I don't think our MD is impressed by the "hysteria" as he put it to one of the email groups I'm in, and his Mrs (part of HR) was probing me with "so when you coming back in? What do you mean when it's safe, it's always been safe", but they're abiding by what I think is employment law at the moment and not forcing anyone to. When I pointed out I'm actually more productive at home (and explained why) she back-pedalled a fair bit and conceded that she's technically an equal in the hierarchy anyway so unless HR get told to reel the workers back into the office she's not giving orders and is simply curious.
Mind, as far as I treat it, the company hierarchy means relatively little where the family of top brass are concerned. Maybe that's a bit unfair as the MD does seem careful to avoid obvious nepotism, but I think the idea of a neutral family member in an organisation is sort of akin to the concept of an "informal interview" - you know deep down there can't really be such a thing.
To be fair there are areas where I'm in theory less productive, like the role of going to desks holding people's hands while they click "OK" to something on their computer that only has "OK" as an option in the first place (thank goodness these people exist though, they help keep me employed). But in the current distancing regulations that wouldn't be possible anyway, so there's no point in me being there when I can work on web and systems stuff from home. For the odd person who's in or working from home and struggling with something, remote desktop has been fine. At home I don't have to pick up the phone and say "he's not at his desk at the moment. No I'm not sure when he'll be back. Yes he is in today, he just isn't tied to his desk. No he doesn't carry a mobile phone (that you can have, Mr Salesman, even if he did). Yes you can try back in half an hour. Alright then. Thank you. Bye." every 2 minutes, and when he IS in the office I don't have to try and continuously acknowledge his commentary on everything he's doing. I'm getting SO much more done, and that's without him needing to peer over my shoulder all the time!
Seriously it's a big and spacious site and I have no doubt that social distancing is quite easy there for MOST of the people. But in IT we have a pokey little office with just the two of us, one of whom insists on standing right over my shoulder (I don't miss his breath) extremely frequently. I'm sure the risk is fairly minimal that he's carrying it and will pass it on to me or vice versa, but what's the point in taking that risk, I'd rather not. There's no way he'd be any good at distancing, just as he wasn't on the last day I was in and I had to keep holding my breath. "But we can put you in another office" said Mrs MD. Right... that's fine... so I'd be isolated... so why not just isolate at home? (I think she took this point)
Bosses (and HR people) are so paranoid that if you're not on site there's no way to know whether you're working your arse off hard enough and that "working from home" is code for "sitting at home watching Richard and Judy and doing fuck all" but I can honestly say I've never been so productive. Comfortable environment, my own kit, no interruptions, and a sense of responsibility and self-discipline that seems to come from the combination of everything being up shit creek, and generally being (grudgingly) trusted. I don't even want to skive or surf the internet or whatever as then a) I'm shooting myself in the foot as the company's hanging by a thread with no orders and we all have to muck in, and b) it would blur the lines between work and leisure at a time when those lines are already harder to maintain.
