration and communication between members of the team is more difficult however you cut it, and especially for people new to a job or a position there's a lot lost.

I think many of the people who are keen to remain working from home are established in their careers, experienced in doing what they do, and the extra costs and inconveniences of working from home are outweighed by the savings in time and travel costs etc of getting into the office. Understandable, but it feels to me like there's an element of pulling up the drawbridge to this a lot of the time - while there may be little value personally for an experienced and fully skilled worker to being in the office, their absence is a detriment to junior colleagues, who are unable to easily call on their experience and advice.

I completely agree. I appreciate being able to work from home a couple of days a week, but I personally think we should be looking to get people back in the office as much as possible (once it's safe to do so, obviously). Work in an academic library fwiw.

 

[Cloo]

One thing that occurs to me is that WFH must be tough for young people in shared houses etc. who might not be supplied decent kit or have a suitable environment in which to use it.
Same for all sorts of people who can't set aside some part of a room up with relative calm and a decent workspace etc.

Absolutely, it has its place, especially for those without homes conducive to it and got young people and I'd like to go back in some of the week. I just object to the idea some people who don't understand it have that going to the office = 'going back to work'

 

[8ball]

Absolutely, it has its place, especially for those without homes conducive to it and got young people and I'd like to go back in some of the week. I just object to the idea some people who don't understand it have that going to the office = 'going back to work'

When you're at Uni you have the library and the computer lab (or whatever they call it nowadays).
Wouldn't mesh too easily with capitalism, but would make sense to have similar places dotted about where people lived, with differing configurations for different but broadly similar kinds of work..

 

[JimW]

Plus the best consistent skiving I ever did was night shifts at a car parts factory; quotas had already been set carefully by looking busy under the stopwatch but actually do-able in about half the time then you could spend the rest of your shift asleep behind the stacks in the cutting tool room.

 

[Teaboy]

I work from home, then again I did before covid.

Yesterday I was worked solidly from 8am till 7.30pm with just a 30 minute break at lunchtime for a walk. It'll be the same again most days this week. I still don't know what woke is but I'm definitely not awake, I'm nodding off as I write this.

 

[Artaxerxes]

More of these comical attempts to define Woke please

 

[danny la rouge]

More of these comical attempts to define Woke please

They probably are, too.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

TBH I have reservations about working from home not a million miles from what Littlejohn talks about in the subheading on that article (obv I won't be reading the full thing) - collaboration and communication between members of the team is more difficult however you cut it, and especially for people new to a job or a position there's a lot lost.

I think many of the people who are keen to remain working from home are established in their careers, experienced in doing what they do, and the extra costs and inconveniences of working from home are outweighed by the savings in time and travel costs etc of getting into the office. Understandable, but it feels to me like there's an element of pulling up the drawbridge to this a lot of the time - while there may be little value personally for an experienced and fully skilled worker to being in the office, their absence is a detriment to junior colleagues, who are unable to easily call on their experience and advice.

Yeah agreed. A lot of this is a result of the years of utterly shit housing policy preceding the pandemic isn't. People, or at least the people lucky enough to be in a position to do so, aren't just accepting of having to spend hours travelling to work in order to afford somewhere to live any more. It'll be hard for them to put that genie back in the bottle for sure.

I wonder if the idea that WFH is 'woke' is connected to that as well. The last thing they want is anything that messes with the housing market.

 

[killer b]

Yeah agreed. A lot of this is a result of the years of utterly shit housing policy preceding the pandemic isn't. People, or at least the people lucky enough to be in a position to do so, aren't just accepting of having to spend hours travelling to work in order to afford somewhere to live any more. It'll be hard for them to put that genie back in the bottle for sure.

I wonder if the idea that WFH is 'woke' is connected to that as well. The last thing they want is anything that messes with the housing market.

I don't think anyone's said working from home is woke tbf (unless I've missed it somewhere), Littlejohn just called you all snowflakes.

 

[Teaboy]

I don't think anyone's said working from home is woke tbf (unless I've missed it somewhere), Littlejohn just called you all snowflakes.

You did, some nobody tory MP I think started going on about wokeing from home. I can't be bothered to google it. I think it was more to do with their instruction to use the word woke in every interview regardless of the subject matter being discussed.

 

[Artaxerxes]

They probably are, too.

There’s been a few noted incidents of kids calling parent’s facist idiots when the parents are Trump or Johnson cronies

 

[8ball]

I don't think anyone's said working from home is woke tbf (unless I've missed it somewhere), Littlejohn just called you all snowflakes.

Yeah, I thought you got snowflakes on both right and left too. Whereas harder to be right-wing woke.

 

[killer b]

You did, some nobody tory MP I think started going on about wokeing from home.

I vaguely remember that - months ago though wasn't it? Aren't we talking about this Littlejohn article now?

 

[Teaboy]

I vaguely remember that - months ago though wasn't it? Aren't we talking about this Littlejohn article now?

Fuck knows. As I said upthread I can barely keep my eyes open due to an excess of wokeing or something.

 

[Cloo]

I wonder if the idea that WFH is 'woke' is connected to that as well. The last thing they want is anything that messes with the housing market.

More specifically in parliament and in the upper echelons of media ownership, I have mentioned before, it's how many of them and their mates have a stake in commercial property as investment assets as well.

 

[existentialist]

Wfh is 'woke' because a certain kind of older person doesn't understand it. They think that surely, without a 'boss' breathing down their neck, lazy young people won't do any work because surely there's no way to tell how much work is being done (other than, you know, the email/message trail, the fact that results happen, widgets get shifted, content gets published etc). And wokeness is just against all their values, which include 'hard work', so obviously they're lazy.

I think a lot of people are very, very scared at the possibility that WFH might actually work. Theirs are the motives that are suspect...

 

[8ball]

I think a lot of people are very, very scared at the possibility that WFH might actually work. Theirs are the motives that are suspect...

Presumably the owners of commercial property?

 

[Cloo]

I work for a built environment org and I'd say the industry is quietly confident - the fact was, even before this, actual occupancy of most buildings during the day is 60% tops, so I think some are seeing it as 'well, occupants still want the swing space'. It'll definitely change somewhat - I don't think it'll be either a feast or a famine for commercial property quite, but we'll see.

 

[8ball]

I work for a built environment org and I'd say the industry is quietly confident - the fact was, even before this, actual occupancy of most buildings during the day is 60% tops, so I think some are seeing it as 'well, occupants still want the swing space'. It'll definitely change somewhat - I don't think it'll be either a feast or a famine for commercial property quite, but we'll see.

That's the first unmediated take I've heard from someone close to the industry. Interesting stuff.