To think working from home is becoming a skivers charter

[Viviennemary]

Of course I know there are a lot of people who work from home very conscientiously. But it seems more and more people when they have childcare problems, house needs cleaning, traffic bad, staying in for delivery or they just need an easy day. Work from home. Anyone come across this. I know it's a bit of a risk putting this in AIBU but I just wondered.

I find it hard to believe anyone does a full days work when 'working from home'

On what grounds?

Self experience maybe 😉

YABU. You usually only get to wfh if you've proved you are trustworthy and competent and have a quantifiable work-output. Wfh is way more productive. Meanwhile back in the office your work colleagues can get away with doing fuck all. Presenteeism is much more valued than industry.

Both Dh and I work from home a lot.

Our jobs are target driven and there are a lot if conference calls, emails to respond to, presentations and reports to write. Can't imagine the consequence of dossing around all day and then having to present with no preparation, or my boss getting constant escalations as I am not around!!!

I WFH three days a week. During today I had a home shopping delivery unpacked and put away, hang a small washing up, prep dinner (well peeled some carrots and set the kitchen table) and today I vacuumed upstairs.
I did all the above between 2-3pm, my lunch hour as I slurped on a mug of soup.
I also often start well before 9am and answer emails on my iPad in the evening as I work in travel and our USA office is in full swing right now.
It's flippin brilliant.
Friday is my next WFH day, have two Amazon deliveries due 😊.

YABU, my brother had his office in the living room of our parents annex flat. I had the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. Sometimes I had to make him get lunch or offer to make something for him to eat. He would often come at 6:30 in the morning and not go home until the latest 9pm

Th works from home 4 days a week, he is very productive and much happier than when he was commuting 3 + hours a day. It is not a doss. Not all jobs can be done from home but if it works fo you/ your job it should be encouraged not disparaged.

whdn I work from home I usually have less breaks and I work damn hard. It isn't so I can play with the kids (who wouldn't be there anyway because I'm WORKING), watch telly or clean the house.

I find it hard to believe anyone does a full days work when 'working from home'
Wfh isn't for everyone because not everyone is honest and hardworking. Some people need to be office-based so they can hide their shirking in plain sight.

I'm a civil servant. I wfh 3days a week and save 12 hrs commuting and polluting the environment for absolutely no good reason. I work far harder from hom for the simple reason that I have no one to talk to. ! I start at 7:30 and rarely take more than a 30 minute break where I tidy the kitchen and put the dish washer on.
I think it is far more ecological and sensible if you have a non-customer focussed job. If 'bosses' could get over the idea that grown adults should be trusted until proved otherwise.. and tax incentives given to encourage wfh then we would solve our traffic congestion problem overnight.

I was rubbish at WFH - massively distracted, hardly got anything done, unless I had some very specific tasks which I could crack through. But so much of my career was spent working in reactive situations (media) where your value to your employer was your ability to multi-task and problem-solve across lots of different issues and deliver your contribution to a project and then switch priorities to get something else done. Very often senior staff wanted me mooching around the office, on hand to sort something out with them, or direct someone else. Some jobs are just like that, and it's not an adequate substitute to be dialling in, or Skypeing, or on some other platform. Ditto my husband's role - he's very senior, and therefore is wanted on the spot, doing his, you know, senior thing, as he has skills and experience which are valued because no-one else has them. So it's recognised that WFH is what happens when things are not too crunchy in the office and the staff concerned can step back from projects slightly.

DH occasionally works from home and as others have said - he works harder than he does in the office as he's keen to not take the piss. He signs in to his computer promptly, earlier than he would if he was in the office, and often keeps it on the go while he has his lunch. And it means that days like today, where he was getting a new phone delivered and it had to be him to sign for it, he was able to be around.

Presenteeism does no one any favours.

I get loads more done at home than I do in the office. Including the housework. No stupid workplace politics to contend with!

I guess it depends what you want from work, personally I err on the side of I want to get my job done and not bother with all the people, who actually aren't that nice where I work.

I WFH 4 days a week and am office based on the 5th day. I head up a team of 40 who are all home based and spread across the country. I am a grown up who gets the job done and I trust them to do the same. I can tell if someone is slacking and I deal with it.

They work as hard as I do and none of us would willingly go back to an office. I was in head office yesterday and the distractions drove me potty. Oh my, the noise! Plus I can't swear and roll my eyes at the phone before picking up the call and saying brightly "Hello Glitter here"

My office based days are, by far, my least productive days.

I'm pretty sure that people where I work use "working from home" as a source of unlimited annual leave.

But they're above my grade and work in different departments so I keep my beak well and truly out.

When my DH works from home he's focussed, head down, works solidly, no problem. On the odd occasion I've worked from home I've pissed around getting the odd bit of laundry on, looking at Mumsnet, making cups of coffee I don't really want, doing anything other than focus. I just do not have the self discipline to WFH.

I work in an office with one other person. I get so much more done when she isnt in, the solitude is effective. I imagine wfh wouls garner similar results.

My ex DP is a senior manager in banking, well over 6 figures.

He works from home one day a week and uses it to masturbate and nap. So perhaps not everybody WFH effectively. He’s just been promoted so some people obviously get away with slacking off!

I wfh when I was pregnant and suffering badly from spd.

I actually found I would log on at breakfast and still be working when DP got home. There’s no distractions and no structure and I was still in my pj’s when DP would come home.

I do less actual work when I’m in the office, people will come by to ask for help or have a natter, we’ll stop for lunch breaks and tea breaks and end up chatting at the tea area.

I get loads more done at home. Love the peace. Most new office fit outs only cater for around 60% of staff to save on costs and encourage home working.

I get more done when I work at home than in the office as there are no distractions. Not having a commute is a bonus as I can log on a little earlier and run through my emails / plan my day instead of sitting on the motorway in traffic. It takes 5 mins to get a tea / coffee rather than a 20 min walk to & from the canteen with additional chatter.

In any case, as long as someone is completing their work and pulling their weight, what business is it of yours whether someone works from home or not? It's up to their boss to manage / review. Not you, OP

I work in a target and deadline driven environment, and WFH sometimes (a variable number of days per week, depending on meetings etc). If I didn't work on those days I'd miss my deadlines and targets and lose my job.

As it is, I think I probably work much more intensively - I tend to be at my PC and already working when I'd normally be heading out the door, and I can't get distracted by phone calls/colleagues chatting/cups of tea as I do at the office. I sometimes have a longer lunch break or break earlier, as a result, but not always, and if I'm on a roll I'll work much longer.

Either way, I get my work done, and probably slightly more than I do in the office.

Such ignorance in the comments about working from home when too sick to go into the office.

In my last job, my employers were pushed to make reasonable adjustments for me via occupational health assessments. One of those was allowing me to work from home two days a week. I have endometriosis and ME. There were many days where I was more than able to sit at a laptop in comfy clothes with an electric heat pad and work but not able to shower, get dressed, make myself presentable, walk to the tube, stand through a fairly long commute and then walk to the office, sit in comparative discomfort all day and then do the reverse on the way home.

I was extremely productive and good at my job. There are absolutely reasons why someone could be well enough to work from home but not well enough to get to work. Besides which, if someone has a nasty cold but is capable of working and wants to work, surely they're better off doing that at home than bringing their germs in to spread round the office?

I both work more and work less from home.

I work more intensively, I set the timer and blitz whatever I'm doing in the mornings so I've done four or so really good hours by lunch. No chatting, no walking places, no commute. This bit is definitely more than when I go into the office, I do still have an office.

In the afternoons, I often do less- sometimes I don't work all afternoon, but do a couple of hours in the evening. I work one weekend morning without fail every week. I even work late at night if I can't sleep for an hour or so. This bit is more faffy and 'less' by 5pm than if I were sat in an office trying to stay awake, but gets the right amount of work done.

I have tight deadlines and long-term deadlines (academic/writer) so if nothing gets done, students would put in complaints, and I wouldn't get promoted or even worse, would attract a warning/disciplinary issues. So, I love the freedom to take the afternoon off, knowing that means Sat and Sun morning this week I can work.

It's better as you can work more when you are more effective (mornings obviously for me) and slack off at a time when you are less effective anyway (afternoons). I do crap like sort my emails about 3.30-4pm as I am good for nothing by then anyway.

I worked from home today as I do every Wednesday. Literally didn't move from my chair from 9 - 3.30 when I took 20 minutes for lunch. Then worked solidly until 5.15 when I went to collect my children. So YABU.