Growl! Men who say they want to work from home to be closer to parenting!

[TamsinTiger]

Really?

That is just an excuse to their employers to spend part of their working day, when the children are at school flopping about in front of the TV or getting anal about saucepans being left out on the side and then lo and behold when their young offspring arrive home..they have to do work and off they go to their laptops..pathetic..and then when they are confronted about this they start going on about friends that they know whose wifes work just to make you feel guilty..have they no clue whatsoever that mothers at home are doing work!! the most important work..that they can not even bring themselves to attempt?

Rant not over yet...

AND I am happy to be completely unreasonable!!

Ok ok then.

Op UANBU for thinking your husband is a twat

UABU for being uninformed, condescending and rude as a result of your husband being a twat

There now, everyone's happy.

Because the OP made a sweeping negative generalisation.

"Men who say they want to work from home..." are basically crap.

Well Tiggy she didn't actually say that did she? And she was in full rant mode when generalisations have a habit of creeping in.

I think she was treated very harshly and there was definitely a bit of a mob mentality there.

But hey! I only know that because I was clever enough to understand the OP either that or I'm as bonkers as the OP :o

Everybody understood the OP. Most people saw it as unfair or just plain sexist.

I understood the op. I understood she was miserable. But she also spouted a lot of bollocks which kind of inferred "hey! gather round and lets man bash", and then she called a number of posters trolls, for not giving her "sensible advice"

It's not hard to understand at all. She can't throw her toys out the pram at home so she decided to do it here.

DH works from home a lot, due to not being physically up to getting in to the office everyday. To me, there's a bit more work to do at home on the days he's here because I'll make his lunch, drinks etc. But he is working, so we don't see him except when he comes down for lunch.
This idea about working from home to enable you to help out more is nonsense. Surely that's working part time? Working full time but at home is the same as being in the office. You should put in the same hours. Not dick about washing pots.

My Dad worked from home as a freelance journalist for about 30 years, and my whole childhood. He was in his office in the morning and afternoon but would come down and have lunch with us and obviously dinner etc. I loved having my Dad at home. If his office door was closed it meant we couldn't disturb him (normally he was interviewing people on the phone), but if it was open we could peek in occasionally and have a giggle with him.

He worked very hard to support us, but spent a lot of time with us as well...it was a great arrangement and if done properly can work really well.

I'm MNing working from home right now!

I get to pick the kids up from school and do their tea, clubs, supervise homework etc. Once they are home I only do bitty stuff like answering emails or filing or the like. I try and get the high concentration stuff and phone calls done while they are at school.

I also put a wash on, bung stuff in the slow cooker, tidy round during the day.

Works well for me

And fwiw I don't think the OP made any more generalisations than others that go unchecked on MN every day!

I recognise a lot of what op is saying! My h works at home quite often (self employed, so up to him what hours he does) but its funny that he suddenly gets quite busy in the mid-afternoon having faffed around pottering about most of the morning. What he wouldn't dare do is complain about the state of the house.

I think you should all cut the op a bit of slack. She is new to the forum, doesn't understand the conventions and doesn't know the exact definition of a troll. No need to be so sneery.

This idea about working from home to enable you to help out more is nonsense. Surely that's working part time? Working full time but at home is the same as being in the office. You should put in the same hours. Not dick about washing pots.

This. ^^

I'm all for working from home for the people I manage when it's practical and not to the detriment of the team or the business. I really don't stand for any dicking about when they WAH though as they should be doing the same work they would be doing in the office.

The idea of WAH isn't to get jobs done around the house, routinely do some childcare, internet shopping, watching TV or whatever else might seem preferable to actually getting on with some work.

It causes a lot of resentment from staff who aren't able to WAH for business reasons when they find out that others aren't pulling their weight.

I once got wind that one of my staff (in middle management) was regularly rescheduling important international conference calls without my knowledge in order to fit in the school run on an afternoon. Needless to say he doesn't work from home so much anymore...

I have no issue whatsoever with someone who WAHs telling me their ill child will be with them for a few days, or any other crisis which means they're not fully committed to working for a short period, but regularly piss-taking with their working arrangements? No way!

Well Shelley I work for myself and finished work at 12:30 am so I feel very comfy with the amount I get done :)

Of course it's perfectly reasonable to do exactly what you want if you're working for yourself, Curry.

OP mentioned 'employer' in her thread starter, though.

I hope none of your staff ever make fun of your name Shelly.

TiggyD, you've lost me.

Sorry Ms Boobs.

Hmm right, so people in the real world would know my MN nickname and make fun of it.