Many people elected to hunker down at home on Friday as the government asked bosses to give their staff maximum flexibility amid the ‘extreme conditions’, but RTHK found many workaholics making their way to the office anyway, rain or no.

Cyberport resident David insisted on heading to his Central office as usual despite the Black Rainstorm Warning, even though he had to forgo his usual trip on the bus – as services were suspended – and wait 45 minutes in the pouring rain to wait for a taxi that he paid an extra HK$100 tip for.

And why go through this trouble?

“They told me to stay at home but I’m just coming in, just to do some admin,” he said.

A Ms Chan who was briskly making her way back to her Central office told us she was in a hurry because she heard that there was some water leakage there and she was anxious to see if the many computers in her workplace may have been affected.

“Because my office have some water leaking, so I need to come and see what happened and see how I can help,” she explained, saying her journey to work was largely unaffected as she had easy access to the MTR.

Others tried to go back to work like it’s a normal day, but were forced to turn back because of the massive transport disruptions.

A Shatin resident sounded disappointed when he conceded that the office is simply out of reach.

“I’ve not seen such a bad situation for years. Heavy rain has lasted for many hours!” he said. “Looks like I can go nowhere today.”

Another man who gave his surname as Guclu also tried to make it to work, but thought better of it when he realised the severity of the flooding.

“Most of the streets are flooded. I tried to switch onto another [MTR] line, but I thought… It’s a long way to go maybe it’s better just to stay at home today.

The managers we spoke to were understanding about the difficulties their staff face in getting to work. Akash, who owns a supply chain company, said it took him almost half an hour extra to get to the office, but he doesn’t expect his staff to follow his lead.

“For my employees they have the flexibility. If they want to work from home it’s fine, I would understand that.”

One tourist from Malaysia, Zri, said he didn’t understand what all the fuss was about, saying the record-setting rainfall looked like a normal rainy day in his country.

He was disappointed to find out the attractions he planned to visit were closed due to the inclement weather.

“Actually this is my first time to Hong Kong. I [was going to the] Ocean Park theme park today, but I was informed it was closed; everything is closed and even the mall… not all shops are open so I don’t know where to go and what to do,” he sighed.