If you WFH, what's your Friday afternoon like?

They aren't

I'm senior (Board level) and lead a team. I have to be available to deal with urgent problems at any time, including if I'm on leave. My view is that flexibility absolutely has to cut both ways: I expect a lot of my team, and would be deeply unimpressed if they didn't deal with something important because they'd done their hours for the week, but equally I don't expect them to hang around pretending to look busy when there isn't much on. In our organisation Fridays tend to be quiet but Tuesday to Thursday are hell on roller skates; I would be deeply unreasonable to complain because someone knocked off at 3 or 4 on Friday after working into the evening earlier in the week.

When I worked in an office full time before the pandemic, there was no one to found on a Friday afternoon. I regularly had to stay on site for cover and the only other people there were also 24/7 on site, and/or people running the clock down to make up their hours. Just presenteeism basically.

Exactly! I work condensed hours 5/4 and I'm meant to have Fridays off but did a few hours today to make up for taking a few hours for kids' Sports Day earlier in the week. When they did a WFH pilot at my work several years before Covid productivity actually went up, offices are full of distractions.....

Mumsnet full of "you are clearly the devil incarnate, if you have the audacity to put on a wash or do a quick hoover, WHEN YOU SHOULD BE WORKING!!!!!!!"
Oh piss off, and calm down!

I don't hate my job. I quite like it.

Only the bosses are allowed to skive.

I think my customers might.

I'm a personal assistant so this is what my Fridays look like too!

literally no one would care

When do admin get to write an afternoon off then?

I WFH but do travel into the office sometimes and also have some very long days including overnight trips (which are exhausting, not glamorous). For sure I'll take a chilled Friday afternoon WFH if the opportunity presents.

You're free to find a WFH job. HTH.

Quite often my Friday afternoons are busy as there is a rush to get things done before the weekend. I have had a really full on few months at work and this month things have started to calm down a bit. This afternoon I didn't really have anything urgent to do so I responded to messages when needed, did a bit of admin but also did a food shop and booked some dentist appointments for the DCs. I don't feel bad about it - on the days I go to the office I work on my commute (an hour each way on the train) and I also worked Tuesday evening in order to prep for an important meeting first thing on Wednesday.

Well, you probably wouldn't be inundated with responses from remote workers who were outraged you hadn't placed their circumstances at the centre of your post.

If you hate your job so much, you're always free to find another.

Our standard contract is 37 hrs per week/148 over four weeks.

There have been times when I've done my weeks "hours" by Wednesday lunchtime, and could pretty much take week four off.

We are an agile organisation; I expect my team to deliver projects on time, within budget and to meet the customer expectations and they do it very well.

People who are lazy and unproductive while WFH will be lazy and unproductive in an office.

I'm in construction and we give our installers Fridays off because they work so hard Mon-Thurs.

Fridays have always been a laid back day in my work.
Even when in the office the whole team would go down to the canteen for breakfast together for an hour or so, back to our desks and keep an eye on the motorway traffic out of the window and slope off as soon as it started to build (no later than 2pm)

Now we are all remote we have team catch up for an hour or so, half work half catching up usually! All usually wander away from laptops just after lunch

We all work hard and there is an understanding that when required we work late (I've done 10hr days mon-thur this week) and when it's slack we make the most of it (when my mum was dying I did a couple of hours a day) so we're very lucky to have such flexibility

Ah yes, people like the OP, such pisstakers that they were working 12 hr days earlier in the week?

The OP clearly works very long hours some days, why shouldn't the flexibility and goodwill go in both directions?

I’m a teacher so obviously can’t WFH but I do much less on a Friday afternoon than any other day. The kids are knackered by then (I teach little ones), they’re not gonna take much in, and I’ve already read with them all, they’ve done all their writing etc so Friday afternoons are down time for all of us. I go to the cafe for lunch with my colleagues, come back, teach a fun, easy lesson then spend the rest of the afternoon reading stories, playing outside, just having fun with them. Then I leave early and get home by 4pm. I work bloody hard the rest of the week but I love Fridays, and so do the kids.

Mine can vary depending from chilled to bonkers depending what comes in.

But my company does summer hours where you can finish on a Friday lunchtime if you've done your hours for the week, so looking forward to that kicking in soon!

Wfh on Fridays. Finish at 4pm if it's quiet,work till 6pm if busy. Today finished 4.30 pm. Made a chilli. All good.

Do people start these smug WFH threads just to piss off the people who can't WFH? Imagine if I started a thread saying I'd been for a Friday afternoon kip in the store room.

lol and people wonder why companies are insisting everyone gets back in the office

I’ve only just finished. Last 1.5 hours has been with the company of a single whisky that arrived with the shopping 😁 happy weekend everyone!

Why apart from admin?