To be so glad WFH became a thing (and to absolutely hate anyone who tries to curtail its availability)

Oh yes, I remember being in my early 20s and having senior partners spend hours every day teaching and guiding me. Oh hang on, no they didn't, they spoke to me when they wanted a coffee and sometimes handed me something and asked me to photocopy it, but wow, those 5 minutes spent queuing in Costa or photocopying documents really did give me some incredible experiences to add to my CV. 🙄

Not necessarily. I work from my kitchen table with a plug in fleece blanket wrapped around me as I can’t afford to put the heating on all day. It’s still better and cheaper than travelling into an office.

Without meaning to sound rude I think this thread just highlights the class system in this country. The ‘ haves’ who have adequate space, money to pay increased utilities to work comfortably at home and the ‘have nots’ who are shivering sitting on their beds in their cramped rentals.

Open plan offices are the worst.

Yes (and no.)

It doesn’t just depend on firm boundaries. It also depends on your home layout. We have an old cottage. It doesn’t matter where in it DH goes, you can hear him (and therefore he can hear us.)

DS is now five and sort of understands ‘daddy is working’ but at two, he didn’t. Life was pretty miserable as any time spent at home was trying to stop him going in to DH so we spent most of our time out of the house.

Once again, I have a two year old at home with me and I’m so glad I don’t have DH at home, frankly. With the best will in the world you just feel in the way in your own home.

The context in which I referred to playmates was in response to the specific example of young people wanting folk to mess around with and socialise with after work.

thats not patronising that’s descriptive

I’m glad it’s available to lots of people, I do it sometimes but would hate 100% wfh.

I do miss working with a team in the office, the vibe of Friday night drinks, the collective energy. That just doesn’t happen with wfh, I miss that a lot.

Agree with this. There just aren't that many employers that are fully remote and ultimately if you find it damaging to WFH then don't work for a fully remote employer. We've all had to do things in our working life that weren't the best for us and didn't suit us personally or professionally, which is exactly why we strive to change things, including our jobs if need be, and find balance that does work. People just entering the workforce aren't and shouldn't be immune from those learning and development experiences either. I found working in retail utterly horrendous and suffered it as long as I needed to before I could get out of customer-facing jobs. Someone else will find working from home in say an admin based role horrendous and can make equally appropriate decision.

I would love to have the option once or twice a week for all the reasons mentioned. However whenever I gave mentioned all these positive aspects, usually work from homers go out of their way to say how hard it is. How they don't take breaks etc etc.

WFH full time was absolutely dreadful for me but hybrid is great and I’m glad remote positions exist for others if it suits them and can be done without detriment to the rest of the organisation.

It’s not just that is it. The older folk happily wfh on this thread don’t really care about young people who are missing out on face-to-face contact with mentors and learning from seniors. You can learn so much from working with colleagues face-to-face and learning from senior partners in the firm

I am not so sure about this osmosis theory. I am trying to decide what I learned from hearing conversations when I was in an early stage in my career. You do pick up things from overheard conversations more generally, but that is a different issue to learning how to do the job. Anyone who is good at mentoring should be able to do it remotely or based on 2-3 face to face days a week. Most people who work from home go into the office 1-2 days a week at least.

As for working from a bedroom, there are co-working spaces. Such spaces have areas for private calls so confidentiality shouldn't generally be an issue.

We do kudoboards instead ;)

I care, and personally have mentored a 22 year old colleague for the last 7 months on my office days. However my personal circumstances dictate that hybrid is vital to me and my DH. Not all us older ones 'don't care' about our younger colleagues, but we also care about our own wellbeing too. I had my share of hard knocks when I first started work, I try very consciously to contribute to a positive work experience if I get any input.

I am a hybrid worker (one or two days in office per week). I definitely wouldn't want to wfh all the time I enjoy my days in the office integrating properly with colleagues, Personally don't like Teams calls and meetings.

I also think working from home isn't good for younger people, they probably don't have their own home so will be working from a bedroom or encroaching on family space which isn't ideal and the non commute doesn't make up for this in my opinion.

The youngest person in my own office chooses to come in every day even though they don't have to.

So it's not as cut and dried as 'a good thing' or 'not a good thing' I don't think.

The people on this thread are mothers, or mostly mothers, and very very few employers have accommodated us. It's not our job to make everything perfect for everyone else. We're allowed to enjoy something that works for us for once.

Thinking about my absolute favourite thing about hybrid working, at home it's the balance with family life, and the silence. Quiet is genuinely something I crave in my life. I live in a fairly quiet residential area in terms of it being a nice area but it's also noisy in terms of the constant noise of roads, motorway, there's always works going on somewhere. In the house there's always sport on the TV, music on, the oven and washing machine aren't the quietest. There's always something and I'm very very rarely in the house on my own otherwise. Those days I work from home when I'm genuinely on my own and there's no teams meetings are actually quite restorative. I don't have the radio on or my audiobooks. I work in silence at the front of the house with the windows closed and it's so good. As said the only downside is really the heating bill in the winter and possibly the 'will just finish this' mentality which can easily turn into working and extra hour when I didn't intend to.

At work I do like seeing my colleagues (and my long term work crush 😏) and the social aspect - small doses is definitely best. However I frequently leave work on office days having been constantly interrupted which means I know the next day at home is going to be fairly full on trying to make that up. And probably contributes to the working extra as well.

Training always comes up in wfh threads, I don't think its so cut and dry that wfh means you wil miss out on learning opportunities. I think it can totally vary from company to company. wfh doesn't mean you are going to miss out on training and in-office doesn't guarantee you will have a good f2f learning experience. It really does come down to a company ethos, and there are some in office ones and wfh ones that are woeful at training and mentoring younger workers.

Absolutely but I don’t take the piss

can’t say the same for a lot of the youngsters coming into the workplace though

It’s not just that is it. The older folk happily wfh on this thread don’t really care about young people who are missing out on face-to-face contact with mentors and learning from seniors. You can learn so much from working with colleagues face-to-face and learning from senior partners in the firm.

Many young people are living in rubbish housing which is not conducive to working from home. They then go to the office and find themselves the only ones there as their managers are working on teams.

I think hybrid working is fine, but young people are definitely missing out in the workplace. It is not just about ‘playmates’ as you so condescendingly mention. My first post on this thread was to highlight that many keen young people are desperate to learn from seniors face-to-face, at least part of the week.

And younger. Because after all, people who loved working in person when they were in their 20s and did very well out of it are not the default.

A lot of vacancies are now office based again. This is why a lot of middle aged and older are hanging onto the wfh jobs for dear life.

I wake up 15 mins before work! Wash, teeth, clothes, hairbrush, done!