To just to be left alone when working?

[22FrustatedUser]

WFH in new job.

Been in office the last 4 working days for on site training, completely new field as I've retrained and need to focus on it, in the office was fab, head down get on with it.

At home, have a dedicated office.

Parnter works self employed part time, very adhoc hours sometimes out of the house but not often, semi retired, doesn't socialise.

Always unwritten and known rule, door shut on office = keep out, I need to focus or on a call.
Despite this though partner will still open the door and put down a hot drink when they have made one or will enquire if I want one.

All through last year this would get to a point where I said, Thanks but no thanks if I want a drink, lunch I'll get it myself, I'm fine. As I found even just the act of a "Do you want a drink?" would throw me off my train of thought and if I said no thanks, I'd get an invite to a conversation starting up when I just need to focus. Partner was put out that I would ask to chat at lunch instead, or I'd come out if I was on a break.

Went unheeded. Quite a few snappy moments where I would say "Honestly I'm fine, just leave it, I appreciate the gesture but I'm good."

It got the point where the door handle would turn with yet another "Hot drink?" and I was starting to snap "I'm good thanks!" but they'd still put the coffee/hot drink down if they'd made one or about to ask.

This will happen an upward of 6 times a day.

Today with new role and trying to undertake bespoke software training on Teams, trying to pre empt it I got a coffee before starting, 20 minutes later, I still got a fucking cup of coffee on my desk. Partner tried to open the door and I immediately kept my hand on the door to keep it closed as I was at a point of needing to concentrate. Resulted in an argument which as led to me being called "Ungrateful sod when only trying to do the decent thing and they are thinking of me." But I've said time and time again NOT too.

Please tell me I'm not alone in finding this infuriating at my requests to be left alone, or am I being a miserable bastard?

@thelobsterquadrille
I read her OP. Carefully. And I have just re-read it, to check.

And I can see that she has mentioned it to him many times. Many. In passing.

But what I can't see is for her sitting him down and having a serious conversation about it.

Has she had that? Because I can't see it.

I skim read this at first and thought you meant partner in a law firm etc. was barging in. I was thinking "how unprofessional"! 😄

I cannot abide it when someone chooses to ignore my wishes because they think their desire to do something over-rides my objections. Assuming you’ve sat down and explained why you don’t want to be interrupted, I’d either put a lock on the door as suggested or ignore all the drinks and pile the full cups up for him to see at the side of the sink at the end of the day.

I can totally sympathise. DH keeps bringing me cups of tea. I don't even like tea, but he's trying to be nice. It's annoying and intrusive, particularly when I'm in a meeting with the camera on. I haven't managed to persuade him to stop yet.

Oh this drives me CRAZY. He's either not respecting a very simple request for some unknown reason, or not understanding a very simple request. Both are annoying. Maybe train him with a shouted "GET OUT!!" as soon as he opens the door?

I totally sympathise OP. I WFH roughly 2 days a week and work in my bedroom because I don't have a dedicated room.

My boyfriend (who doesn't live with me) has a nasty habit of doing this when I'm working too... he tends to arrive at my house when I'm still working and starts talking about his day and generally shooting the breeze. I find it incredibly annoying and also I think there's a bit of subconscious sexism at work. It's the "little woman playing at her job" syndrome, with the (again subconscious) expectation that you'll put the toys away once the man is home and focus on being a woman. I've had to pull him up multiple times on it, saying "I'm working, I'll talk to you about this when I've finished".

My boyfriend is lovely and in general not sexist at all and he gets that my job is important but I do think it's a learned behaviour from his childhood as his mum didn't work and presumably once the dad arrived home his needs came first.

TBH though its fairly universal and I find the office even worse. We are open plan so no shutting of doors and people feel no compunction about just swinging by to chat about what they watched on TV last night etc. Again I can't help noticing that the blokes are more entitled in the way they do this than women, who take more care about not imposing. The expectation is that women (whether at work or working from home) are primarily always in support roles and their time is not as valuable.

YANBU.

The op isn't fussing about 'a hot drink'. She's being interrupted 'upward of 6 times a day. ' when she's specifically asked him not to.

I wfh, DH is retired now but does a lot of admin stuff. We don't butt in, we observe if the other is occupied, headphones on etc. - like we'd do with a colleague in an office.

I think this is a problem with wfh. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want to be left alone when working. It is unreasonable to expect a home to be treated as a workplace for five days a week.

Please tell me why an adult, who has been told not to do something many times, needs to be sat down to be told AGAIN not to do that thing? doesn't being told many times not to do something not count unless it's conveyed in a proper, sit down serious conversation, then?

@Toastedflatbread

It is unreasonable to expect a home to be treated as a workplace for five days a week.

But there's a huge middle ground here between "treating the home as a workplace five days a week" and expecting your request to be left alone to be respected. The OP has a dedicated home office, so it's not as if she's requiring him to be totally silent in his own kitchen. And she's been very clear about what she needs and he's ignoring it basically because he's bored and lonely.

Yes but that home office is rendering part of the home unable to be used, which isn’t really fair when you think about it.

And it does impact in other ways. I know as I’ve had years of DH WFH. I put up with it, but I do resent our home being an office as well.

Would you? I don’t have a dog as the mere thought of having to break work to go attend to a pet is very annoying! I would have been very clear by now as my Dh well knows. ‘ I do not want it. It is not kind to do exactly what I have asked you not to do over and over again. Next time you ask me to not to do something I’ll do it 6 x a day and see if you think oh I should be grateful!! Now repeat after me ‘do not offer x a drink during her work day, it is unkind and rude of me when I know she does not want to be interrupted’. Outside of work hours it is a nice gesture and I appreciate it. The key difference is that I am not at work.

He sounds like a moron who doesn't listen and doesn't care whether or not you want to be left alone.

Put a lock on the door.

It must be hard to live with someone so annoying.

He doesn’t respect you or your time at all
Keep having conversations that don’t change anything or change the locks when he’s out - honestly don’t put up with someone who doesn’t respect you

@Oblomov22 right here:

All through last year this would get to a point where I said, Thanks but no thanks if I want a drink, lunch I'll get it myself, I'm fine. As I found even just the act of a "Do you want a drink?" would throw me off my train of thought

OP also says she tells him multiple times a day on top Why does he need "a sit down conversation" just to be told the same things AGAIN?

He's not a toddler who needs constant input from mummy. He's a grown adult who should be more than capable of understanding basic requests and respecting his wife

Genuinely don’t understand why he would keep repeatedly doing this when he’s been told he’s being an annoying distraction. That means stop. Put a sliding lock on the inside of your door if his brain is unable to process this very simple ‘do not disturb’ request. This would drive me insane.

Are we really comparing the needs of a dog to those of an adult human? 🙄

Get a lock on the door. And a sign that says “Fuck off, partner’s name.”

DP does this to me all the time BUT he does have ADHD and half the time I can see him course-correct halfway through the door, this panicked look in his eyes, and he goes “Sorry!” and from the rest of our domestic life I know he does genuinely just forget stuff he’s been told 8m times, like a bloody toddler.

Also send him the tea/consent video because he obviously doesn’t seem to understand your no around hot drinks and thinks “But it’s nice! And nice overrules no!”

Failing all those things, SCREAM LIKE A BANSHEE. Each and every time. Don’t hold back.

Mine did this. It drove me mad. Particularly as he would talk about it as me not being grateful.
Eventually the penny dropped that persisting in doing what you think is kind is actually unkind if you have been told not to do it. The utter relief when he stopped!

You need a lock on the door and a serious conversation . Your partner needs to socialise and join some clubs and get out more.

This is exactly what I thought too, @thelobsterquadrille - an adult shouldn’t need a sit-down conversation to get the message “Please don’t come in while I’m working - if I want a drink or food, I’ll get it myself”. It really isn’t a difficult message to understand or follow.

Sounds like he’s just trying to be helpful/useful to you but not getting the idea that he’s not needed. My partner is a bit like that, a bit of a knight who needs to tend to people. He would be exactly the same.

Have a chat with him away from work time and let him know what your actual needs are!

I can't understand why you put up with this. You are working, treat the room as an office. Put a bolt on the door, and a laminated notice on the outside saying "working - do not disturb". Use the notice EVERY SINGLE TIME and take it off when you come out.

Simples.

You’ve politely declined, you’ve laid down your boundaries (door closed, don’t come in), you’ve said you don’t want a hot drink and still he’s ignoring you. He’s just riding roughshod over your totally valid requests and playing the hurt victim ‘just trying to do a nice thing’. I hate men like this, they’re attention seeking whiners and believe their wants (for attention) are vastly more important than a woman’s request to be able to get on with her fucking job*

*insert relevant activity here.

Tbh you sound very uptight.
I WFH 1 day a week, sometimes he'll fetch me lunch or make me a drink, and sometimes we have a fun lunch break together.
I have told him off when he sometimes expects fun lunches all the time, but I wouldn't be annoyed about a quick drink.