to think some people think WFH should be a constant nose to the grindstone?

All of which is valid, as one person's experience. It doesn't tell us anything about how other people feel or function best. In all those different jobs across multiple decades, you were always still you!

No doubt some of the people you've worked with felt frustrated with the conditions that suited you, and find they get greatly more shit done without the expectation of interesting conversations, or even being in an environment where that's going on. Still others wouldn't have had access to those roles in the first place because the conditions functioned as a barrier.

The answer to this, as with most remote working discussions is.... it depends.

Presumably because their experience has been different to yours.
Well, it will be. But I’ve had nearly 30 years of working experience, across a range of very different industries and organisations. Sometimes in jobs that were very reactive and fire fighty, sometimes in roles that were much more strategic or task based. I’ve worked in 3 different countries and for all kinds of bosses. I’ve never experienced the sense of disconnection I do in my current job, where John can’t ever attend a meeting between 3 and 4 because of the school run, and Jill is mysteriously unavailable between 12 and 2 and Clare “ condenses” her hours so she doesn’t work Mondays. All in the name of flexibility, and I’m all
for people living their best lives, but it’s not half frustrating for someone who is solution focused and wants to get shit done.
Im in the public sector now too so there’s a fair bit of wasting tax payers money with inefficiency going on.
Again, not inexperience or envy- quite the opposite.

We've renewed both DP's and my passport since covid and also got DC1's first passport. In all cases the new passports arrived within a week of sending off the application (standard timescale is quoted as up to 3 weeks iirc). The whole thing was very easy and quick to arrange and definitely not a good example of wfh causing issues, or of classic public sector inefficiency!

Presumably because their experience has been different to yours.

Which boils down to the fact that generalising is bad. One person's useful conversations is another person's inane distraction. Sometimes that can even be true in one single conversation! We'd all do better if we understood that our job and experience isn't the default.

Oops, my post was agreeing with this:

Being measured by outcomes is all very well, but as we all know, time is money and having a good outcome is as much about delivering in an acceptable timeframe as it is about delivering a quality result. If you are required to interact with other people and all of you have to wait around more than would usually be necessary because so many of you are working remotely to your own personalised schedule there will be an impact on productivity. There just will and there's no point in trying to argue otherwise.

I couldn’t agree more. I could WFH most days if I wanted so it’s not jealousy on my part. It’s being in a team who mostly do, and are geographically dispersed anyway, which in this age of technology is not supposed to matter but my God it does. I think perhaps because some of the team have never known anything else they don’t realise how unproductive the way we do things actually is!
Also, why do WFH zealots always dismiss office talk as “ inane chit chat”? I have had some really interesting workplace conversations over the years and have several genuine friends picked up along the way.

Well, quite - I know people who absolutely couldn’t do this - because their job is completely different to mine!!

There isn’t for me. If I don’t have work to do I don’t have work to do, so I may as well do something else instead instead of sitting at my desk staring at Outlook.

I am very efficient and organized at work. My work also ebbs and flows. Sometimes I might work on my day off to keep a project on schedule. Other times I’m twiddling my thumbs.

Big up to the civil servants working at the Passport Office. I've had great speedy service from them post-covid, whether they are WFH or office based. I don't understand why they are often chosen as an example of WFH shirkers!

Or they want to make work work for them and have found a way to do so while still meeting their targets and doing their job well

and again all jobs differ, you wouldn’t be able to do the above in my job 🤷🏻

(and why would you want to? You job sounds better than my admin/phone job 😀)

Well I've never known a job where you wait for another job to come in, and go to the gym while you wait - unless you are self employed? Surely there's always work to do?

Or they want to make work work for them and have found a way to do so while still meeting their targets and doing their job well.

I can enjoy my job, do it well, get excellent appraisals every year and still exercise and do the laundry in “work hours”.

I got mine in 3 days and DS in 8 days, in November. The second one was delayed because they wanted extra paperwork, which was sent with the first. Over the phone at 8am a helpful woman copied over the paperwork and said no need to send it in; I heard a child so I'm pretty sure she was WFH. Medical exemption replacement quick and helpful, minor dog woof during the call (spaniel, for those who need to know).

Compare with my bank, who wouldn't sort out a security block on my card for 24 hours, and who I could barely hear on the phone in 5 different calls due to the many other adults talking around them. Of any role, if customer service have what they feel is a suitable space to work at home, they are easiest to monitor and I would think all parties benefit from it.

Everyone has different values, some people are happy to 'cheat' their trusted employer and that's fine if that's you. others who may actually feel loyalty, or passion for there work will be working all the hours they should (and some). Each to their own.

The delays on phone lines since covid are unlikely to be caused by wfh - more likely that a percentage of the workforce was made redundant after being furloughed and the company has since stuck with a reduced service, with a continuous message that "we are experiencing unusually high call volumes" 🙄

I got a passport in less than a week, in December

Passport waiting times are at their lowest since 2020 according to this site, https://www.passportwaitingtime.co.uk/ , lots of government departments have had the number of agents cut or directed people to online services, and it's always been a nightmare to get through to certain customer service teams since the invention of the call centre.

I honestly think some people are misremembering a halcyon time when you could just call a company and speak to the relevant person immediately - that hasnt been the case for years and it's certainly not due to a recent rise in people working from home.

that wasn't a dig, just replying to the poster who felt many jobs only need you for a couple of hours a day that these jobs are rare !

Some solicitors i recently had to deal with took over 2 years to deal with an issue they said usually took 6 months. I've no idea if they were working in an office or wfh....(or even working at all, half the time!)

Thing is most people find it evens itself out.

I’m full time and Sometimes i work 2 hours a day. For the last 2 weeks it’s been more like 10 hours. Luckily my workplace isn’t time obsessed and measures on output not how long we’re at our desks

I have set hours in my WFH contract but the general consensus is not to abide by rigid times but to ensure the work gets done efficiently and to deadline. Meaning sometimes I will have a 2-3 hour break in the afternoon and pick it back up on an evening or nighttime because that’s when my brain is at its best.

OK, right. You do realise that permanent contracts can be terminated on notice, right? And that people on permanent contracts can be made redundant?

I mean, it does sound from what you say that your employer has no problem paying you for the work you do in the way you want to do it. And so you are no doubt absolutely correct that your job is not at risk. But just be aware that it’s not your contract that is keeping you safe, it is your value to the business.