to be tired of the jealousy towards people who WFH?

Couldn’t agree more!

WFH has been vital for us. My husband has a very specific skill set, does a brilliant job for his organisation. He is disabled and has had various additional serious health problems over the past few years.

WFH has allowed him to continue contributing in a very meaningful way. He would no doubt have had to take early retirement if it hadn’t been an option, which would have been dreadful for him. He loves his work and would have been devastated.

Our son in law works in a hybrid way. His employers are very flexible and he is able to take our grandson to and from school at least 3 days each week, time that they both find very valuable. He then continues working at home until bath time.
It’s great for their family, as mum has fixed hours which would make life very difficult without dad’s flexibility.

If it really worked wouldnt companies embrace it? Encourage it as it leads to more productivty - oh wait......

😂 never once has anyone seen my child he has had SALT and an educational psychologist doctors etc but county hall has never EVER come to see my child they never attend meetings the reviews are done without input from them they once didn't action an emergency review for 18 months my MP had to get involved time and time again and she STILL has a job she "works" in an office and is quite famous for her Friday bombshell email followed swiftly by her out of office email

My messages were, I need a local suitable SEN provision as agreed by all parties her response

As per your email I'm consulting with schools 60 miles away as it's parental choice you will be responsible getting him there

Me what? That's not what was agreed it was local or local as possible with transport

I'm out of office right now on annual leave for two weeks

Me .... stage one complaint process began MP contacted sorry can you deal with this bullshit please it's getting RIDICULOUS

Four years Four VERY long years

And she still has a job

Have WFH 4 out of the last 5 years. The positives out way the negs for me. So much unnecessary flapping around in offices, rearranging the chairs, my team, your team, office wankology.

I avoid most of that these days.

Negatives :lose interest in appearance, don't do as much exercise, miss out on the (minimal) office fun.

Pros: avoid toxic people. Less stress, no commute, less drama. Save a fortune.

WFH jobs are hard to come by nowadays it seems. Most people appear to be wanted back in the office as apparently some people were taking the piss.

I'm not jealous though, I wouldn't personally want to do it myself. I would miss the social side of work and wouldn't be wanting to push up my heating and electricity bills! 😂

I do smile when people say if they can do their 'job' in half the time then bring on the chores, school pick up etc?

Surely their 'job' is not set up correctly to be a full time role if they can do it quickly.

I have done both wfh (and see clients half the time) and fully office based.

I worked in a job during Covid that couldnt be done at home.

My previous company (large FTSE) only allowed middle to senior managers to work from home. The more junior admin roles were allowed on a trial basis and massively took the piss. Could never find them, never around for urgent calls, constantly asking for more and more devices to work from home such as special chairs etc. In the end management put a stop to it. It is actually quite tricky to take someone to task for taking advantage of working from home. That is why it was stopped. A colleague of mine tried and she knew that the employee was doing all sorts. Difficult to prove and it took her months of really focusing on exactly what this person was doing before HR allowed her to tackle it. In the meantime the other 8 members of her team were not getting the attention they needed.

I was a line manager for a while. I had six people. I would say that ONE person took up 50% of my time. She was often off sick for a day here and there a lot. I let that go. Seemed to struggle with the job but wanted the salary so wouldnt admit it. Brought all her personal problems to work i.e cat wasnt well, could she work from home, needed to work from home because she wanted to attend a parents evening which came up about 20 times a year!. I called her once and heard children crying in the background. She said BOTH her children were off sick.

In the end I left the role and my successor found she had been working from home as much as she could to do childcare. Her Mum was on stand by if she couldnt think of any more reasons not to come in.

Its bloody rife

I’m not jealous at all of people who wfh. I tried it and hated it. I don’t like people wfh who think their employer has to let them wfh if that’s what they want to do. You’re paid money to do what your employer wants and if they want you to go back to the office, tough. Find another job if you want to continue wfh.

And it is just as likely that the Government will use WFH jobs as an excuse to cut disability benefits to and move to job seekers as they will think, well if you can't leave the house there are numerous jobs where you don't have to and you should get one of those.

@gannettbut your life is reliant on others not working from home e.g. god forbid if you get sick or need an ambulance.

@owlexpressyes I work in a hospital and we have recently lost two OTs who are going to become PIP assessors because they can WFH. Friend stopped nursing and went into a health insurance as a clinical call handler. All are way happier and better paid than in the NHS.
The NHS has got to do something. The local authority has got to do something, although in our LA a lot of roles are hybrid but an office presence is required to train new members. Trainee social workers for example learn so much more from being around experienced social workers. It’s miserable and isolating trying to think of what you should do from home, potentially dangerous too!
Good for all of you that can WFH but this is about the bigger picture and not creating a two tier society where half of us commute, run to after school clubs with seconds to spare, have to pay £8 a day to park at our own workplace, do everything else on our days off and the rest of you.., don’t.

I love WFH and would never take another job that is full time in the office. I don't really care if other people are jealous, it's just the same as any other form of job envy - other people earning more, having a more interesting role, having more autonomy etc. It's part of the mix now.

Depends what you want to do.

And what the business who employs you is best for them.
People learn better on the job with others around them, at some point the middle aged workforce will need to be replaced with youngsters who will need training, and if a business understands this and want people in person then that will be your job.

Many people like working with actual people not a screen, and they will continue to keep their social skills and these will become invaluable.

Promotions might be heavily weighed on employees bosses actually see.

Some people don't have pleasant home lives and life to get out of the house.

Jealously about anything is detrimental to the person feeling it. There are many people who aren't jealous about being in the same four walls for work, homelife, family, all the time. Plus if you are WFH it will be expected that you do more of the unpaid domestic work.

The data that does come out of this social change will be interesting, there will be jobs that disappear, services that take far longer, and new jobs that benefit some.

As with everything there will be some winners, some losers, it won't all be beneficial for the WFHers or the office present or whatever, I am assuming office because it I assume it's the office jobs that are being done at home. This of course, indicates a lot of the country's money is tied up in services and they can be moved quite easily with minimal cost.

So it's not healthy to crow either way, we need a society where people who work, whatever they do, can afford to live outside working hours not just exist.

I've been an advocate of WFH for over a decade so I think they're right to be jealous. It is a better way of working and my life is much more pleasant for it. In a way they're proving my point.

Also every industry and every role is different blah blah blah. Sorry if you're knackered because you're on your feet all day and your job can't be done from home. Mine can. I arranged my career specifically so that was the case.

Also I am the person in another country who took the job. WFH essentially opened my career up internationally.

Okay, good for you?

It's not jealousy. It is fact.

I WFH air literally have no choice. The charity I work for can't afford to pay for office space and I'm carer to my disabled son so limited in what
I could do. I miss office life \ in person work and would love to be able to have that opportunity again but if I was forced back FT I would have to give up work it's not sustainable with what I need to do as a carer.

I volunteer when I can so he can actually speak to other adults

At my workplace, someone refused to come back in at all (we're hybrid) after Covid as they'd sold their car.

Another because they'd acquired a dog.

🤔

The point is that jobs in education, social work, healthcare etc cannot be fully WFH and often can't be hybrid. How are you going to attract people to these careers when they could get a WFH job that pays the same, cuts commuting and lunch costs, reduces/eliminates commuting time and they can stick a washing on? PP makes a really good point.

I work hybrid btw, so I'm not necessarily anti-WFH. But the swing towards it will have large implications. DH is a nurse and when he's getting up at 5.45am and not getting home till 8.30pm you have to wonder if it's worth it. I wouldn't encourage my child to go into healthcare, I'd encourage them to get a job that can be done remotely.

I also think people kid themselves on about how productive they are. My friend's employer wanted them back in the office 3 days a week recently and she was complaining about how she's more productive at home. 10 minutes later I asked about her pregnancy and she told me she's been so tired she's been napping during the working day...

I did years of nightshifts/un social hours and missed important events due to rota inflexibility.

My current job is contracted, solely WFH. There is no office and my boss lives abroad. I don't find much hate IRL though. More just confusion of how my job could be done from home.

Really? I honestly wasn't aware of that. I don't know anyone who has had that. They've seen the ed psych or an OT instead. Couldn't that be hybrid though? Sometimes field work (in the schools etc), sometimes at home?

That's a funny way to look at it though really. I think there are many more issues affecting those jobs. I think we need greater flexibility in our work force especially as pp said, labour want more disabled people to work.

I don't think we should be angry with people who want to WFH at all. I think hybrid and WFH is an important mode of work that we shouldn't be trying to roll back on. It's not for everyone and it's not for all jobs. We need to have good transport and good wages and good working conditions all round to get people in jobs.

I would think the problem with a lot of hospitality and retail and public facing jobs is that the public are just so awful these days. We have a society problem. Angry and unpleasant people who don't know how to behave. Why would you want to put up with it for a low wage? We need better wages.

@TheAmusedQuailyou have to see the child, and sometimes visit the school…. Hth

Why can't an EHCP application be done remotely @Gandalfatemyhamster ? What is there about it that requires you to be behind a desk in an office, rather than behind a desk, at home?