To want a separate office?

[lemonpolish]

AIBU to say that if DH is WFH permanently then we need an office that is separate, as it is unfair to have to live in a workplace?

YANBU , DP worked at our dining table (our house is open plan downstairs so only one living space) for ages last year, eventually I told him he either needed to go upstairs or back to the office, he chose the latter! Working in living space isn't a permanent solution IMO.

Agree. DH is considering leaving his job and setting up on his own. I’ve asked him where he’s planning on working. Apparently the dining table will work for him.

Not for me and the kids though.

I think it's imperative if you have the space & money for it. We turned the box room into an office & it's a good separation between work & home.

He definitely needs a work space that he can close the door on and you shouldn’t have to tip toe around whilst he’s on calls. But that doesn’t necessarily have to mean a separate office. Office/guest bedroom combo, desk in your bedroom if there’s space, work space in the playroom if you have school age kids, are all examples that might work. IDK whether a stand alone office is feasible in your house but you are absolutely you’re right that the living space is not a work space.

I work from home permanently and I have a separate office room with my desk and chair in it - it’s in our spare room. My ‘office’ also has a sofa bed, so it can be used as a guest room if people come to stay at weekends. (Not so much of that this past 18 months though!)

DD also likes to do her homework in there at weekends sometimes, as I pack away all work items into my little Bisley filing cabinet at the end of the week. I like to clear the decks.

When I first started working from home about five years ago, I was doing it on the dining room table and it was a disaster for separating work home life. It’s nicer to be able to compartmentalise. If we had a big garden, I’d love a garden office, but we have a micro space, so that’s not an option for us.

If you don’t have a spare room, or space/budget for a garden den, I’d suggest having a specific box or cupboard to put all the work things into at the end of the day, so that work doesn’t feel like it’s encroaching on home / off duty time.

Hope this helps!

Totally agree ... but it obviously depends on the size/layout of your house. My DH has WFH for more or less the last 15 years so nothing to do with Covid but we have always been fortunate to have a dedicated study/office.

Not unreasonable at all, that's why we moved house last year, WFH is a huge gear shift that required different accommodation requirements.

Yup. Especially if you have young children, it is completely unreasonable to expect them to tip-toe around a working adult all day.

Dining-table is for homework/crafts/eating, not for a home office.

WFH is a massive imposition on people's homes and hugely presumptuous of companies to assume they can commandeer peoples private space for free.

There has been a huge increase in staff returning to the office and several have said that it became an issue for many.

Not everyone has spare rooms.
Not everyone has the space and cost of an outside office room.

@LakeShoreD

He definitely needs a work space that he can close the door on and you shouldn’t have to tip toe around whilst he’s on calls. But that doesn’t necessarily have to mean a separate office. Office/guest bedroom combo, desk in your bedroom if there’s space, work space in the playroom if you have school age kids, are all examples that might work. IDK whether a stand alone office is feasible in your house but you are absolutely you’re right that the living space is not a work space.

Yes in principle but OP should not sign up to the desk being in her bedroom.

If you can't afford it, that's a different matter but there are all sorts of solutions that can be found from folding desks to garden rooms or even a friend's/relative's spare room (for payment).

Kind of defeats the object of WFH if you aren’t at home

We have two "office" spaces. For me WFH, dh self employed tradesman with some office work to do and exam years ds studying.

One is in the converted garage, one squeezed into my bedroom. Both with doors that can be shut so whoever is working is separate from the rest of the house. The layout of our house means working is not practical elsewhere, the bedroom is a bit squeezed now but considering the room is otherwise only used at night it makes sense the desk is in there.

Everything is tidied away after the working day so it doesn't feel intrusive at all and the benefits of WFH to our family as a whole are much higher than the down side of a squeezed in desk.

Well, it’s not unfair, as such. What’s the other option? My workplace closed its offices permanently and everyone has to work from home. Most people live in one-bed or studio flats or shared houses, so it’s not ideal for them. Others work from their child’s bedroom when they’re at school or kitchen table when they’re not. Both DH and I have to work from home permanently now. I work from the bedroom, DH is in the kitchen. I don’t know anyone with an office at home. We both need PCs with equipment too. We can’t use laptops.

Loving this thread debate. My partner WFH since the pandemic and has chosen to remain at home. NO, not in my books you're not, once I finish Uni, you are back to the office. I'm sick of him in our open plan space, the being quiet when he's on calls, the fact he sits at that desk all day and all evening now with no work/home seperation time. About to get a single storey extension to ease the sharing bedroom situation with teenagers in the house and he thinks he can carve out a perm office for himself in the additional space. It's just not happening. He can get back to the office, I want my house back. I've suggest a garden office but he doesn't want to spend the money. Fine by me. Go to the office :-)

It’s a ‘want’ rather than ‘need’ IMO, unless perhaps you have very young DC at home for a chunk of DH’s working day.

Also still v unclear what will happen with respect to employers’ policies on full time wfh, redundancies etc.

For personal things - banking, insurance, legal etc I won't be dealing with people who are working from home. I'm aware how much of my work others in my house see and I'm genuinely not comfortable hence why I've been back in office for months. Also a home is a home, it's a different part of my life and I try to leave the work stress at work.

So the issue is that I hate living in someone else’s office. DH doesn’t understand this.

I want us to move and to look at properties with an annexe or similar.

We both WFH. Luckily we have a spare room and second reception room as the house isn't open plan. If we didn't then one of us would have to go back to the office as I certainly wouldn't accept working from a kitchen table or similar in a busy home. It's just not fair.

Annexe?? Do you want to split up but keep him close for the sake of the kids or something? A dedicated room to use as an office should surely be sufficient?

No, where do you think I have said I want to split up?

No, a dedicated room isn’t sufficient. It’s loud and annoying and means the rest of the house has to adjust to him working.

I do think you're unreasonable if you don't even want him to work in the house. Sorry I misunderstood.

Is it that he's too noisy or that it restricts the rest of the family and he gets funny about you making noise?

Sorry the annexe thing just threw me because WTAF is he doing as WFH that a room doesn’t contain? Getting your husband a whole annexe, which is basically a separate flat in your house with a living space, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom, made me think that you don’t want to live together - it’s really quite extreme and goes way beyond just dedicated work space! In the before times you’d work from an open office floor, or maybe you’d have your own office but it would still be a single room, and you’d have to respect your colleagues that would be working in the same space too. Is there more going on, like is your household really chaotic or is your DH really disrespectful?

It doesn’t necessarily have to have all the above but ideally it should be apart from the rest of the house yes.

Why is what he does so noisy?