Oh, Polly, Labour Never Saw A Policy Disaster They Didn’t Love…

WFH is now coming under accelerating attack. JP Morgan will now require employees to spend five days a week in the office and other big companies may soon follow suit. A perverse strain of rightwing thought opposes almost any social progress that improves other people’s lives. This Scrooge-like instinct yearns to make work as grindingly hard and low-paid as possible. Recall Jacob Rees-Mogg pacing civil service offices like the Child Catcher, leaving “sorry you were out when I visited” notes on employees’ desks in 2022. The same age-old sentiment prompted the CBI chair, Rupert Soames, to savage Labour’s flagship anti-gig economy employment rights bill on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday, warning that the new bill would force businesses to let people go.

Now, I'm in favour of WFH, but I'm aware it's within the gift of my employer. At the moment, it's considered a benefit to the workforce - one the greedy bastards in the Treasury haven't figured out how to tax yet - so it's likely to stay. And if it didn't, well, there are other firms... 

When Whatton in Nottinghamshire was severely flooded on Tuesday, villagers criticised the Environment Agency for removing its flood warning prematurely, leaving them unprepared. That may be so, but the Telegraph chose to convert an apparent failure into WFH warfare, claiming the agency’s flood resilience team in Nottingham “appears to have shifted to a working from home culture in recent years”. Evidence? “A job advert from last month said members of the team could ‘blend home working’ with time in the Nottingham Trentside office.” The agency bristled with indignation, and confirmed that the floods had nothing to do with anyone working from home.

Public sector workers are hopelessly incompetent whether in the office or at home.  

WFH battle lines seemed, until recently, clearly drawn. Last year, the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, said it was “bizarre” that Rees-Mogg, one of his predecessors, had been “declaring war on people working from home” and praised the “real economic benefits” of Labour’s flexible working policies.

To whom? 

Much evidence suggests that WFH benefits employees and employers alike.

Glad to hear it, but I notice you don't offer any evidence.  

The government needs to get a grip on its mixed messages. Does it want to be nice to employees, or nasty?

Why does it decide to be either? 

It should ignore the Tories’ accusations that it is kowtowing to union paymasters, and emphasise how new employment rights will help civilise working life. Growth-boosting plans to get “economically inactive” people with disabilities or caring responsibilities into jobs will only succeed with maximum flexibility. And WFH, remember, is free, which makes it look like a very sensible policy in a year when large pay rises seem unlikely. It’s time to count effectiveness, not desk hours.

Spoken like someone who knows her own effectiveness will never be judged... 

We Enter Topsy-Turvey Land....

A Guardian article where they celebrate the fact that punters are getting ripped off by rapacious big business? Surely, you jest? 

There is, I can’t deny, something funny about the notion of clandestine agents roving the country’s drinking houses and measuring their pours down to the millilitre. But let’s take these findings seriously. Let us imagine that this is, in fact, one of the most pressing issues facing consumers. And let us focus specifically on beers, as this seems to be where the problems are greatest. What exactly a perfectly poured beer should look like is a tricky question. Some people like a bit more head on their pint of lager than others. Go to any pub in east London right now and you will find three graphic designers willing to talk to you for up to an hour about exactly how much foam there should be on top of a Guinness.

Ah, I see. It's a rant about 'Yuppies'. Did she sent this column in from the Eighties?  

Some people will happily just look at their pint, see it’s a little short, and ask the bartender to top it up. I’m not one of those people. I just can’t bring myself to do it, except perhaps in really egregious cases of underpouring. This is because there is a human being standing there who just gave me the pint. We have a culture of OK service in the UK. We don’t generally go in for the thrilling rudeness of, say, Parisian waiters, or the obsequious attention you get from US servers. I like it this way.

You like being shortchanged and treated like an inconvenience when you're handing over money? Strange... 

And when I worked behind a bar, if someone asked me to top up their beer, especially if the pub was busy, and especially if they did so with a look in their eye that implied I had intentionally shortchanged them, I hated it. I hated them. Oh, do excuse me, did sir want a thimbleful more beer? Will that be all, my liege? Does master’s pint meet with his approval now?

Ah, I see. You were resentful at having to work at all. Sorry, princess, but the bills have to be paid!  

...I sort of see the point of those who ask for the top-up. You buy a pint, you should get a pint. A simple and fair exchange of money for a specified good.

But … while it might be correct to the letter of the law to get a full imperial pint every time you order one, it does not feel true to the spirit of pints to quibble about it. Of those 86% of beers that were underpoured, the average deficit was only 4%. We are talking about less liquid than a single espresso.

It doesn't really matter what the amount is, it's the principle, surely?   

But for marginal cases, suck it up. A pint is, to a point, an idea. It is a lovely yellowy brown glass of “having a nice time”. The exact measurement should, rightly, be neither here nor there. Put the tape measure away, and enjoy your beer. Cheers.

Well, the customer is always right, didn't they teach you that one in your bar training? They want a full pint and they are entitled to one.