I reckon a year after this has blown over, it’ll be like nothing happened. People will continue to vote for fucking over the NHS and shitting on all the people who are, at the moment, considered “key workers”. A few here and there might benefit from being able to work from home more, but I really can’t see much changing unfortunately. Call me a cynic but I just have so little faith in humans as a species to institute large scale and long term change for the better. I suppose because for the whole time I’ve been socially and politically aware (2006ish?) all I’ve seen is people get progressively more bullheaded, doubling down on where they’re obviously wrong. Things might change in 10-15 years, but the next 5 will be business as usual.
Hopefully big pharma can do the right thing and not be too cunty and get a vaccine out to people globally when it’s available. There’s going to be a fuckton of people unemployed globally either way and yeah it’d be lovely to have people be more selfless and caring but lets face it whatever the crisis in the past people who were cunts before will be the same or even worse after this and profiteering out of the misery.
I’m in the ‘probably fuck all will change’ camp, in the UK at least. It would be lovely to think the ladies down our local Sainsbury’s might get paid more, but if that happens prices will go up essentially negating the increase, and everyone else will either be worse off or shop somewhere else.
Capitalism doesn’t really allow for large scale changes.
Job specific, but the university sector will be decimated. There will be next to no international students coming into the country for this coming academic year, leaving institutions without a massive revenue stream. They will be down millions of pounds. Domestic applicant numbers may also be down as people from low income families or with caring duties decide it’s better just to work. This will mean widespread redundancies (which we’re already seeing) and even some universities closing. The university boom (Blair’s vision of getting 50% of school leavers into uni) feels well and truly over. If anyone has any alternative career paths for a history tutor with good research skills, then I’m all ears!
think someone mentioned it elsewhere on this forum but people’s facebook history is going to be embarrassing as fuck. you’ve got all the “it’s just a flu” people in February, all the “it’s caused by 5G people in March” and whatever joy April is going to bring (insert Shane Oneil joke here)
My friend owns a factory that manufactures dental equipment which he ships globally. Yesterday he had to furlough 26 staff on 80% salary using government scheme but he said with a tiny number of orders coming in that cash will run out quite soon.
Things are going to be fucked in almost every industry.
Feel for you man. A good friend of mine is a history lecturer and was in a bad position before all this kicked off. I worked at the same uni till last September when I took a voluntary exit and got a job at the council (both in marketing / comms). Currently super busy working from home, though what that will translate to when my contract needs reviewed in March I’m not so sure.
NHS is now untouchable by further privatisation and the whole sector gets paid properly.
The support for the NHS leads to thousands of kids/young being inspired to join the NHS in any form boosting the much needed numbers for the future.
More people can work from home reliving the strain on then rush hour and vehicle pollution. Realising this
People cycle more .
Families being closer and bonding more than ever and have got so bored of their screens they’ve become more creative together- art , Music , Cooking and DIY.
People become more compassionate towards asylum seekers from war torn countries. People think times are hard now then imagine it during a war.
Hopefully we get a wave of new non career politicians in power after the shambles of Brexit and the lax attitude to being pro active with the virus .
People will be more grateful for having a job or any job and the farm sector with have a return of local seasonal workers.
They cancel skateboard in the 2021 Olympics because the venue isn’t available and sack it off for good.
What will happen…
I think most will want to sweep this under the carpet and somehow get on with how it used to be whilst the rest will take an active change in their attitude to their health, environment, people , work .
Even more people will be conspiracy tin hat nut jobs due to being stuck inside online 24/7 smoking more weed than they ever have before.
There will be a very long term global recession where we will be taxed heavily so the governments can claw back the money they used.
Guy I work with, his Mrs works for some bathroom company. A lot of the stuff they use is shipped in from China so over the past few months the amount of stuff coming through has got considerably lower. And because the workload isn’t there they have had to lay people off prior to the shutdown of things and lock down here.
I was chatting the wife yesterday. And we are in week 2 now of this lock down, and things haven’t been made stricter so I’m thinking it’ll just be extended. They can’t just suddenly lift the ban on shops, cafes etc opening because there would be a sudden inrush of people going out so I’m curious to see how it’ll pan out.
Yesterday I had to go into work for maintenance, we done it with the minimum number of staff required, travelled in seperate cars and had PPE etc. On the drive to work it was dead, normally school kids waiting for buses etc. On the drive to our other site we go through another small town. Long que outside the pharmacy everyone 2m apart etc. But as I made my way through it seemed like the town was heaving for what is only supposed to essential trips etc. Lots of old people it seemed. Then on the way back home there were loads of cars on the road, just like a normal day. You wouldn’t have guessed we were in a kickdown the number of people I saw out etc.
Hopefully this will be what gets Trump found out. It’s hard to spin piles of dead bodies in your own country although no doubt he’ll have a good go.
The environment! All those graphs showing the mad clean up that’s happened over Chinese airspace of pollution levels will be really clear data to shut up some of the flat earth mouth-breathers.
we’ve been over this though, his followers will double down. if they liked him before they’ll continue to like him now. it’s because of people like this that hashtag fakepandemic is trending
This is a really interesting thread. Thanks @buildafire and also @Chopper for a more upbeat interpretation.
I work in TV so at the moment we’re super-busy and thankfully our business is big enough and customer centric enough so that we can provide most of our services online (except for the hardware side).
Even then, companies that can’t digitise themselves will struggle. There isn’t a corner of retail that is unaffected by this virus and unfortunately it means many many people will lose their jobs. There’s been talks of banks ‘repaying the favour’ from the last recession to help keep businesses afloat, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
So, lots of people unemployed which means rent won’t/can’t get paid. Likewise with mortgages, with or without bank/furlough assistance. Rents will bottom out as will house prices but I don’t think anyone will be buying until there’s stability and certainty, of which there is none. Only time can give us that.
Let’s assume in 6 months time it’s been contained. People are leaving their houses, but now they are more confident shopping online for things they used to get on their high street. So those shops that closed down won’t suddenly just open their doors again. Where’s that workforce gone? That expertise? Who’s going to pay the backed up rent? Pub, sports and hospitality and motor industry will be decimated. People will be more obese and possibly more dependent on alcohol as they haven’t been able to leave the house. Domestic abuse will go up as people will have gone crazy being couped up for so long.
On the upside online deliveries will be more reliable (but then again, there’s not much motivation for companies to provide exact 5 min. delivery slots as everyone is always in, but maybe they will have improved). Online learning apps and companies will do amazingly well, as well as online videoconferencing and the Internet infrastructure will also be faster and more reliable. Driving offences, burglaries and murder rate will have dropped and people will discover that being at home not out late at night stabbing people is actually alright.
We have been over it yeah but we don’t have to agree on it though.
I think it’ll work the other way too sadly, I’ve heard some previous Tory haters saying they think this lot are actually doing a good job, not such a bad bunch after all, blah blah
Certain high street shops and businesses will survive, but the novelty (?) of buying everything online quickly gets old when you can’t work out the fit on the clothing and need to return it & get a different size which then means 3 x postage charges. Equally, if there are loads of different deliveries happening daily, then it contributes to traffic, pollution, crashes, etc. which would make you think that perhaps shopping centres and busy high streets aren’t such a bad idea. We will still need to go to some places for their expertise, such as bike repair, car mechanics, opticians, etc and they will all need to be somewhere, not just run from the owner’s suburban semi-d.
Presenteeism is a great word.
I totally understand this, especially hearing from friends who are forced by myopic bosses to be at their office 9-5, regardless of how much they’ve already got done. If you can get through your workload from home in a faster, more efficient manner, then great.
Saying that, I rent a desk in a shared office, and occasionally work in-house with clients. I get more work by meeting and working with the clients in the first place, going to theirs again and again and make my presence felt. When colleagues leave, I get more work further down the line at their new jobs by making the connection in the first place - It makes it way harder to get rid of somebody when you know them, compared to an email address. And, doing what I do, although I can get some work done on my own, being able to work directly with others helps me get more done quicker, and with a better end result.
The lack of human contact I think would decimate many industries and have a huge impact on mental health, not to mention building and creating friendships.
