One staff member said: “It takes me 15 minutes on the train, but 45 minutes walking to get to campus. Now I’m hybrid working, I have to carry a backpack with all my work gear which can weigh up to 10kg due to laptop, headphones, lunch and anything else required for a day away from home.
“By the time I’ve finished two days on campus, I am so tired physically and mentally that I’m good for nothing the following day.”
Therefore on strike at the demand to work 3 days a week on campus.
Get another job. Move. Take the bus. Buy a car. But stop this wingeing shit.
Anyone want to bet against lunch being 21 of those 22lbs?
Can’t he get lunch on campus? Or get a bicycle, which would make the load easier to carry and be at least as fast as the train, based on the walking time?
45minute walk? So 3 miles tops when fully loaded with – *checks notes* – laptop, headphones & lunch? FFS…
Unite regional officer, Sam Marshall, said: “Strike action will cause huge disruption across the university campus,
However with all those overseas students who only registered for the visa and never actually show up for tuition I doubt it will make any noticeable difference – except for shorter lines at the coffee shops and canteens.
https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/student-life/local-commuter-students/commuting/
Getting here by train
You’ll find two major stations in Liverpool, both located just a short walk from our main campus.
So probably not 45 minutes unless you include the obligatory stopping off at Greggs, Wetherspoons and Maccy D’s.
I cycle to work with a 10kg rucksack. But I guess the weight of his politics makes it worse 🙂
And TTKFGKQK thinks they’ll be in the vanguard of his Coalition of the Willing?
I’ve spent a lot of time in Liverpool over the years, so I call bullshit, there is no station a 45 minute walk away from the campus.
Could be a 45 minute walk door-to-door. An excellent opportunity to get your steps in, especially with a 10Kg backpack. Much like what I do most days.
How do you get to 10kg? A ThinkPad L Series which is about as big as they get are 2.5kg.
Also what did people do before remote? What does your contract say? What was the understanding when you started? I do work for companies remote. Often 2 hours+ from me. The understanding is overwhelmingly remote, but now and again into the office. I don’t mind if it makes sense. Like you want me to pick up a machine, monthly presentation etc.
Truth is that universities are bloated with admin. Huge expansion led to a whole load of people that never used to exist. Armies of “admin women” that I could probably replace with an Excel macro.
I view remote as a mix of efficient and convenient. but sometimes you have to get around a table.
Diddums lives three miles from the train station?
What work gear weighs 10kg? When I was commuting to eastern Europe I carried all the work gear I needed for a week or fortnight and it didn’t weigh 10 kg (the heaviest bit was the adaptor on the printer cable which newer printers don’t need).
What a feeble weed. I was in my late fifties when I trained for an Ironman while working full time.
10kg? Is he carrying an Osborne 1 to work?
Spineless cunts dripping about 10kg rucksacks are almost everything wrong with the modern world. Ten fucking kilos. Amazing.
It never ceases to amaze me how soft the desk jockeying class have become. And it really is only them & a large part of the public sector. For most employment, people put the same into it now or more than they did 30, 40 years ago. But for how much longer? The distributed data handling that is desk jockying is ripe for AI. It’s only a matter of time.
Academics do have to work from home sometimes. Yes, said it now. Marking exam papers for one is something I could never to at work, especially when I had a shared office. You can’t do it with the inevitable disturbances. Also, you get a queue of students asking “How did I do?” before you’ve even started.
I also wrote exam papers at home. You don’t need to carry a laptop, you need your own computing facilities. The problem with the University facilities is that they aren’t secure, especially in the era of Powerpoint. You get one login, and if a slightly savvy bloke puts a keylogger on the console computer between lectures they get the login details of the next lecturer, and access to their files.
Academics also need to be out of the office. Delivering lectures, for one thing. Also supervising laboratory or field work, drawing offices in engineering, boards (exam boards for one) and committees, interviews, student recruitment, their own research, external examining at other Universities, membership of professional and scientific body meetings & committees – the list is huge. I reckoned about 10 minutes a day sometimes in my office just to drop off my coat and pick it up at the end of the day.
45 minutes with a rucksack was how far I walked to work for my first post-graduation job. I was young, slim and fit, mind. Then I moved house telling myself I’d commute by bus. After one day of that I bought a motorbike.
In Oz I commuted by bus for a year: good route along broad boulevards, good time-keeping, air con. Rather pleasant. Then I’d stamp up the hill to our house, deliberately heavy-footed, to keep the snakes away.
How does one walk to keep the scousers away?
Western Bloke said:
“Truth is that universities are bloated with admin. Huge expansion led to a whole load of people that never used to exist. Armies of “admin women” that I could probably replace with an Excel macro.”
Yup. When they put the fees up to £9,000 p.a., the amount of admin increased to meet the income.
And not just obvious admin posts; lots of academic sounding ones (deputy dean, assistant vice chancellor, etc.) that allowed the less capable academics to get out of all but a nominal amount of teaching.
10kg is a typical airline carry-on bag. The little shoulder bag that’s free if you put it under the seat, not the bigger thing that millennials wheel around. When I can’t bill someone for the flight, I can do a 4 or 5 day trip away, with laptop, for that.
First, what the hell is he taking in to work every day that weighs the same as for a 5-day trip?
Second, carry-on shoulder bag – that’s the sort of weight you expect to carry around.
pfffttt… you have to laugh….. This is just…..
Trogdor! Burninate!!!!
Thinking about it, I too am puzzled at what he must be carrying.
Seeing as it’s Liverpool he probably has to take some extra clips with him.
But even so, a fully loaded 9mm will still only come in around a kilo.
How does one walk to keep the scousers away?
Walk to Chester?
Now, mind you, as someone not British, I don’t know if this is a better alternative than staying in Liverpool….
Walk without rhythm….
A 45 minute walk is ideal to get you headphones on and catch-up on whatever you’re interested in and at the end of the day a nice chance to unwind.
As for his 10kg rucksack, I’ll bet he enjoys mocking Trump for his gross exaggerations.
He can barely carry 10kg? A weight most men wouldn’t even notice they were carrying? My wallet probably weighs 10kg. (Not because of money, it’s full of baby pictures and moths)
What noodly armed soyboy hell is this? How are Liverpudlians supposed to steal things if they can’t carry a couple of stone?
I don’t think it says anywhere that the person complaining about 10kg was actually a bloke….
@ Ted S
Yes, definitely better than Scousedom. My elder son lived in Chester for a dozen years; it’s civilised: I could park on the street near his first flat and always found the car with all the wheels there in the morning. (His second flat had a parking space in the back garden).
@ Chernyy Drakon
Good point!
That may also explain why “they” needed so much work gear. And why “they” chose to take more *every day* than “they” could comfortably carry *after* they found it exhausting.
As a normal bloke (not like the guys who yomped the Brecon Beacons carrying 50kg) I listened to my mother and cut down the weight in my backpack to 14kg the second time I tried the Pennine Way (I had to abandon my first attempt due to foot-and-mouth disease).
Can I climb a mountain carrying 20kg? Probably not any more. Have I done so? I am fairly sure that I have.
He can barely carry 10kg? A weight most men wouldn’t even notice they were carrying?
You must be some man, Steve. 10kg is a reusable bag full of shopping. What I find less convincing is the 10kg. Laptop 2kg max, headphones 25-50 g, lunch 500g, maybe 1kg with a drink. What’s the other 7kg?
Tampons.
BiS – I am just an average man. 10kg is about one one and a half stone. I’m sure you could carry that with two fingers for a while if you wanted to. On your shoulders you would barely feel it. It’s the weight of about 4 bricks, maybe slightly less.
If you were yomping across rough countryside, it might be a pain after a few hours, but normal healthy young men shouldn’t be complaining about that kind of weight. An average 20something should be able to ruck at least 25 kilos.
What’s the other 7kg?
Books? Do students still read books? You wouldn’t be able to tell from the graduates HR sends me.
CD – it sounds like a bloke. I’ve never heard a woman talking about “work gear”. Also a woman would complain about having to spend 3 hours getting ready.
@ Steve
Normal young men, healthy or not, do not feature in the Grauniad.
Must be a dozen transportation options available to him.
The school must accommodate his seemingly bad choice.
There are thousands of housing options available to him.
The school must accommodate his seemingly bad choice.
You need a job to make money to survive in our money economy.
The school must accommodate his seemingly bad choice.
Et f***ing cetera.
Bloke in Spain,
There’s three types of offices: public sector and their minions (like unis), massive companies and the rest.
Public sector are lazy and entitled. Massive public companies have lots of parasites feeding off a profit engine and no one is paying too much attention if the money is flowing. See: Twitter before Elon. That is quite common. Both of these types of company are full of women who treat it like a salon/WI. There’s a tiny number of people who really make the money
The last sort of company are the normal companies that try and make money. Running out of basic offices. No DEI programmes. Overwhelmingly male. Where initiative is necessary.
Look at Apple. The iPod and iPhone were created when Apple had 1/4 of the employees they have now. What are 100,000 people doing at Apple?
I never had an employer who inquired about my commute or gave a toss about how long it might be. Nor did I expect them to.
WB – There’s a tiny number of people who really make the money
Yes, and the others bitch and moan about those horrible people in sales who keep making them do work (and keep them in a job).
Everybody wants commission, but nobody wants a target.
I like sales tho, because it’s a game you can play for an infinite number of turns, and sitting at a desk would be boring. It’s also more honest than other jobs. The average person, when asked in an interview what motivates them, will give you some bollocks about the “challenge” or whatever, while you try not to laugh. A salesman will tell you openly he’s in it to make money, if he’s any kind of salesman at all.
I only hire greedy people.
Story from a few decades back. Sales director of team selling middling computer systems. Bull/Vax stylee etc, not mainframes, not PC networks.
Any salesman could have a pay rise anytime they wanted to ask for it. But they’d have to prove their mortgage had gone up at the same time – ie outstanding amount, not just rate. Salary was to pay the mortgage. Commossion paid for life.
Steve… The whole reason Sales is loathed by the Floor is because they make promises to customers that aren’t in the script, and can’t be physically produced. Just to clinch the Sale and the Commission.
Especially the Greedsters. Who, like bad manglement, don’t give a toss whether their figures on spreadsheets and actual production capacity actually match.
Mind.. I’ve met some good salesmen ( always men……) in my life…
Could sell you your own mother-in-law, even though you even weren’t married, or even had a girlfriend…
But they checked back with Base whether we could live up to the promises they made to customers..
@ Grikath
Yep, sales droid in the company I work for recently made a large deal with the government (via 2 intermediaries) where we take all the risk, have to build a bespoke platform (plus extra staff to support it) and it needs delivering in a few weeks. Somehow this happened without even the finance people running a ruler over it – which in a bean counter run business is unheard of!
It’s what he signed up for.
Excavator Man’s comments are reasonable (marking 3 times as fast at home) but 3 days a week seems fair-that’s what my department has said is the min for full timers.
Moreover, what everyone above said about 10kg. I’m over retirement age, still working and 10 kg is nothing special.
Must be a dozen packing options available to him. 10kg is HIS choice.
The school must accommodate his seemingly bad choice.
@ rhoda klapp
When we had a train and a tube strike simultaneously my employer was quite pleased that I walked to work.
And my line manager did care: the first day after I switched from coming in by train and tube to walking he asked how long it took, so the second day I timed it.
Grikath – at the end of the market where you’re dealing in millions of pounds worth of government and enterprise contracts, that kind of thing will quickly catch up to someone and lead to them no longer being employed. Not saying it never happens, I’ve seen it happen, but my people know better because I’d kill them.
I’m not hiring double glazing salesmen, this is a man’s game.
Tim – Any salesman could have a pay rise anytime they wanted to ask for it.
I asked for a 35% pay rise one time (years ago) and got it. I was surprised how easily they gave in, but it just goes to show if you don’t ask…
I try to encourage younger members of staff, especially the women because they’re terrible for not asking for more money, to know their worth and be prepared to claim it. One thing I have noticed is that money doesn’t seem to motivate youngsters anymore. I’m not sure why, it’s not like they don’t need it. But they’re not prepared to graft like we did at their age either. Today’s graduates are easily discouraged and don’t seem to have much grit.
Possibly because they’re exhausted by carrying 10kg for a short while three days a week.
By coincidence I also walk for 45 minutes each day to work, and 45 minutes home (uphill both ways!) I’m 22st, do it easily, and am glad of the exercise.
Take the train to Liverpool?
You don’t take the train to Liverpool, you drive to Liverpool.
You go home on the train.
I stand by my original comment, I spoke to an old friend of mine who went to Uni there and still lives in Liverpool.
There is no way a train journey of 15 minutes would leave you a 45 minute walk away from the campus. Bollocks on stilts.
Being a redneck Ulster-Scot, Gamecock would ban off site work. Whiny babies can bring their asses to the campus? Go on strike? ALL off site work canceled.
Screw the incremental return to normal. Return to normal.