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?

You do in most physical/manual jobs, unfortunately, no time to piss about there and certainly no "downtime" between tasks. You get a tea break if you're lucky, but then you just end up drinking cold tea as you work. The notion that office workers only actually work 3/4 hours out of their 8 hour day, whether wfh or in the office, proves most could be made redundant and its doubtful anyone would notice.

I'm too busy when I'm working from home to do anything else unfortunately. We're expected to do other work while listening in to meetings etc (no wonder we don't remember to do anything mentioned in them).
The only thing I do that I wouldn't in the office is wear an oodie. I look ridiculous but at least I'm warm. Oh and I eat a LOT of chocolate and crisps to get me through the day. I try not to eat too much when I'm in the office.

I did make the mistake of logging on the other evening out of hours and my manager rang me so I had to answer while soaking wet from the shower in just a towel. Thank fuck he didn't video call me.

I’m quite open with the fact I don’t work well at home and prefer to be in the office with the team. The problem is nobody goes into the office because they all love wfh.

Fortunately for my employer, I have to do a timesheet so I just keep working all evening until there’s 7 hours on my timesheet. It’s not enjoyable for me.

In these threads there’s always a big experience gap evident between people who work in ‘hours’ jobs and people who work in ‘output’ jobs. If your work is measured in time spent doing it, then yes, you’d be taking the piss if you started mowing the lawn etc. But if your job is measured in output, it doesn’t actually matter what you do with your time during the day as long as the work gets done (and done well). That’s the difference i think people often miss here.

I work in the latter type of job. My company is entirely remote. We work on fast turnaround collaborative projects so if someone on the team wasn’t pulling their weight or was crap at their role, despite spending 9 hours a day at their desk, that would be an issue. On the flip side, if someone got their project work done to a great standard in two hours and then spent the rest of the day browsing mumsnet, that would be fine - because they’re hired for their skills, not the amount of work they can crank out in a set time. I’ve never worked with harder-working people. When i worked in an office, people would sit for nine or ten hours a day making a great show of how busy they were and getting fuck all done, or being inept at their jobs. But because they looked busy, that was fine, apparently…I’m autistic, so the hypocrisy and stupidity of this drove me insane.

In short, output-based work is the modern way of working, at least in the white collar world. Factory hours/bums on seats are on the way out, and employers and employees need to keep up.

In these threads there’s always a big experience gap evident between people who work in ‘hours’ jobs and people who work in ‘output’ jobs. If your work is measured in time spent doing it, then yes, you’d be taking the piss if you started mowing the lawn etc. But if your job is measured in output, it doesn’t actually matter what you do with your time during the day as long as the work gets done (and done well). That’s the difference i think people often miss here.

Yup.

That said, there are some hours jobs where the work ebbs and flows too. Ages ago I used to be a weekend receptionist in a place where the reception was quite physically isolated, but they did need someone on it. The layout of the building meant there wasn't really a way to do much else other than be on reception and manage people coming in and calls, so I spent the majority of the day on the internet. Which my boss had no issue with.

I wasn't taking the piss by doing that, any more than I am now if I don't sit at the desk for all working hours in my output related job. In both cases, the important thing is that you're doing the necessary work when it needs to be done, which doesn't happen to match up with a steady rate of work across the expected hours.

And I think actually this furthers your point about it not mattering how the day looks as long as the things you're employed to do get done.

In these threads there’s always a big experience gap evident between people who work in ‘hours’ jobs and people who work in ‘output’ jobs. If your work is measured in time spent doing it, then yes, you’d be taking the piss if you started mowing the lawn etc. But if your job is measured in output, it doesn’t actually matter what you do with your time during the day as long as the work gets done (and done well). That’s the difference i think people often miss here.

Then presumably if you smashed out your days work in 3 or 4 hours in the office or at home and your employer was perfectly happy with that you could just pack up and go paint your nails or do the garden or shag? So you wouldn't be doing them while WFH, you'd be doing them after finishing your work.
^
This thread asks what people do while working from home that they wouldn't do in the office^, which suggests they're doing it while they should be working.

Sorry about the random italics there.

In my experience, some jobs are hard to assess for productivity as well.

Jobs that have multiple parts / stakeholders. Jobs that have tasks which could take 30 mins to complete or (if lots of queries / research) several hours. Jobs with lots of stakeholder management and consultation.

These jobs are really tough for managing piss takers at home. You really need to be seeing how someone operates - are they being efficient and streamlined - to know whether their output for the day is fair.

I’m struck by how one of the big differences between downtime time-wasting at home vs in the office is that the home kind is solitary (errr except those jumping their DHs…) and also lots of wife-work (cleaning, cooking. Arguably providing sex falls in this category come to think of it). The office kind is mostly social (chats with colleagues, interruptions) which is part of networking and horizon scanning, if you’ll pardon the management-speak, and ultimately helps the work. I dunno, I much prefer the office. WFH makes me a bit sad and lonely so I’m biased!

Also - blimey, lots of you have some f**ed meeting cultures
in your workplaces! This meetings could definitely be emails…

It’s not that I don’t get that there is a difference between “output” jobs and “hours” jobs, it’s that even when I’ve worked in more “output”-type jobs (like my current one, where I have autonomy over what I do when to a large extent and have flexitime), there is always more than enough work to fill a working day. There are key project tasks, less time-critical but still important secondary / tertiary project tasks, other areas that are my primary responsibility within the team to keep updated, Teams calls, collaboration to tee up future projects, research reading to keep on top of, all the timesuck demands of line managing…if I didn’t put in a near-full day 95% of the time - recognising that there is always some time lost to short breaks, slumps in productivity etc - I simply wouldn’t keep on top of it all.

Hmm 'ultimately helps the work' is one where people's mileage really varies. One persons beneficial social environment is another's unhelpful and exhausting distraction. For some people, the networking you mention here imposes a much greater increase in their workload and efforts than a bit of housework here and there.

Even as an extrovert, I've had jobs where I loved the colleagues and social side and jobs where I experienced it as something similar to wifework, albeit not for a spouse.

Hmm 'ultimately helps the work' is one where people's mileage really varies.

fair point @BashirWithTheGoodBeard ! I work in a field where relationships and networks are important as your career unfolds, so the chat feeds that side in one way or another, even if it’s not relevant at the time. But I’ve been lucky enough not to be inflicted with awful colleagues at any point. Crap, does that mean it’s me?? I’m the awful colleague!

Inspired by this thread, I actually managed to take a full hours lunch break and use it productively to fully get the advantage from WFH today.

Managed to strip a bed, wash and dry two loads of laundry over the course of the day and also nipped into town and the supermarket during lunch.

If I had been office based today I would barely have left my seat but certainly wouldn't have got any more work done.

I work ridiculous hours but love my job. It's easier to get the high mental load tasks done outside office hours. Occasionally I start at 5am or 9.30am. Occasionally finish at 5.30pm or 10pm. I wouldn't be able to work the same hours in an office.
Once I'm at my desk I barely bloody move all day.

I think we've probably all been someone's awful colleague at some point! I know I have!

But part of that is because there's so much variation in how people feel about work and working environments. We're just more aware of the latter now than we were 3 years ago cos of lockdown. A lot of people's experience and trajectory had just never given them reason to think much about it. I don't think that makes a person awful if they fall into that category.

Have sex with my DJ at lunchtime...

Love it! 😍

What song does he play while you're doing it?

😂😂

Surely it depends on your type of role (if office based and working from home?)

I have peaks and troughs with my workload. I have autonomy in how I manage my time. I work as an EA, so yes, it would be obvious if I was made redundant. I chose this role and sector because thats what interests me. How my time is used during the day is obviously going to be different from say, a builder or nurse or even a call centre worker who gets allocated tea breaks.

I dont know why thats hard to imagine, and its not worth being a bitch about it?

I WFH, but don't take the piss. I spent most of my life working in offices and seen plenty of in-office piss taking: people chatting for hours / just happily passing work onto others they could/should do themselves / finding spurious reasons to leave early for work related reasons / web surfing for hours. There are hyper conscientious people and total piss takers, most of us are probably somewhere in between!!

I knew someone would say that, and yes it occurred to me but, the serious thinking on causes of low productivity are; under investment in tech / kit / training & development. Labour shortages / mismatches between skills of those entering labour market and what employers need. There are loads of common practices which add to this e.g., pointless meetings / poor staff management / long term sickness. The UK's productivity problems existed long before WFH.

Agree with the last comment about causes of poor productivity being longstanding.

For me, it is putting washing on, and cooking lunch.

I did some sewing during my meeting this morning. It helps me concentrate.

I managed to prep tomorrow's lunch at the same time as making today's - all while fielding telephone calls so certainly doesn't feel as though I'm taking liberties or being unproductive for one!