No Going Back To Work

[allenlondon]

Apparently, people who needn’t go back to work aren’t going back to work.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/sep/10/no-rise-in-workers-in-uk-city-centres-despite-back-to-office-plea

Is this inevitable? So many office jobs are far from useful, involving moving bits of paper around, or making phone calls, that people just aren’t going to miss a few million office workers not turning up.

A bit like many hospital clinic consultations, just as effective done by telephone, people might be waking up to the tremendous waste of time that society indulges in.

[woofgang]

naomi, so what its your alternative?

[naomi24]

I think we have to do our utmost to preserve and support businesses, woofgang, and to do as much as we can as quickly as possible. Without business there are no jobs, hence no taxes paid, and looking at the worst scenario, ultimately the demise of the Welfare State and a populace in poverty. No money - no anything. It's as simple as that really.

[Jackdaw33]

LOL @ mushroom supra. Someone else who remembers Rambling Sid Rumpo.

[ichkeria]

“I think we have to do our utmost to preserve and support businesses, woofgang, and to do as much as we can as quickly as possible“

That is all very well, but really in our economy it doesn’t work like that. The idea that people should put themselves out to keep Subway going is fanciful.
Unless you want to go down the route of a planned economy. Which socialists have argued for years. I suspect not in your case.
It is odd how this crisis seems to have had an odd effect on people’s beliefs. At times I’ve feared I was morphing into a Tory backbencher :-)
“Three cheers for florid Kremlin apologist Edward Leigh” is not a phrase I’d use lightly but I almost did the other day.

[jno]

yes, Subway exists to serve the public, the public aren't there to serve Subway. If people move elsewhere (eg to work from home), Subway could try following them there. If they can't adapt they'll go the way of the buggy-whip makers, but that's not the fault of customers.

[mushroom25]

// If they can't adapt they'll go the way of the buggy-whip makers //

yes but the buggy whip makers had years, nay decades to adapt. Subway have got maybe 6 months at most. you can't really call them dinosaurs if they don't manage it.

[ichkeria]

Is anyone saying Subway etc are dinosaurs?
I don’t think so.

[webbo3]

They need to remember that if the job can be done at home it can be done in India for a third of the wages.

[pixie374]

Naomi... it isn't up to companies to help people pay their mortgages. It's up to individuals to do what they need to.

[Deskdiary]

These non-jobs that Allen’s speaking of - does that include all of the financial services that ‘move bits of paper around’?

The financial services that are an enormous, massive part of our economy, and that the UK is one of the world’s powerhouses in?

The level of naivety is breathtaking.

[pixie374]

It includes anything people aren't willing to pay for... it isn't naive. It's just what will happen.

[Deskdiary]

It won’t happen. It is naive.

[pixie374]

You think people will voluntarily pay for things they don't want or need? Why?

[jno]

I didn't call them dinosaurs, mushroom - on the contrary, they and their fellow chains are as well placed to adapt as anyone, and if they fail, maybe it's because of bad management. The little family businesses are more at risk. But they can still try to go where the hungry people are if they want to continue selling sandwiches.

[Deskdiary]

My point was that the UK financial services is a massive part of our economy, and if Allen believes that people employed in the sector are merely paper movers and are “...far from useful” that he was being naive. Also pretty insulting to the many people employed in the sector.

As you responded to my post, I naturally assumed your post was answering my post, but I guess it wasn’t.

[pixie374]

I was responding to you, dd, although perhaps got the wrong end of the stick.

[fiction-factory]

Yes, I think pixie and deskdiary were at cross-purposes. I think there is no disagreement with pixie's point that many jobs will go and new ones will be created as the environment changes. Covid has definitely speeded that process up and in some cases moved it in a different direction. If enough people don't want to pay for a service the business will not survive.

What I think deskdiary disagrees with (and I and others do too) is that allen was suggesting millions of office jobs are not needed-and weren't pre-covid- because they are just pushing paper and not adding value. Whilst my experience of business is that there is a lot of 'make work' at management level in some office environments, most office staff are actually doing things that are vital to the business- processing payments, customer services, selling houses, providing legal services, developing and maintaining systems, doing business planning, advertising and marketing, recruiting and training staff, looking after our pension funds auditing and ensuring compliance, accounting services, etc etc etc.

[allenlondon]

Deskdiary. Moving bits of paper around suits finance capitalism, and those who work in it.

But the gigantic Money Bubble will one day burst (we have already had small ‘trial’ bursts) and the utter futility of ‘pure’ capitalism will be exposed for even the most simple-minded to see.

Covid 19 offers few positives, but one might be that we can ALL look at our roles in society and re-assess their value.

Or we can stay put, knowing (to borrow a phrase) the price of everything and the value of nothing.

[fiction-factory]

Sorry pixie, I started typing mine about 15 minutes ago and got distracted (I'd better not say what by) before I saw your 21:36 post

[fiction-factory]

I though so. A Marxian perspective still rooted in the 19th century. On the whole only the workers do real work- coal mining, ploughing the fields, etc etc