WF "Home" question

[CheesesandWines]

I am in the lucky position to WFH 5 days a week. Of course this happened in COVID, and I have since secured this permeantly. I'm good at my job and at this stage don't feel the need to "network" and be physically present at work.

One of the benefits of wfh is that I don't have to commute and can also fit in hobbies and exercise in the day. Twice a week at lunch (which is 1.5hrs) I like to go to my local gym/ Spa and really relax / switch off. To fit this in, I then work from the spa in the afternoon. There's a private booth in the cafe with no outside noise and because I'm a regular customer I have the space reserved for the afternoon automatically.

Here's the issue. On one occasion the laptop moved and my line manager could see someone at the spa walking around in their robe. Nothing more. She is now saying that wfh means your home and that I can't work from the spa two afternoons a week. I think her attitude is discriminatory and is impinging on my own health. I work much better from the spa and all the work is done with my body benefiting from a full body massage before an afternoon of work. She says that me working from the spa will affect colleagues who have not been allowed to wfh. I've looked at my wfh contact and nothing i am doing is not allowed. I have a good mind to work from the spa every afternoon now to prove my point !

Discriminatory. 😂 works better after a full body massage. This must be a piss take.

I don't see it any difference to working in a Starbucks personality but unfortunately there are a lot of people who spend more time worrying about what everyone else is doing than focusing on their own work.

Agree. My productivity is great in the last year and I've led very well on a number of projects. I get why people are jealous but its not a race to the bottom!

In principle it's like people working in cafes however are there work c-in-c issues that might arise; have you a secure network connection and how professional is it if other people hear you on calls or vice versa? Obviously seeing people trundling around in their spa robes hasn't gone down well.

I guess that’s a no, then, as to how it’s discriminatory.

So long as there's no negative impact on the work, and the internet connection is secure to the required levels, the actual location is immaterial.

'Remote working' doesn't have to be 'working from home'.

I work much better from the spa and all the work is done with my body benefiting from a full body massage before an afternoon of work.

Amazing 😂😂😂

I suppose you need to check the technicality of whether you are allowed to "work from home" (stay at home) or "work remotely" (work anywhere).

However, I think you are hugely taking the piss! You've been given a privilege that it seems some of your other colleagues have not been given. Instead of embracing and appreciating it you are pushing further to suit yourself.
You're given an extra 30 minutes lunch break to complete an admin task, that you don't need, because you do it at another time. But you still take the longer lunch break to go to a spa.
Then you work from the spa, a place where people go to relax. So they have to see you set up on a computer when they are away from their own work.

YABU. Working from the spa is absolutely not the same as working from another office location. Yes you have a booth but have you actually checked that people can't see your screen or that they can't overhear conversations? I'd also say that 1.5hrs is a plenty long enough lunch break to get stuff done so I can't really understand why you need 2 afternoons at the spa to work too!
It just seems very unprofessional of you all round and the way you're commenting about how entitled you are I'd say that you risk this being removed. Which it could be.

No way did this actually happen

Yeah, 'discriminatory' is a reach for sure.
Just 'unnecessary'.

As long as you are working your contracted hours, I don’t see the problem. I have worked from the gym my WiFi went down, and have done the odd afternoon in Costa.
As long as you have a background on, nobody knows where you are… so would advise you to do that.
As a Line Manager, if you feel the need to track the location of your staff, to ensure they are working, you have much bigger problems to deal with.

Can't you see its totally unprofessional while on a zoom/teams to see someone in a robe in the background of your call?

Nice (albeit transparent) attempt to stir people up against WFH. Seems to be working too.

I'd be pissed off if I was the made up spa user spotted walking around in a robe on a work video call!

Hm, actually come to think ...
My company regularly has a masseur visit the various offices, people who work in them can get a totally free 'chair' massage on company time. It's remote workers like me who miss out on this (also company 'happy hours', breakfasts, other stuff). I honestly reckon if I CBA to ask they might give me a voucher for something equivalent.

Not unreasonable at all. My entire team works from spa cafes with private booths that can be reserved for sole use at least two afternoons a week.

Some of them are even in their own robes on zoom calls while having their waxing done. I don't mind, I'd hate to discriminate.

Oh...hang on, no, I was dreaming, sorry!

I've disabled my camera otherwise for sure by now my colleagues would have glimpsed DH en dishabille !

A few people here have said that they have worked from a cafe - or even the pub! From my point of view I'm actually in a private booth so I really can't see the issue. I'm convinced my manager is just jealous I can properly switch off and recharge at lunch. Unless they ask me to sign a new contract I can't see that I really need to change at all!

I don't see the issue with it, as long as you get the work done.

Remote working can be done in a lot of different places.

Welcome to the modern world, people.

we can work from where we like. The proviso is when we are not in the office we use a security film on the screen so nobody can see it, and that we always either blur the background or use a backrgound filter (we have corporate ones)

it was a bit daft not to have done that.

No. This wouldn't be acceptable in my organisation. If you want to work anywhere other than home you have to apply. This is for security reasons. It's wfh not wfspa

I agree that I should have blurred the background. The booth is such that it really is just a plain background and it was unfortunate that the laptop moved. I was probably too relaxed after my lunchtime massage to foresee this !

Same here.