To work from home is of benefit to the employee and the employer loses out

[poppincandy]

Maybe I just have the wrong RL friends but all of my friends who have the opportunity to work from home with their very well paid jobs take complete advantage of it.

They go off to the gym, get their hair done, go out for afternoon tea, collect their dc from school (therefore have the children at home from 3pm), take children off to activites, etc.

To do their job they have to always be contactable by their devices, but I'm sure the jobs would be more efficient if they were in the actual office. All of these friends have battled to get working from home introduced in their companies, and I can't help but feel that once companies cotton on to what is happening the opportunity will decrease not increase.

So AIBU that if you are working from home, you should actually be working from home? Or am I just jealous that they get to do all these things, whilst being paid fantastic hourly rates to do them?

Not read all the thread. My DH is REQUIRED to work from home. He works for a large company and their website is updated in the middle of the night. When he works on their website he logs in remotely from home to do the work. If he was accessing the server from work he would be logging in remotely as the server is in a different part of the country. There is no benefit in him driving to the office at 4am.

Some jobs can be done from home and other can't. I have never worked from home and I cannot understand your resentment.

Is the resentment really about the type of jobs people are doing? Some jobs are jobs people do for a duration, and that's important - Nursing, Policing the obvious examples, the job needs doing all the time and therefore the employee needs to work the set hours. And then there are other jobs which are all about completing a single task, doesn't matter how long they take it just matters that they're done - certain creative jobs the most obvious examples perhaps.

In between those there are lots of other jobs which have differing amount of the two - sometimes there are meetings you have to attend, but often there's just a set amount of work that the company expects for the wage they're paying. For those it doesn't matter how long you actually work, just that you do the job. And if you are doing the job, then the company is happy for you to use the rest of the time as you want, the company gets its work done for the price it's willing to pay and probably has an employee who is happier and less likely to leave because they get plenty of free time.

So YABU if the people are doing their jobs - whatever else they're doing with their days, and it sounds more that you resent their freedom compared to your job?

YABU. I work from home half the week and that means that unless I have meetings I have to go to, I decide which hours I work. If I get up early and work from 6am I can then stop at lunchtime, go to the gym, get my hair done and do all those nice things, then come home and after dinner and DDs in bed do some more work.

I work much harder at home than in the office where there are the distractions of catching up with everyone and faffing about with "organisational" stuff which doesnt achieve anything.

Dont assume just because some is at the gym on a work day they are on teh clock; I wouldnt dream of putting down time I wasnt actually working on my timesheet. I do however have my phone etc with me because I realise that other people have to work normal office hours and it makes me more contactable for them.

DH may well do the school run or something else during the day when working from home, BUT he will then disappear into the study early in the morning and/or late in the evening which he would not do after his normal long commute. Work get their computer programs and reports written on time or indeed quicker. DH is a sponge for technical knowledge and if he's in the office and anyone has a problem he is likely to be interrupted. If he's here they might at least google it first.

I ought add that he's the sort of sad geek who thinks technical thoughts regardless of where he is or what he's doing. So even when he's doing his hobby it's geeky and crosses over with work.

I suspect you are jealous.

I do it once a week (for childcare reasons) and whenever else I need to. It's not a big deal. But guess what? They get a lot more of my time like that - when I am working from home I usually login about 7am, then take a break to take DS2 to school, then work solidly until 3pm, another break while I pick him up and sort tea, but will quite often work into the evening.

Also it makes it natural for me to work weekends if i need to.

I wish I could work from home, I have offered to Skype my lessons but so far school are not convinced

When I worked from home I used to get more done in 4 hours than my usual 9 hours in the office due to lack of meetings and general office distractions. So YABU.

I do alot of thinking (on work issues) when at the hairdressers (and work on emails whilst there) or out running or sitting with DD as she watches CBeebies or plays after nursery. And always do a bit of work after her bedtime and before DH gets home.