To wonder if people who like WFH all live in big houses

[redskydelight]

As per title really.
3 of us who could work at home and DD studying for A Levels.

We have a 4 bedroom house so should be ample for our needs, but the (modern, small) rooms simply weren't designed to accommodate so many separate work spaces as well as space to eat, sleep, relax etc. We're all now choosing to work/study more and more out of the house because of being on top of each other at home.

I really don't know why so many people rave about wfh. I can only assume they must have big houses and therefore don't have to put in place timeshare arrangements for use of the dining table.

I think it suits many women in particular for obvious reasons that kids and domestic stuff often seems to fall more on women and also those of both sexes who are either very established in their careers or those who just see their role very much as a job and don't want or need the interaction and face to face elements any more. It really is a very individual thing.

Nope, lived in a tiny house until October 2022 when we moved. 2 bedroom shoebox Barratt new build, barely room to swing a cat, let alone our large and clumsy dog.

We both LOVE working from home, even when we lived there it was okay. We used the 2nd bedroom as a joint office for the both of us with a desk at either end. I usually ended up working from the sofa or dining table as I found it more comfy. Yes it was cramped, but I have autism and I'd take the comfort of my own home over the overstimulating office environment any day.

Yabu

I love working from home and I live in the pokiest little house - 3 bedroom, tiny living room, no dining room etc. There are four of us living here plus pets and I squeeze a desk in the kitchen window space, sitting between the bin and the washing machine (If I’m not using the big screen I decamp to the couch).

This still beats working from the office. Not wasting spending 3 -4 hours of my day on smelly public transport to sit in an over- lit, under heated noisy office having to waste energy on umpteen social interactions with people I don’t even like 😂

My stuff is here, my dog is here, my boyfriend is here, I can have the lighting and heating exactly as I like, I can wear comfy, non irritating clothes and the time I save from not commuting is spent hanging out with my kids and helping them with school. Lovely.

I live in a small one-bed flat with DH and still prefer WFH to commuting daily (I'm London-based).

Nope, our place is pretty small but I work on a laptop so often work from the sofa or in bed

I have friends for this - no need to socialise with random office people!

Interacting with humans is not just seeing your friends though, it is the dozens of small in person interactions.

It's nice to get to know the people you work with on a human level. Yesterday I was sat next to my director and we had a good joke about her addiction to terrible Netfkix Christmas films. It arose spontaneously and was a nice humanising talk. It took a few mins out of the day but contributed to both of our wellbeing.

Also you never know, some of those random office peoole could become friends.

For some of us, wfh doesn't mean no interactions with people we don't already live with, it means different ones.

Oh absolutely but I meant more in the context that it is a lot easier to love WFH in a small house with kids at school than it was in the lockdown when we were trying to.juggle WFH for the first time while navigating homeschooling and a weird new world! A small house empty of other people is much easier to work from 😁

I love WFH but it's only DH and I in a 3 bedroom house and we're in the middle of converting the garage into a home office. DH and I do share a home office though which saves on space.

Might be more to do with having room for a desk and a quiet space rather than size?
we have 4 kids in a 3-bed. No room for a desk, Then from 3pm the kids are home and even at their quietest they disturb him.

I work under the stairs. Was a storage cupboard, I can just fit my desk and PC in there, but I still prefer the work/life balance WFH gives me.

Do any of your employers plan to get the staff back to the office? I just wonder what will happen to offices. They must be half empty and cost a fortune. Who would want to buy them if the future is wfh?

Two of us in a 2/3 bed (depending on how you market / use it!). I WFH, OH does some of the time. Usually there's one in the lounge (OH), and me either in the study/third bedroom, or in the kitchen (because the other room's too cold).
When it warms up a bit I'll back in the study, and OH then works in kitchen or lounge. It works for us.

I love WFH - started my job about a year ago and had previously never had the chance to WFH. I can go into the office if I want to, and do now and again to keep in touch with people. My job is based 'out' anyway, so I was never going to be in the main office all the time.

2 bed flat here. I've recently quit my hybrid role of a decade to take up a fully remote role.

I much prefer WFH - even with a small living space. No more three hour round trip commute, expensive and crowded trains and being drained by the early starts.

Tiny one bed cottage and love wfh

Depends on quiet space rather than size of house, and commute, and how much you like your colleagues/workplace atmosphere! We have a decent sized house with an office each, so wfh is fine, but I have a short commute and like seeing people at work. But I am a university teacher so only wfh one day a week - perhaps because I'm a teacher I'm used to being around people a lot so I wouldn't want to wfh forever, even though it's easier with homelife and the kids (8 and 10).

It's just so good wfh is a possibility for so many people now - many of my friends are really happy it's an option for them. DH is quite introverted and also finds office chat distracting, so being able to wfh sometimes is great for him.

So if you don't have the space at home you have to work in the office.

My point was that everyone thinks remote working = home working but we're not in lockdown so we now have choices. Yours is home or office, other people have more choice.

We are moving offices later this year (though that would have happened anyway). It will be set out differently with much more emphasis on collaboration spaces. And will be smaller.

I WFH for about 18 months. Small 3 bed semi (well 2.5) and 4 of us living here.

Our small conservatory was a Godsend - I needed the privacy of a separate room, but didn't need much space for 2nd monitor / reams of paperwork so a small desk was fine.

It was a bit more tricky when DCs were home learning too, but we managed.

It's not about having a huge house, but bring able to have a dedicated space. WFH made some of life's logistics easier (e.g. deliveries, putting a wash on) and being in the conservatory meant I got natural light all day. In winter I had fairy lights above the windows and made it really cosy.

@liselotte of course, my point was an airy - oh just work in a cafe/shared workspace if you get lonely - shows a lack of understanding of a lot of people's jobs. It is not wonder "laptop classes" has become a byword term for a certain class of out of touch middle class group who benefited from the pandemic.

Of course I can go in to the office now and do most days, however during lockdown the restrictions of my job made it pretty awful - for some colleagues it was even worse as they were not even allowed to be overheard by other occupants of their house or neighbours. Our HR people during the first lockdown identified around 500 people that were invited back to the office asap out of serious concern for their mental or physical health.

I am not anti WFH at all - I did it before lockdown and I am fully taking advantage of our current hybrid working policy to be available for a plumber and washing machine installer over the next couple of days. But the point I was making is it is not just about your home environment but also the nature of your job.

I think there are so many variables you can’t make it so cut and dried. But I’m sure bigger houses are a factor. Together with commutes, number of people in the house, personalities of the people, ages of any children, what the nature of the job is - loads of stuff.

Nope. 2 up 2 down with 3 people. Desk squeezed into the corner of our bedroom.

I was surprised when I found out most of my boses (not senior, senior bosses mind) were also working in their bedroom/dining room/kitchen. I too assumed they'd have a spare room.

I think it makes sense to work in the bedroom. Why have one room for one time of day, and leave it empty all day to occupy another room?

2 of us working from home, here, one in the bedroom, one downstairs, but sometimes also in the other bedroom

3 bed semi. Not big at all. Husband works on the dining room table. I have a desk in one of the kids room as there was nowhere else to fit it.

Only a problem during school holidays, but my work is quiet then so we work around it.