To think people who work from home don’t understand this?! And they’re paid more usually

She works managing a Legal team

What is your neighbour's job role?
Just out of interest and no problem if you don't want to respond

The advantages of working from home according to my neighbour .

1. she can stick a load of laundry on
2. she can take a few minutes to peg it out in good weather
3. she can quickly clean her downstairs loo
4. she can take in any deliveries
5. if they need any trades to do work she can let them in
6. she can let the dog in/ out the garden
7. she saves time and money on the commute
8. she doesn’t need to be dressed for the office she can be comfy / casual
9. she saves £ on buying lunch

Disadvantages

1. no proper lunch or coffee breaks
2. no downtime on commute home she’s straight into mum / domestic mode
3. no chats to to other staff / colleagues
4. no doing a quick wander to the nice shops at lunch or after work
5. no post work socialising, there were times her husband would be looking after the kids and she could go for a coffee or drink with a colleague or even a wander round the shops on late shopping evening

I work from home, my schedule is flexible but that works both ways: if I need to speak to a customer on a different timezone and it's outside of 9-5 then I still need to speak to them.
Most of my calls are with people in other countries so it doesn't matter where I am when I do them.
I am in awe of people who get up and physically attend a workplace everyday. I was fine doing this in my 20s but now I'm in my 40s with mobility issues it's a different story. I feel blessed to be able to work from home.

Good grief. What a pity party post. “Wah wah wah it’s not fair”. Are you 12? 🙄

Why do you seem to think people who WFH go gallivanting about during their work day? We don’t. The person you know is in a senior role and therefore will likely have different flexibility and responsibilities to the vast majority of us who WFH.

I worked in an office for years. I’ve worked from home for the last 12+ years in a field based role.

I don’t go out on daily jaunts to the hairdressers etc. I’m working. And most days I end up working more hours and through my lunch, because it’s actually harder to switch off. I have meetings and back to back calls I have to make, I wouldn’t have time to go out gallivanting even if I wanted to!

Why should you get more annual leave purely because you don’t WFH? I probably work more hours than you do!

Tell you what isn’t fair? You comparing all people who WFH to your friend and assuming we all have the same work environment and do the same thing.

Why don’t you get that your lack of flexibility isn’t everyone else’s problem ?

I work from home. I struggle to have an appointment on my lunch break. In fact it’s pretty rare I have a lunch break. If I need to leave work during my working hours; I have to inform someone and block out my diary and work additional hours to catch up on what I didn’t do through the day. Same thing while working in an actual office.

There is an assumption that everyone who works from home is just out and about all day - and I bet some of them are. Generally though to have a working from agreement means you’re trustworthy and actually do your job.

Schedule time with your friends during your free time. I haven’t seen any of my friends face to face in at least 6 months because we are all parents and working adults.

I totally get this op. A lot of my friends just don’t understand that I can’t just skip off to a yoga class at 10, or do the school run at 3. It’s very frustrating at times. And the thing is, it’s not hard to understand that someone working in an office (or working from home but doing something like call centre work) can’t have flexibility

I work from home 2-3 days per week and it's fairly intense. My diary tends to be booked out most of the day with back-to-back calls and I certainly don't have time to gallivant about. I try to block off time to do more focused work like reading or writing a report, but that often gets eaten up catching up on emails because I am so busy the rest of the day/week. I definitely work harder at home than when I am in the office, where it necessary to build gaps into the day to move about the building, I'll stop to have a chat with a co-worker and people may recognise when I'm stressed out and make me a cup of tea. I do have the benefit of flexi-time so I can log out and go to a doctor or dentist appointment when I am wfh, but I need to make up the time later. To be honest I find it easier to fit jobs around the days I am in the office because it's in the city centre and everything is on our doorstep. I really struggled with work-life balance when I was fully working from home during covid because I couldn't take an hour over lunch to get my eyes tested or my nails done, and I had to make a trip into town especially to buy a birthday present or pick up some item that the kids needed whereas when I'm in the office I can do it on my lunch break or on the way home.

If your friends aren't being understanding, I can see why that's really frustrating, but as many said, it's not universal, and going on about whether it's fair isn't going to help anything.

I know I've been irked with at-home staff saying that they couldn't complete X thing that has be done before 8:30 the next morning because of their finish time, there is part of my mind that goes 'you're already at home, why are you putting this on others', when really it's a frustration that we're so understaffed and my own struggles with keeping boundaries at work. When I step back, I admire that they can keep to their hours so well.

Different workplaces have different flexibility. Where I work usually has few to no one working from home, and there are still people who go get their nails done or have a hair cut at lunch time. I've had a dental appointment over lunch (it's in a short walking distance from where I work) though I normally take leave. I'm one of many who is eating breakfast in the office/during meetings, and regularly at lunch as well, though my manager is strongly against it, but that flexibility does exist and we all use it now and then. I plan and do a lot of my gift shopping over lunches because I work a lot closer to shops than where I live & I'd rather go straight home at the end of the day than try to squeeze into shops shortly before they close.

My workplace recently had pipes burst in part of the building over a weekend that caused a lot of damage by the time it was found on Monday morning. Everyone who could work from home was sent home the first day when the extent and safety of the building wasn't known. It wasn't the higher paid staff, they were all on site scrambling and still in daily. Those in my office, it's largely the lower paid computer-based admin staff who are at home and now taking it in rotation to have a couple on site to keep everything running with the rest from home while we have no end in sight to when repairs will be done and very little available space where staff can work. Those of us who need to be on site for our jobs, we're now completing what needs done on site each day, then working from home on computer-based tasks that doesn't need us to be on site.

This has its pros as it means some days I can leave at 3-3:30, get home, chat with my husband and the kids for bit, then pick back up shortly before 5 for an hourish to finish things while the Teams is quiet, but I have also been working longer hours and for the first time since starting this job, digging into it on Saturday to catch-up and get things ready for the next week. It's snuck up on me having my work laptop at home where I can check it for 'just 5 minutes to check if something is ready' and I fall into it.

Everything has its pros and cons. I chose a job that needs people to be on site, moving things around and dealing with people face to face over the admin roles for my own wellbeing in large part because I know I'm the kind who can fall into computer work if given the opportunity and not yet built in the boundaries that others have with this.

I am in my sixties and have never worked anywhere where you didn’t get paid time off for medical and dental appointments.

It sounds like you’re just jealous of your friend.

A former manager of mine used to take the absolute living pss! Never spent a full day in the office or online when WFH, always either having her hair/nails done, events at her children’s school, out walking, fictitious work calls, you name it. She didn’t make the time up in the evening and openly told my colleague she would put delays on her sent emails so they’d arrive at random times in the evening, to make it look like she was working. She was also a horrible person. There’s flexibility and there’s taking the pss. I think she’s a Mumsnetter so I hope she recognises herself, she’s got the insight of a dishcloth and thinks she’s entitled.

Are you a teacher OP (have not read the full thread)

My teacher friends spit bile about people who can work from home. It’s off the scale.

I worked from home for 3 years. At my desk at 8am till 5pm. There was definitely no gallivanting. Its soul destroying not seeing anyone. Back in the office now, different project, same company. So much more fun. Be careful what you wish for. I could not go anywhere. So my weekends were the same as they are now. If you really don't like it, and you sound very bitter, get another job.

I started working from home around 2012, when nobody did. I worked there 13 years, mainly shifts requiring me to sign in and out, with strict quality control and productivity requirements.
It did allow me to be a parent full time though, while also working enough night and evening shifts to also work full time at a meagre wage.
The last few years before they made me redundant I was a manager, so it was mainly 9 to 5 and I could organise my time better, more flexibly, but it did still spill into my off hours often.

I think it really depends on the job and role.
I don't think one could expect extra holidays to become common practise for workers who cannot work remotely, because it really depends on the job.

I could imagine it to make sense within some companies though, with extra holiday or some perks being offered to workers who cannot be offered to work remotely, because of the commuting time and expenses. But then, if a company know that workers are desperate to work anyway, why should they bother?

OP I think you’re confusing working from home with level of seniority. As a home worker whose colleagues are home workers, we certainly work hard when we are at home and don’t go galavanting. In fact we probably work harder at home than when in the office as you can pack more work in.

Hair appointments and the like are booked for evenings or weekends or annual leave is booked. If your friend who you’re basing your entire assumption on is very senior, it is likely that this is the reason for galavanting rather than her working from home

And we only get to go to the toilet or drink a coffee at set times!

My partner works from home 2 days a week and is in a managerial position. He does ‘galavant’ and multitask as he is able to structure his day that way. I also wfh 2 days a week and am chained to my desk. I’m not in a senior role. I do think it’s more about the pressures of the role rather than everyone who works from home can skive. Certainly not in my case!

You would probably have thought this of me when I was FT and would sometimes have a dentists appointment in the daytime during the week - what you wouldn’t have seen is me working 9pm-midnight (if not beyond) every night after my DD was asleep, nor the fact that I worked every weekend. Being senior comes with flexibility, yes, and a decent pay packet, and enormous demands. I averaged a minimum of 80 hours a week. That is normal in my industry, so flexibility is just a quid pro quo.

Agree that it depends more on seniority rather than WFH or not.

Why should it be fair? Jobs are different, employers are different, how could it ever possibly be fair?

Nonsense. Everyone I know whoworks from home, works the hours they are contracted to work. People who have to go into the office may have less flexibility, but they certainly don't work harder or deserve more leave for the same amount of work.

Why?
You said yourself your friend has to work in the evening if she takes time out of the day for appointments.

I wfh and don’t galavant about, I need to be available during office hours

I work from home but definitely don't gallivant around. YABU to suggest everyone who wfh does so, on the basis of your very limited sample.

I WFH the majority of the week and it's not much nicer than working from the office. There is so much downtime in the office but it counts because of presenteeism. Plus you are expected to work later at night WFH, 9pm is not unusual or missing your lunchtime because there is a meeting. This doesn't happen in the office.
Yes sometimes it's easier to clock off for an appointment, but it's also very easy for them to stretch the day and if you are away from your desk using the toilet or making a cup of tea it shows that you've been away from teams after 5 minutes. In the office people know that you are in the building so don't question it.