Thetownend.com

Like thousands in the country I'm furloughed until the end of June and was wondering how many posters are in the same position and are worried about their jobs etc even before Rishi Sunak's planned budget
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/politics/11749179/rishi-sunak-plans-for-emergency-budget/

Work has been the busiest it’s ever been.
That has been the only change.

I'm working 75 hours a week

You lucky bastard. I hope you are enjoying the sunshine.

Are you being topped up to 100% wages?

Furloughed until at least the end of July. I work (in IT for) in business travel so expectations of getting up to speed any time soon are pretty low. I know not working on full pay sounds great but I'm bored out of my mind as you can't go anywhere. All the great expectations of learning new skills or whatever have already ceded to CM01/02.

Company are being good about topping up wages so far but gotta think it won't last if the sector doesn't pick up. Definitely concerned, but probably a month or two away from properly looking around.

The people I know are either doing nothing on furlough or working twice as hard as usual, very little in between.

I support the key shirkers

I haven't been furloughed yet, only because ive been covering for others who do different jobs. I've made myself essential enough that i would be last out of the door, but i do worry that my own work will be slow to come back and I'll lose overtime or even the company will struggle with the overall reduced amount of work.

Still working. Still very busy.

As above

Seems a bit churlish to write this as others are struggling but things seem ok where I am. I have full remote access and so will likely be working from home for some time (6-18 months perhaps). Got a call from my manager to buy a keyboard, mouse, monitor and hands free telephone headset that the company will pay for. I’m currently working with a laptop in my spare room so clearly longer term that’s not going to be good for my back etc so need to try and setup a proper workstation.

I work in Benefits, so sadly due to the current circumstances work has never been busier, and will continue to be so for a long time i feel, so my job is reasonably safe right now...

However, i do feel for anyone who has been furloughed, and the uncertanty about the future etc...

No sadly only 80%. It's not all bad as the weather has been fantastic but I've since been told there are going to be reduncies where I work before the end of June and I'm definitely in the chosen mix which won't bother me as I have nearly 31 years service and mid 50's   

You probably won't get furloughed now as the government are stopping employers from using soon but you have to hope that your company in general won't have to reduce staff when all this settles down

I'm a teaching assistant and have been working once every three weeks. Go back into school every other week from the 8th. I've counted myself as being very lucky indeed, work has broken up the boredom and I've been seeing my kids a lot more. But my girlfriend has been furloughed from the travel industry and has found it very stressful, the future for her is very unclear. Expecting her to be approached for voluntary redundancy any time. My lodger has been furloughed too, he goes back to work tomorrow but hasn't had his wages topped up so I agreed to let him pay 80% rent up until now

I'm furloughed with just the 80% salary, but hope to return to work (non-essential retail) during June. Living in rural Wales, I have been having quite a nice time, thanks. But absolute admiration for essential workers who are battling through.

Not far behind you and the worse part is my income is down 50%

Nice gesture regarding the lodger and you seem to have had a nice mix of work and family life. I've only been home for a month and will find out in June if I'm being made redundant or not but I won't volunteer. In your partners case it would be better if they make her redundant rather than volunteering as it would affect any benefits she may want to claim thereafter but maybe she just wants out and take her chance elsewhere

There's no furlough scheme here. Not that I would qualify anway. They did give people 5,000 baht for the first month, but that would not even cover the rent for most.

If you've got no income here - then you're reliant on friends and family. A lot of people have headed out to the sticks where they can get by on next to nothing. There's also been large queues of people waiting for handouts of food. The pawn shops have been doing good business.

I think I should be OK as my main client is not affected by it. One can never be sure, though, such is the nature of freelancing. I don't think I could keep my sanity for long if I had to stay in a hut in a rice field.

took a 20% wage/hour reduction which is to increase/decrease (however to want to look at it) to 10% from tomorrow which is a good sign. Work is still slow, but enough to keep me going.

With regards to the other half, it would seem that they'll be sweetening the deal for anybody volunteering to take it, but no offer has been made yet, I think it'll be a case of reacting when the specifics are made clear. Got them crossed for you that redundancy doesn't become an issue. Who knows where the land will lie in a couple of weeks time

Cheers and hope things work out for yourselves and everyone else under threat

Wow, that's shit, how does that happen?

At least a good redundancy payout and maybe a decent pension if worse comes to the worst?

Most of my work is for a fire service so it's been pretty much business as usual so far (touch wood).

My employer serves mainly car industry, Aerospace and military so badly affected but hopefully yours will remain stable

Shouldn't that be "torch wood"?

Self Employed courier driver. We are not talking 500 drops of perfume and panties to bored households by yodel. I do long distance work. Mainly pallets which as you may realise come from commercial businesses, which surprise, surprise are on lockdown. You pay for your van and fuel for the job. The jobs do pay surprisingly well. The problem is getting a paying return job...so for instance a couple of weeks ago I took two pallets up to Newcastle. Take out the fuel to get there and the time it took (empty roads, yay) it paid well. Problem was getting a return which I couldn’t. So I have two choices. Drive back under my own pocket or sleep in the van. There is no accommodation to book so I drove home. In effect an 8am to 11.30pm day...last week I only got work one day out of four! Now TBF it was the worst week since lockdown. So three days I drove to Bristol sat there till early afternoon and drove back home all out of my own pocket with only one days work. I’m a Tory who believes in free market economy I still do. I can’t sit at home under the government SE scheme as I don’t have three years books to show. There is work so I take that when it arises. I don’t want sympathy (money, yes) but it does make my how do you all say ‘make my piss boil’ with all the whinging and bitching, the two face cunts who can afford to pay for their staff taking tax payers money to furlough their gardeners, cooks and handy persons etc, etc. And listen to my neighbours who have been sat in their gardens doing fuck all but sunbathe and drink at my expense. I just hope Rishi does not come knocking at LL towers with a begging bowl looking to help pay it all back. My Mrs. Has been working from home on full pay all along using our electric for her computer and her mobile for phone calls. And if I may say so working harder than when she was at the office.p, mainly because she is doing other furloughed employees work alongside hers. Fucked off? You bet I am. So when I see the poncey teachers unions and that cunt Khan gobbing off (others are available to add to the list of ungrateful cunts) you’ll have to forgive me while I kick the cat. I don’t have a cat as you’ll remember I fucking hate them, I just would if I could.

teachers union kicking off her fuck all to do with your shit work position.

needless to say I hope it improves for you and everyone soon.

Unions representing their members is what members pay them to do. Collectivism is a wonderful thing.

Wow hats off and fair play for trying to earn a living when everything is against you.
What p's me of Im furloughed for upto 8 weeks but where I work they are still working overtime and it's deemed as non ethical that myself and many others are losing 20% of their pay but others are racking it in on overtime. How is that right/fair

Spare me the bull and rhetoric I don’t need it at the moment, neither do many others. I have Been delivering cov19 kits to Brize for the Falklands, ascension is, Cap Verde, South Georgia and Tristan Da Cuna. Pharma printing to pharma packaging plants, human tissue to and from acute wards to the labs where they culture the stuff, aircraft parts from RR for the military as well as commercial aircraft. IT hardware to places you’d not believe all hours all to help keep the country running. PPE, fuck off don’t make me laugh. Please I’m very volatile at the moment, your fucking claptrap is not going to help. Thank you.

Slightly off topic but still relevant is this shit storm over Cummings. Forget the politics for a few moments will you as you’ll find eventually given time many others on all sides will have for their own ‘justifiable’ reason broke lockdown. Now if you come down the hierarchical pyramid to our pleb level, I can assure you all that individuals at every social, economic, man about the town has been breaking the fucking rules. How do I know? Well I have fucking seen them when out and about on the motorways, dual carriageway ways, A roads, B roads, and back water country roads. Not everyone outside on the normal rush hour traffic was going shopping for essentials, I have had a run ins with them, as have me fellow driving colleagues. It sure does not make it right but if any of you thought that EVERYONE would play by the rules, then you need a check up from the neck up.

but if Joe Blogs breaks the rules, then I just think they're a bit of a tit.

if the people who make the rules break them, I think there rules are obviously shite in the first place so may be ignored within reason.

double standards, yeah, probably a fair accusation.

Likely a forgotten key worker by many. I know that several in your area of work come under a lot of flack at times. My mum used to work in the sector. I for one, feel you lot have been doing a cracking job considering the circumstances, the amount of work you've had to shelve in order to cope with this new demand and influx of work.

It will take a while for things to get back to "normal" in that area per se. Keep on. You have my full support (not sure what that is worth but yeah).

So he can't have an opinion on the importance of unions because you've been out working? From someone who has also been out working the whole time, go fuck yourself.

So you’ve just seen people driving but immediately know they’ve broken the rules without knowing their personal circumstances?

How do you know they weren’t merely testing their eyesight? Or arranging childcare?

I am sure that there were many who didn't want to hear all of the Brexit based bs ...

I extend the gracious compliment to you too.

Carlsberg.

Lots of very angry people who need to chill out a bit.  Shouting on here is not going to solve anything, just make you feel worse.

Anyway.

My entire sector (live music / events) has been wiped out.  The first to finally go when the government actually made a decision and probably will be the last to return in any meaningful way.

Self employed so I am not furloughed.

I have found work for 9 weeks after my shows finished (last show was 16th March) but that finished today.  I have worked out that with self employed grants, wages from what I have been doing and other money I have managed to sort out from previous employees I may be able to last for the rest of the year if I live frugally and the wife keeps working.  But there is a fear for mental health if I don't find anything to do.  I will have a couple of weeks off and see where we go from there.

Ive been driving up and down to just outside London 5 or 6 times a week and it has changed in the last 3.  Traffic has not returned to actual pre lockdown levels but it's not a million miles away.  It's a very stark change.  My relief today was 20 minutes late as he was caught in traffic because people were parking all up and down the hill illegally so they could cram into the 'lido'.  

One thing I know Ive got to do is cut back on twatter / facebook.  Ive become very aware that this is massively detrimental to mental health.  The arguments and screaming on here as well.  I look at social media for 10 minutes and find myself tense, on edge and furious.  The effect of this anger is only damaging me and solving nothing.

Think that's a very sensible post Sax. I recognise the same - there's a lot of anger out there, much of it justified but angry people talk to angry people and get angrier and when everyone's stuck inside with fuck all to do it all gets a bit toxic.

The psychology of lockdown and not working generally I suspect is going to end up being pretty grim stuff. For all the "we will build a better society after this" takes at the start... well, I'm not holding out much hope, especially if the economy goes fully to pot.

Yep.  We'll see what happens.  No point speculating and worrying.  Lets survive with our heads in tact and work on it if and when we recover.

The population in general will continue living as the press dictates. And those in charge of the press will have little to no interest in changing things.

If the economy goes to pot - the poor will get the blame. Even more so than they are now.

Have any of you considered fruit picking ?

Good meaningful post Sax and whwn I get fed up with social media etc I just switch off and lose myself outside with nature where all materialistic things and negative comments are forgotten

Thanks Mate.  I cant spend my time furious anymore.  Cant afford to rant and rave to no effect.
 

Thanks. Most people are very grateful at the moment, if fact that's always the way. There's always a few who grumble but you get that in any job/situation from what i see.

No worries and from my experience if you can be the away from the whingers etc it's so much better for your own well being

Where in Wales are you out of interest RWB?

No problem at all. I'm sure most are, especially as for many it is a new pathway/truncation for them. But of course frustrations can rise with some and it's not always nice to be on the front end of something; which is a result of the system and not one that the individual dictates.

Still it is rewarding to know that your colleagues and yourself have been and continue to be helping so many people out. That is where my "forgotten" or "unsung" reference comes from. An integral part of keeping society rolling along.

Sax, I may DM you if that's alright?

Snigger.

My, my. The playground is going to be a tense place when you lot are allowed to mix again.

Sure

Me and the Mrs are both working full time on full pay from home, and I've been busier than ever (in commercial side of media licensing). Ideally, I'll never go back to the office full time and am actively encouraging our company to move to a "work anywhere" culture.

Incredibly greatful that we've not been impacted too much workwise while recognizing we both have jobs which are ultimately frivolous nonsense compared to key workers.

As I've said elsewhere, I'm on 80% salary but working currently. Unfortunately, work is continuing to dry up and pretty much the whole company is at risk of redundancy at the end of this month. There is a role I can do in the restructured company, but there are only 3 of those positions available and I anticipate at least half a dozen of us will be applying. I just have to hope my experience and profile within the company will stand me in good stead.

Should the worst happen I will be able to live off the redundancy and notice pay, what's currently in my bank account and the 6 months of JSA until around this time next year so it's not disastrous.

Good luck Si, hopefully doesn't come to the worst case scenario there.

From the point of view as an employer, if it wasn't for the furlough scheme, my business would be fucked or we'd be making a lot of people redundant.

Things appear to be picking up again, and I'm glad we've got the benefit of the scheme until October in some capacity.

It really is time some of you cunts went back to work.

I really, really, really don't follow. Still  a shite troll.

Cheers, shall do tomorrow now. Only just seen this and reading back.

It really is a generous scheme. What are the chances of the scheme being abused?

Its one thing the goverment got right.

Define abuse? Poeple taking advantage to maximise profits rather than to save a business?

Pretty likely but not widespread I'd guess.  But who knows

A far more pertinent question though is; what are they doing in Belarus?

I've heard one first-hand and plenty of other anecdotal stories of companies claiming JRS grants but still asking their employees to work. That's out and out fraud.

The scheme is technically only open to companies affected by the pandemic, i.e. they can demonstrate/evidence a downturn in business. That raises the question of whether companies who've used it when they didn't really need to, even though they may have 'properly' furloughed people and told them not to work, could be open to investigation at some point.

I read that the scheme is costing £14 billion PER MONTH. That's an extortionate amount of money that's got to come from somewhere. If some of it can be reclaimed from businesses, it will be.

It is a vast amount of money. However, to put it into perspective the bailout of the banks in 2008 cost £850 billion. Furlough will have cost around one tenth of that by the time it ends in October.

At the peak, the bank bailout was over a trillion pounds. Most of that was in the form of guarantees, it only cost something like £140bn in money.

But that includes taking off the money the govt got back from selling it's stake in nationalised banks. The outlay was significantly more. By the same token we could then argue the cost of furlough is significantly less because ultimately the govt will get some money back in taxes from businesses that otherwise would have gone bust and not have to pay benefits to employees who would otherwise be unemployed.

You would have thought they would have weighed up what it 'costs' against what fiscal damage would be resulting from not doing it - i.e people would stop buying things, be unable to pay mortgages, unable to pay loans/HP etc (I know there is currently a pause on some of these loans but they still need to be paid for eventually) which in an indirect way then hits the banks and thus the economy.
If people have no revenue, then expenditure of course is significantly reduced. The household debt to income ratio in the UK is also generally quite high (I think 1.25 to 1 at last glance)

More focus should have be placed on strengthening the employees rights when they do get sent back to work, it is difficult when companies have no, or hugely decreased, revenue - but if they are binned off directly after furlough stops, the term job retention scheme is a redundant one (pardon the pun)

You make a very good point, but I don't think strengthening employees' rights is going to be a key focus of this govt.

Was supposed to get furloughed in April then they scrapped it as we got really busy, instead they scrapped the overtime and now I’m taking home less than before

I was furloughed from mid April along with others but the comany has been working overtime in areas some of the furloughed staff are trained in

Good morning LL. You, like many others, are doing a good job. Good luck to you and those others. Fair enough that you were feeling volatile and not in a happy place. I respect that so have delayed my reply.
Now back to the claptrap bull and rhetoric..... :D
Trade Unions operate in a free market. If they don't serve the needs of their customers they lose them. It is still legal for most  people to join one and in doing so you allocate an amount of your disposable income. If the union becomes irrelevant, self-serving or fail to meet expectations, then they lose numbers and much-needed subscriptions. They run the risk of failing just like any other business. I think this is a fact and not a political view at all.
My second point about collectivism was my view based on years of being a volunteer union activist who works with an  employer not against them. The 1970's version is a very distant memory. I am working with an employer this week so that they can get the workforce back to work safely. All sides want to get back to work asap but equally both sides don't want harm to come from it. Fair enough to disregard that. I reserve the right to do the same.

Any furloughed workers expecting to be made redundant as this week seems to be when bosses are making tough decisions on their workforce

Lefty twaddle

Not in my case , was an Area Secretary for 4 years, good relationship with the employer, but we supported our members first and would always support those who paid for our services (and sometimes those who didn't if we were feeling in a twaddly leftist mood)

I know there are plenty of examples of the good Unions have done and the ill they have avoided for people.  Having said that, and knowing it may not be every person in the Union or every Union, I'm not a fan.  Relying on a Union suggests you've fucked up the Govt. and Regulation (my personal view) - if I have an issue with my treatment beyond that, and beyond the HR policies I accept as an employee when I join, I have the right to fuck off or grow bigger balls than I have and start my own business (Puns accepted).

I can't agree with that.  The raison d'être of collective bargaining is to level the playing field in employer/employee negotiations.  Without it, those negotiations will always be so one sided (gorilla vs a hamster) as to be meaningless.  Of course, you're able to seek better terms with another employer if you don't like those offered by your current employer, but that's still like the hamster finding the nicest gorilla to talk with.
Which ever gorilla you talk to, it's still going to be way bigger than you.

It's a personal viewpoint based on personal experiences.

I've seen a lot of self interest from those in positions within Unions - not just trying to keep the jobs for the boys either, actively working against other Union members for their own self interest but using their position of power within a Union (plenty of occasions and plenty of people over many years).

I've done alright by myself thank you without ever needing someone to do my talking for me - I know, this one really doesn't chime with some of my more Progressive/Social views.  I've never been one for the left and right labels though.

Experiences like the 8 hour working day, paid annual leave, paid parental leave and the weekend?

Think it all depends on the union, the issue and the personalties involved.

I had a couple of years as a Unison steward in an LPA, not because I had any great urge to do it, more because if we hadn't stepped in the branch was basically going to fold.

During that time we had a Chief Exec at the Council who managed to get into a stand up row with a disabled member of staff in front of the virtually the whole staff threatening to sack him for using a disabled parking space at the Council offices and that was sorted and apology given due to the union.  In addition this was at the stage in the early/mid 00's when bizarrely we were in conflict with the government regarding pay and conditions (despite Unison funding the Labour Party?!?) again via union action the rights of our members was sorted.

However, where it didn't work was at a dispute at local level whereby said Chief Exec decided overnight and with no consultation to arbitrarily change many staffs T&C by removing their Essential Car User Allowance (basically an allowance you are paid as an employee to bring a car to work and have it available for use associated with your job). As this basically consisted in a drop in salary for those involved, we immediately voted to take all personal vehicle off the road meaning that the Council had to hire vehicles every day for staff to use. After a bit of tooing and froing and some crap publicity for the council the Chieg Exec backed down and all was well again.

The issue was, as part of that we sought help from the regional office in Manchester who basically refused to send anyone up to advise us and an officer said to my (and others faces) that as those involved were professional grades and not female workers or minimum wage we were not considered a priority for them to resource, despite us paying our subs like everyone else.

I resigned shortly afterwards and have had nothing to do with the union in subsequent jobs, although they are a very useful thing for many.

Unison were ok for me in my current job, sorted out some issues i had.

Fire brigades union in my old job (diff employer) was a different story mind, got told my t & c’s for my specific role were being changed and the union rep basically told me ‘they can do what they like’. £27 a month for that :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

Needless to say i pulled my membership after that

Blimey Horlock, that CEO sounds like a complete tosspot.

For me, I've been part of a Union twice. One when I was at an employer that had zero representation at the Union end but also had zero HR too. Basically a very shit employer (life choices yadda yadda). Well one of the owners was the "HR Dept" so that tells you everything. When I mentioned about a Union and any pension (wasn't standard at the time) to them they scoffed. Said they had a form of Stakeholder pension but and I quote "we only really give that to people who have been here a long time", their staff turnover, I later found out was largely very fluid. Apart from two employees everyone who worked there had not been there or stayed longer than 2 years. There were many issues with that place, like paying employees off the record when they had a dispute or threatened to take legal action. With regards to asking about unions the response was "Well we don't really do that kind of thing here haha".

In that case, signing up to a union of my own accord was really quite helpful as well as some great advice from my sister (a HR Director).

The other time I was part of a union probably came due to the previous employment experience, yet there really was no need for them in many regards. The company gave annual pay rises as well as quarterly incremental rises too. To boot with a high end pension and a sick pay scheme that was available at full pay for a year and then at half pay afterwards. So covered most for job security. Any "concerns" were usually negligible (people always want a little more) and most people just attended union meetings to get out of work for a while. Working conditions could have been better at times but HR were pretty on the money for any disputes or regarding staff relations and so on.

Two very contrasting employments that couldn't be any further apart. In regard to unions I would say the obvious....when you don't need them they appear to be a white elephant but when you do, they can be quite useful. Certainly withdrew my membership from the latter one, purely because all the benefits included in the job were pretty attractive. Other than getting out of work for an afternoon, the union in that instance didn't make any impact.

An unexpected scenario. I got offered the most junior of roles in the new structure, with a £7.5k salary reduction. I've worked there for 7.5 years and I'm currently in a management position.

Needless to say I declined it.

That's shitty, I assume 7.5 yrs will at least mean a half decent payoff?

Statutory redundancy paid at the end of my 3 month notice period. Accrued holiday must be used during notice period too.

That sucks and just proves they don't give a sh*t about their work force. I could have applied for voluntary reduncy ive been there over 30 years so a good pay off but as I'm mid 50's it would be hard to find a decent paying job so I opted for security for the time being

Sorry to hear that.

Good luck in the job hunt.

That's really shit, Si. Good luck finding something new/better.

Bastards!

This got me thinking - there's likely to be quite a few folks getting laid off over the next 12 months or so and people on here aren't going to be immune to that. Is there any mileage in a sub-section for jobs listings etc? Helping each other out when we know of jobs that are going? The company I work at have 3 vacancies they've just set live (Client liaison and product support roles in a transaction processing company, if those sound relevant) which I doubt would help Si but may be of relevance to someone else on here that I don't know about. I'd be happy to pass on deatails if anyone is interested, PM me. But perhaps might be worth a sub-section to do in a more structured way? Or it could be a complete waste of time?

Good idea, Paul.

I'm sorry to hear of your shitty situation, Si. Good luck mate.

Similar to me.

Cheeky fuckers

That's shit, Si.

Hope it works out.

Sorry to hear that Si.

From a personal perspective, I'm back part time from July, 40% time and still full salary. Company have been very good at topping up salary throughout which has been helpful - not least because I'm still in probation and they could get shot of me in a heartbeat. Just have to hope things pick up before the cash reserves run out.

I think it's a great idea Paul.

I'm starting to feel the pinch now - losing about a third of my income because our market is struggling so hitting sales targets isis next to impossible. If it goes on much longer, it'll force my hand into leaving a company I don't want to leave, and have helped build from the ground up.

Still, incredibly thankful to have an income at all.

Sorry to read some of you are going through difficult times. My brother is in a similar situation. Was furloughed but now back at work. His wages have been cut by 25% though and been told "we have to do it". Others have been let go completely. Those left are having to bear the extra workload of those who've gone.

Re: Paul's idea, I've been thinking of setting up a Facebook group or something similar. Job postings, recruitment advice, tax help, that kind of thing.

Would that be of interest to anyone?

I think any group that can provide support is a good one

I've had one extended period of no work after the banking crash and having support is vital

Great idea and hope that it can help fellow posters in seeking employment
Having created this thread my experience as follows, 15 of us were furloughed and now we have union representation it made  the company choose voluntary' first otherwise without a doubt all of us would have been chosen from first so unions can be very helpful and I know my company hated having them involved with the deciding factor. All of the furloughed staff were regularly updated, only lost 20% pay and told to report back on the 1st July.

Great idea as mirrored above PaulD. Samdy, get on it if you have the time or resource to set up and manage it. If you need an admin of the page I'll happily do the odd "shift" now and again.

Back to PaulD's idea a resource, subpage whatever, would be good on here to have as a point of call for anyone as it will be some familiarity. I'm sure there are going to be people who have never been in this situation before and it can be bloody daunting. So less "jobs for the boys" but a little opportunity working with someone you "know" or loosely know could be a good starting point, even if it's just to steady the ship.

In some respects this could be a good opportunity for many of us, especially with global resource and things more pushing towards permanently WFH.

As someone on here said to me - 'never underestimate the power of the TEF'. I'm sure we can all do our thing.

It's trying to give a heads up when the jobs are also advertised online which nearly all big companies use

I hope all the furloughed workers on here are fortunate to be going back to work tomorrow

My assistant is returning to work tomorrow which is great news.

Nice one and I'm also back tomorrow hopefully with thousands across the country

I have been shielding for months, being classed as vulnerable. It’s not something I like doing, but does anyone know what the club is doing re season ticket reimbursement, I have one for next season as well, to some small amounts but I’m looking anywhere at the moment to help cash flow, which for months has been flowing one way

no news on that front yet

I'm not judging here but are fans asking for partial refunds on their season tickets?

It ain't gonna happen for last season

I've been in contact with Danny from the Ticket Office via Twitter and he's been really helpful - I've got 5x Walsall Away & 3x Stevenage Away tickets that need refunding. He's said refunds will be processed, but the club staff are currently all Furloughed themselves so can't get into the ticket office to do so. If I get any update from him, I'll post it here.

More importantly - I hope you're all keeping well and safe!

I would agree that Danny has been very helpful, I contacted the club a little while ago regarding my away tickets as I have 5 x Walsall, 3 x Mansfield, 3 x Oldham and 2 x Stevenage; obviously until they're back in the office there is little they can do, it's just a waiting game.

Be nice to get these sorted, less worried about the Season Ticket for this year and will need to see what happens for next season (I've renewed already).

Can understand why some are concerned as it's a worrying time financially for everyone (the football club included)

I'm on garden leave until the end of the month. Managed to land a job I start on the 5th October so I'm very lucky, the statutory redundancy is a nice tax free windfall. I also got to keep my work laptop which was slow as shit due to an ancient hard drive. Stuck an SSD in it and it now runs fast so that's been an unexpected bonus.

I'm very lucky, I do fear for a lot of people over the next month and beyond, particularly with the end of the furlough scheme.

brilliant Si, nice one

Good to hear. I think many of us would all hope that this isn't an exception to the rule, yet the reality is that it likely will be quite a defining few weeks for several.

Can always be thankful to some degree but even then it is all relative too.

Well done, Si!

Good news Pieman. As I know it's your area, if you know anyone looking for a role in accountancy practice, I know a firm recruiting in Swindon that I can make an introduction to.

Nice one Si!

Thanks all.


Nobody springs to mind, but what level and role is it?

They're looking for accountants and assistant accountants.