Workers Brush Off Higos To Head To The Office

While many workers across the city hurried to get back to the office after the Hong Kong Observatory lowered its typhoon No 8 signal to a No 3 at 11.10am on Wednesday morning, plenty of people decided to go back to work much earlier, brushing off Typhoon Higos as a minor inconvenience.

“I don’t think the typhoon is a big deal”, one woman from Malaysia told RTHK. “It’s not serious rain and wind. In my country I’ve seen bigger rains and wind and we still go to work.”

Other people we spoke to around the Admiralty MTR station on Wednesday morning said they felt it was safe enough to go back to the office to do what their jobs require.

One self-employed barrister said she wants to do “what is necessary”, and a doctor said she wanted to get in to attend to her patients.

But one man told us he had a simpler reason for going in to work even though he’s not required to. “I just feel bored”, he said.

But while some said they didn’t have too many problems with transportation, besides a longer-than-usual wait for an MTR train; one chef said she had to wait for two hours for a taxi because she lives in a remote area.

The queues soon grew longer and longer, with long lines of people waiting for buses at the Kowloon entrance of the Cross Harbour Tunnel.

Some said they started heading out as soon as they heard the observatory was about to downgrade the signal No 8, but others chose to wait until the warning was actually lowered before heading out.

Meanwhile, the Labour Department has urged employers to adopt a flexible approach in managing their staffs’ return to work.

It said they should provide reasonable and practical working arrangements for workers, and take into consideration the transport situation.

A spokesman said employers shouldn’t dock workers’ pay or benefits just because they couldn’t get to work, or were late.

“Employers should find out what happened, and carefully consider the situation pertaining to individual staff members”, the spokesman said. “They shouldn’t easily discipline or sack the staff concerned.”

All storm signals were lowered at 1.20pm.

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