to think residential areas and homes are not meant to be offices?

[MossOwl]

Inspired by the thread where the poster whose neighbour had a very important job and was in very important meetings all day and please could she keep her kids out there own garden, outrageous if you ask me!

I think there is a problem with homes and residential areas being turned into offices. My husband also has a very important job with important meetings and I am expected to go about the house not making any noise, I can't hoover or run the washing machine even watching TV is out of bounds. He also complains about neighbours cutting their grass or getting noisy work done to their homes and even the noise of kids playing out. I tell him to go into the office but he hates the 45 min commute and says he prefers working at home at the kitchen table as opposed to going into the office.

Another neighbour has also complained about the noise from their neighbours during the day, during the school holidays, their neighbours have three kids and they have the garden set up with a trampoline, paddling pool and swings which can be noisy but what else are kids supposed to be doing in the summer?

When other neighbours were on holiday they were out in the garden and were playing some music it was kind of loud but they don't play it all year round they were just trying to enjoy a staycation and they got people shouting to keep the noise down as they were working.

I've told my husband that if he wants to keep working from home and not get disturbed then we will have to move to an area with less neighbours where he can have his own office cabin in the garden. During lockdowns and the pandemic we all made the best of it but now office workers do have a choice to go back but many would rather still work at home and expect their families and neighbours to tiptoe around them.

AIBU to think that homes and residential areas are not really suitable to be offices?

If people want to enjoy the benefits of working from home they have to accept there will be neighbourhood noise.

I work from home and it’s not an issue for me. Noise from outside is much more easy to deal with than Sandra and Betty loudly shouting OMG over every damn phonecall they get from customers, and is 1 million times preferable to the ladies that bring in mountains of cake for everyone to eat then make everyone stand on scales two days later, clipboard in hand and tutting away.

Yanbu. So many posts on here from people moaning about neighbour noise interfering with them working.

Three words - noise cancelling headphones

YANBU. I think my dh believes we are living in his office, not that he is working in our home, really annoys me

Well my husband can only work at the kitchen table as he has a two monitor set up for his job, there isn't another space with a table big enough for him.

As he works at the kitchen table I can't get in to cook while he is there or do washings etc. I also can't put washings in the morning becasue the spinning wakes him up early so I can only wash at night and so never get the benefit of sunny drying days except at the weekend. He has a proper headset but that noise still bothers him. I end up having to run about like a blue arsed fly in the evenings doing hoovering, cooking and washings and then he complains I don't spend enough time with him anymore.

I am not bothered by people working from home (full disclosure I also work from home and have for many years but I don't need silence to work, I also don't have an office to go to) if they can generally fall in with the domestic rhythms of the home but when they start complaining about normal noise and activity then its no good. Its also not just my husband its becoming an issue for lots of people. My friend who lives in a different area had her WFH neighbours complaining about her kids birthday party as they had hired a bouncy castle for it, for one afternoon, but the kids were disturbing her neighbours work and that was a woman complaining.

Not unreasonable. DH and I both work in the NHS and WFH has been used as an excuse to cut office/clinic space for community teams. The expectation in my team is that we hot desk and book rooms in GP surgeries if we need to see clients in-person, but that a lot of work can be done from home.

It doesn't really work. Total loss of cohesion, particularly now that lots of people have joined the team post-pandemic and have essentially never met each other. It's also drastically reduced efficiency as you may be moving between several sites every day - further reducing cohesion as there is no incentive to come to the team base for meetings if you are WFH doing online consultations in the morning and in a random clinic room (no space at base) in the afternoon.

There's also an issue with confidentiality. Not so much of a problem for me now because we moved house. But we used to live somewhere with no soundproofing between rooms. I used to overhear so many private details from DH's calls. Yes he had headphones so I couldn't hear the client but (fake example) "When you took the overdose, were you trying to end your life?" doesn't leave much to the imagination. Particularly if spoken loudly to compensate for a poor internet connection at the client/NHS end. Which also makes the whole thing totally rubbish for the client.

I've been wfh since Mar 20, it was an upheaval at home due to no dedicated office space. I took up the (tiny) dining table so no-one could eat breakfast or lunch, our downstairs was small so during a meeting everyone had to be quiet.

We moved house to a bigger house so I could have an office room that doesn't impact our family, it works much better now.

I do agree that we will have to move if he wants to keep working from home although his company is saying they want everyone in more often than not but everyone is dragging their feet.

A question about noise cancelling headphones, I don't think he has these, if he get them and I have a washing on in the kitchen where he is working, will the noise of the machine spinning affect those he is in meetings with being able to hear him even if the sound is cancelled out for him. Also can he wear noise cancelling headphones when he isn't on a call so my noise won't disturb him?

Also if he is on camera that means I can't really go into the kitchen as I don't want to appear in the background of his calls. I know you can blur the background out but I still pop up if I walk in the kitchen behind him.

I work from home, and have for many years. I wouldn't tell my neighbours to shut up so I could have a meeting. Growing up, we had a car mechanics at the bottom of the garden 40 years ago. The man who owned it never told anyone in my house to be quiet so he could do his book keeping or speak to his customers. It is all about entitlement and self importance in that other post. It is inevitable with the march of technology that more and more people will work from home...just a question of being respectful about it. If it is not practical due to the nature of the home environment, there are lots of co-working spaces and leased offices available.

Couldn’t agree more tbh.

homes are homes first and offices second. If you can’t do your work with the reasonable noise of a family home going on around you then you need to work elsewhere! It’s not everyone else’s job to fit around you!

Some people are just not suited to living near others and despite the fact they are very important they can’t afford the country estates they so desperately crave.

to have neighbours you need to show a degree of tolerance and kindness that many seem to lack.

Yes. I've never worked in an office that is silent all day. Even in my own private office there are interupptions and road noise.

He can't be very focused of the sound of children outdoors is disturbing him.

It's a mix of some people not being suited to it, some homes not having space etc for it.

Reality is, most homes you can make it work. I know lots of people who have created office nooks under the stairs, in spare rooms, in their bedroom etc. There are very clever solutions available to keep things orderly. People have garden offices, we have a dedicated office room in our house to one side away from noise.

Children are at school or in childcare most of the time so noise is rarely an issue.

Genuinely curious as to what some of these very important jobs are? And do you live in such hideously expensive parts of the country that your houses are small enough you have to work at the kitchen table? If I had such an important job I'd want a huge house!

The same men that need a good nights sleep as they have a very safety oriented job, so the 3 week old can't possibly stay in their room, not can he do night wakings, or early mornings.. and, actually, he probably should stay in a hotel for a few months.

The same men who will happily have alate night out with his friends, and be fine for work the next day...

You have a DH husband problem not a WFH problem.
Your DH doesn’t like/ can’t be arsed/ insert other selfish reason to commute to his office, so he plonks himself in the middle of the house in communal space and expects you to tip toe around and then spend your free time doing all the jobs you could have done if he wasn’t doing his very important job in the kitchen?
Absolutely fuck that. Please grow a backbone and remind him that this is HOME not an office and if he wants silence he can get himself in the car back to the office. There are hundreds of small space options to accommodate two screens including partial fold away desks, folding chairs etc that can go in bedrooms/ hallways/ dining rooms wherever makes sense.
WFH really can work, both me and DH WFH full time and both have clearly defined space for work, neither in a communal area. And if one of us does work downstairs for any reason its temporary, agreed in advance and arranged (example work men coming/ expecting a parcel/ need dining room table etc)
Is noise annoying- sometimes. Do you just crack on because that’s a slight negative of the gigantic home life balance that WFH gives us - absolutely.
Sounds like he needs a serious reality check. I can’t imagine living with anyone so self absorbed that you have to do as you describe in your OP.

Sorry but everyone elses life cant ground to a halt just because the bloke/woman has a V.important job. People spend big money on a nice house in a nice area with a garden for the kids to enjoy.
I can see this being the next big thing causing falling outs between neighbours (along with parking!! 😍🤣)

I agree with you to some extent. But it's more the conditions which some people (mainly men) feel entitled to when they work from home. In particular, they seem to think that the world should accommodate them rather than the other way round.

During the first lockdown, I worked from home with a 2 year old hanging off my neck. As a result, since DC has been back in childcare, I couldn't give a fuck about noise from my neighbours... they can have a cabaret and an elephant parade in their back garden for all I care, it can't be more annoying than working while caring for my DC! I shut the windows if necessary for meetings and apologise for any noise in advance. When we had building works in our house and I had 6 hours of meetings that day, I set up a desk in the upstairs ensuite and put a sheet over the towel rail so it wasn't too obvious as that was the only location in the house with relative quiet.

I presume your husband has a brain cell or two (or maybe not 🙄!)? Why hasn't he purchased a suitable folding desk and made space for it in another, quieter corner of the house?

Your DH is being a dick. I WFH in the loft conversion. If I didn't have this space I'd suck up the commute and go back to the office. Did the whole pandemic on the dining table and it was awful.

I've just asked him about ordering noise cancelling headphones and he's given me a wounded look, I don't see what the problem is surely its a win win to get some?

I think there is a problem with homes and residential areas being turned into offices. My husband also has a very important job with important meetings and I am expected to go about the house not making any noise, I can't hoover or run the washing machine even watching TV is out of bounds. He also complains about neighbours cutting their grass or getting noisy work done to their homes and even the noise of kids playing out. I tell him to go into the office but he hates the 45 min commute and says he prefers working at home at the kitchen table as opposed to going into the office

Then your dh is a knob.

Can I ask a question? If you both work, why is it you running around in the evenings cooking, cleaning, hoovering etc and your husband complaining that you're not spending time with him?

Why aren't you spending time together doing the chores and then spending time together relaxing while they're done?

In your position, I would be tucking into my M&S ready meal or nice sandwich 10 minutes after he vacated the kitchen and, if asked when dinner would be ready, would shrug my shoulders and mumble "dunno", then go back to the TV.

Our building has been undergoing works for the last year which will continue until next year, this often means workmen drilling directly outside our window and hammering so loudly it might as well be in your skull.

My DH, bless him, has job that is 100 percent meetings, his company sold off their building so he now has to wfh, and he just gets on with it. OK I probably wouldn't watch TV in the same room but he's never suggested I can't make noise. It can be done.

He's really not a knob, but he's capable of knobish behaviour at times. I do understand him not wanting to commute but I think he is going to have to start going in a bit more often as his work want him to and then to get the good noise cancelling headphones so when he is working at home external and my noise don't bother him as much. Long term we probably need to move somewhere he can have a proper office space.

WFH or flexible working patterns are here to stay. In fact, it is one of the top things people are looking for when seeking employment. However, you have to be set-up for it properly, IMHO. Working effectively from the kitchen table is going to be difficult.