Thing you do when you WFH...

[SleepDebt]

...that you'd never do in the office.

My DH was shaving his beard In-between emails this week and it made me chuckle at the thought of him doing this in the office.

What things do you do while you WFH that would be completely inappropriate/slightly hilarious if you did them in the office?

This is quite the thread - when I work from home I work, hard!

I barely get lunch, I frequently have no time for a pee.

it was a busy job in the office, that hasn’t changed now I WFH.

I have saved on the commute though.

Wear flipflops, swear at my laptop and work loads of unpaid overtime

When I work from home, the thing I do that I don't do in the office is...

...get loads of work done! I'm in an open plan office, in a high transit area beside a conference room and kitchen, near the lifts, and next to a small team who clearly don't have enough work and talk about TV and their fucking pets all day. SO distracting. Plus my office window opens over a very busy high street so it's traffic and horns and people yelling all day. At home, I sit with classical music, birds tweeting in my hedges, and merrily plough through loads of work. Whilst in my pjs and no bra 😀

No bra, wear whatever I like including PJs sometimes

While on training calls that I just have to listen to - dye my hair, paint my nails, order birthday cards for the month, organise social calendar, make a fuss of the cat - as long as I’m listening that’s all ok

Lol. No wonder the UK’s productivity is in a tailspin.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2020/03/07/if-the-uk-is-high-tech-why-is-productivity-growth-slow-economists-weigh-in/

Or, now that the distractions of the office are removed, actual time spent working is much more productive, thus it takes fewer hours to complete.

Much like school. My child attends school for 30 hours a week in a class of 30 kids. Guaranteed if he was taught 1.2.1 with a teacher, he wouldn't require anywhere near 30 hours a week.

Stick dinner in the slow cooker when I’m listening to a teleconference
Walk the dog at lunchtime
Take regular breaks to do my back exercises
Work in a comfortable, warm environment
Focus on my work without the distractions of colleagues
Thank god I’m not spending unproductive hours driving to and from meetings
Laugh at posters like @Hedjwitch who come up with crap like that

Wear old trousers that are very comfy and my slippers, put music on in the background - it helps me concentrate.

Paranoid about my teams dot going yellow!

^

Opening a long webinar works too... it'll keep on playing whilst you're prepping dinner or whatever

Although I do prefer the word Doc and heavy document

@HoneyPotBee thank you 😀

Low productivity is because employers in the UK have failed to invest in technology.
Sorry you do not really understand the issues. Countries with staff doing very low paid working but working back breaking 16 hour days have low levels of productivity. Because productivity is not simply about how hard people work.

Work in my pj's most days. Take a proper breakfast break mid morning. Pop a load of laundry on / hang it out. Speak to my friend when she gets back from the school run most mornings for about an hour or so, but I do carry on working through my emails (I used to work in customer relations, so very used to multitasking). If I have reporting or anything I need to concentrate properly on, I don't. I work hard and am always readily available for my colleagues during my working hours, as I would be in the office.

That’s an interesting perspective @BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz - I tend to agree with that.
I have a lot of distractions in the office (I really enjoy being in the office, we are a really small team so quite close, there are intense periods of chat and then everyone settles back down to work!) but when I’m at home I do find I can whizz through things quicker. However my work is never ‘done’ so I just move on to the next thing until it’s the end of my working day, I definitely achieve more overall at home.

Sing loudly and out of tune to Spotify, which would probably be frowned upon in the office.

There's also nearly always a pet sitting with me or nearby.

And one thing I am really strict on is taking a proper lunch break. Either to gym or to walk round the block, maybe have lunch with dh if he’s home.

I suspect a piss taker can take the piss whether they're in the office or WFH.
I said that I cooked a meal while listening to a conference talk. If I had been in the office I would not have been able to attend this part of the conference as I would have needed to leave for home/children, and as my contract stipulated my working hours it would have been all above board.
WFH allows me a great deal of flexibility and as a senior professional I am able and trusted to manage my own time.

I didn't need to speak, the meal I was making didn't need much brain work, though it did take longer to prepare as it was more stop/start as I did want to listen to the talk properly.

Work naked in summer. Just make very sure the camera slider is closed! (It's a physical cover, so no matter what it can't come on)

You’re very welcome

Work at the end of the garden, in the shade, when it’s too hot to be inside. Neither office nor home has a/c, but my home Wi-Fi reaches further than the office one (plus hot spotting). I don’t function well above 28 degrees and we’ve had quite a few of those days over the last 3 years.

From this thread, low productivity appears to be very much from their employees doing everything else from watching TV, doing housework to gardening and having sex rather than actually working!

Maybe employers do need to invest in technology, mainly to replace their staff taking the piss!

We get told off if we're spotted in meetings doing something which shows we're not paying attention, eg messages on teams discussing something else, emails, calendar bookings etc. We're supposed to be focused on the meeting, apparently. Even when we have nothing to say at all.

An awful lot of my work is collaborative so it's tricky to do anything work related which doesn't get me in trouble. I do sort emails if I can, and edit documents, but again if people get notifications of edits on shared docs during meetings I can get in trouble. So meetings can be pretty dull.

I get a lot more work done at home AND I have time to piss about - I've got the best of both worlds.

I frequently take breaks by putting the washing in/hanging it out (or other small round-the-house jobs). I work in joggers and a big tshirt (no bra obv) unless I have client meetings. My cat sleeps between me and my keyboard for warmth which is much nicer than being in the office. If I've got boring/mindless stuff to do, I'll work from the sofa with a comfort film/show on in the background. I sometimes do yoga at lunchtimes and in summer this year I'm going to work from the garden all day because I have a garden now and I can't wait!

I do more at home than at the office. If I wouldn't do it at the office, I don't do it at home.

Oh I vape at my desk....that's it. And I'll take my car to get cleaned/run errands on my dinner break. But that's it.

I get dressed as if I'm going into the office, shower/makeup etc as if I was.

I'd take a personal call, e.g. doctors in the office so will do so at home. Same as I'd scroll Mumsnet for 10 minutes etc.

I'm more productive at home though. In the office I'll spend quite a lot of time just chatting with the office staff about random stuff. Whereas at home, I'm either alone or with DH, who barely has time for a wee let alone gossip with me.

Sadly don't have time to do most of these things. Pretty much put breakfast dishes in the dishwasher, a load of laundry and either hang it out or put it in the dryer.

No it's really not.

It's just that time is no longer wasted spending many hours commuting, getting suited and booted and coifed, etc and that time is now used for personal stuff at home.

Most are far more productive.

I also wear slippers