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?

WFH is the invention of the Devil. Everyone who's been WFH since Covid ought to push off back to their offices and let homes be homes again.

Thankfully we are both retired now but if DH was working in our home and behaved like that I'd tell him to grow up and sort his own workspace out.

I disagree. The home was traditionally a place of work, many people's lives became less connected and more segregated once work moved out of the home (the move from cottage industry to factory, the move from rural to cities). I think working from home has many benefits.

The problem the OP has here is with her DH. For example - he should sit with his back to a wall, then no one will have to walk past his camera. I work in a corner, no one has to go into view of my camera.

I've been lucky enough have worked from home since the late 90s. if I do go into the office, which is in central London, I get half the work done. General office noise, phones ringing, people speaking. At home if the phone rings or text/email comes through I decide when to respond. In the office you get people coming up to you all the time.

I'm also lucky that I have the third bedroom as an office. Although it does overlook the gardens, any outside noise is sorted by shutting the window.

I did try working from the dining room table but it was not convenient for me or my family.

I do think sometimes that the all-important pricks WFH are begging themselves up.

As far as I'm very lucky to be able to work from home but that only holds if it suits everyone.

In answer to your question about noise cancelling headphones, you can get ones that cut out EVERYTHING. Washing machine would be fine.

They cut out noise to the extent where I can tell if my husband has kept his on (we both wfh) as I can hear him banging and crashing to the toilet / to get a drink as he can't hear what he's doing.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Pretty much sums it up.

Do you even have a kitchen to eat at if he's using it as an office because he chooses too?

You can wash in the evening and hang up the next day - I've always had to do that as LP WOH. Not that I think having it on is an issue but it isnt natural noise like most other stuff imo.

Cooking. Batch cook at weekend. Heat your dinner when he's done and when he asks whats for dinner point out he'll know when he's cooked it because no one could get in the kitchen and do it for him.

And if he's saving money on a 1.5 hour commute a few days a week then surely he could invest that money into making himself a proper WFH office that doesn't impact on the family home.

@Goldbar I'm quite tempted to try the M&S ready meal thing and see what he does 😂

I work part time so prior to the pandemic I would do my work and get all the house stuff done including the cooking pretty much before he got home so we could have nice evenings together and it worked well. He does have a pretty high up stressful job so I want him to be able to relax after work but him working at home now means housework is often done in the evening. It just used to be easier as well so him at home all the time = more mess so more housework, more cooking etc.

I am also amazed at how people seem to need silence to work in at home but most offices I have worked in have a certain level of noise and sometimes get disturbance from work men etc so an office is not always the most peaceful environment.

If working from home, particularly if other people who live in the house are about you have to expect a certain amount of noise and again if live in a residential area particulry in school holidays got to expect noise from children playing. I actually live backing onto a school field so at times noise from there is loud but I dont go tot eh school and ask them to keep kids in as I'm trying to work I've just learned to filter it out (its currently silent as kids on holiday!)

I have WFH since first lockdown and my workplace have made it v difficult for us to go back in. I hated it at first but have got more used to it as time has gone one but I am the only adult in my house and my dc are teens so are either at school or not bothering me! I have a small desk in my open plan dining kitchen as I don't have a spare room or separate office and it works fine as y dining table is free, but if me and my dp every want to move in together we would have to move as he also WFH and having done it briefly over lockdown in the same house, I won't be repeating the experience!

I also have a utility room so my washing machine and dishwasher are in there and definitely on during the day!

DH and I both started wfh many years before Covid. You have to get on with the life of the house. There are very rare exceptions for super important meetings, but otherwise normal household life just goes on, even with noisy kids.

The key is to find a way to isolate the worker. The kitchen table is not an office. It might have done in a pinch during Lockdown, but long term he needs a desk in a corner if a room with a door that closes.

I wfh and have a desk in our bedroom, it's not huge but can just about fit two monitors. Also I have noise cancelling headphone though generally only need to use them if DC are in the house or the neighbours are mowing the lawn/having building work done. I find the filter out mechanical noise really well (the other people on calls couldn't hear my really noisy portable air con unit for example), though are less good at filtering out people noise.

Is the 2 monitor set up his reason for being at the kitchen table? Because as he well knows, there are plenty of stands that can hold 2 monitors from a smaller table. Or, he could.... get a new desk. Even one that packs away or folds up.

I've worked from home (in my gorgeous garden office) for years.
I've swapped annoying office stuff for annoying neighbour/household stuff, and like with everything in life you have to make it work, either by changing your own set up, or changing others.

I no longer have to cope with sniffing, loud keyboards, hearing people chew or talk, cold offices.
I do have to cope with the yappy dog over the way, the adult nearby who seems to have a penchant for hammering, sometimes not speaking to an adult all day, delivery people knowing I'm here.

Mostly it's fine. I have talked to the hammering neighbour a couple of times, just to ask how long they're going to be working. Then I can decide to decamp to the library or Costa. I'm not asking them to stop. Oh I did ask workmen doing some work in a house a few doors down to turn their radio down once, but I'd do that whether I was working or not, it's antisocial to inflict your music on a whole street of residents.

If I didn't have my office I would have to find a space outside the home as I find I cannot work effectively at the kitchen table, especially if the kids are about.

😆

The kitchen table really is our only option unfortuanately, there isn't space for a big enough desk elsewhere, I have a small desk I use in the bedroom which barely fits and its too small for him to get his monitors on. I think if he did do the hybrid thing like go in 2 or 3 days a week and then have good noise cancelling headphones he could use when he was home for calls and general working then that would be a good compromise from him as at the moment all the compromise is mine.

Is there a space elsewhere in the house for a desk? I have a basic desk and it can hold two screens no problem..

I'll ask him about the monitor stands. I also don't want to make this all about my poor husband (though pita he may be) as its clearly an issue for other people as well with other posts and my own experiences in my neighbourhood and that of friends.

OP if he has to work in the kitchen that just isn't acceptable. He has several options:

get a shed in the garden and work there (or a proper garden office)
go into office
go to a local co-working space
find somewhere in the house (it probably does exist = what about your lounge, for example)

You need to say that the kitchen working needs to stop.

The kitchen table really is our only option unfortuanately, there isn't space for a big enough desk elsewhere

does he HAVE to have two screens? I use a laptop with a screen but I only use the screen, I don't use both screens. I also don't have a big desk but can fit both. So can DH and his desk is smaller than mine.

Have you thought about buying a bigger desk/table to fit his two monitor set up on in another room?

Can he spin the kitchen table during the day so he sits with his back to the wall and then you cant be seen by his camera

Have you insisted on a compromise so that you can have a life too, rather than everything being his way

I genuinely find it hard to believe there are no other options to having the camera pointed into the kitchen. I WFH during COVID in a very small house - we moved the furniture at the start of the work day and moved it back at the end. Yes it is a PITA but the set up you have at the moment is a PITA.

I've always WFH. One of the positives of COVID has been that this is becoming more normalised. My home is quieter and more pleasant than my office. Mind you, I do my own washing and so put the machine on when it suits me. Wouldn't mind maid service though!

You can book rooms in your local library, often for free. Or just find a quiet nook and get on with it. I've worked from home for years and sometimes pop in just for a change of scene.

Ugh he sounds annoying. I have a 'pretty high up stressful job', as does DH but neither of us thinks this gazumps the others or the DCs right to a nice normal homelife. We hybrid work and it's a choice between neighbour/DC noise or other people's phone calls, annoying colleagues interrupting, cleaners and maintenance people in the office. We both cope fine with it. If there is a very specific (maybe once or twice a week) thing where we can't be disturbed we'll facilitate that for the other, but otherwise it's business as usual about the house, just with a courtesy closing of doors when boiling the kettle or whatever other noisy activity may disturb the other.

Bollocks to this. I've been WFH since 2009 and have no intention of setting foot in an office ever again.

But part of the reason it's so much better is that the ambient noise at home is far less distracting than an office environment. Neighbours playing music, kids playing on the next street, DP cooking, a TV two rooms away - none of this remotely stops me getting on with work, including Important Meetings. If I particularly need a bit of quiet I close the door and windows and tell DP to keep it down for half an hour. And at times I'm the one playing the music or taking a meeting in my garden.

It's a lot better than trying to block out the 5 simultaneous inane conversations in earshot in an open-plan office while also being alert enough not to be rude if spoken to or, heaven forbid, to hear if someone says something relevant to work. Or trying to dodge the small talk or random announcements about nothing.

But it's unreasonable to expect total silence while you work, whether that's in an office or at home. OP's husband is a dick. If he prefers WFH, I get it! It's much better. But if he can't cope with the washing machine or TV in another room while he works then he's not suited to it.

And why can't he communicate his needs in advance? If one room isn't suited for a meeting I can pick up my laptop and go to another for half an hour. If there's a particular time of day I need the house to be more quiet than usual I tell DP in advance and we work around each other. I do not believe anyone's job requires dead silence, not even a washing machine, for the entirety of their working day.