WFH - do you ever just relax?

[ringoffiire]

I love working from home, and when I do, I will quite often do half a day's work and then put my feet up.

I do everything I need to do, and I do it to a good standard. My manager praises me and has no concerns at all about my work. I'm not behind at all.

But if I've done all my work, I simply leave Teams active so that I hear if anyone wants to contact me, and then I get on with whatever I want to do.

If I was in the office, I would still be sat there doing nothing, but just feeling frustrated that I had to look like I was busy until 5.

Right now I'm sipping a delicious beverage at 4pm and browsing mumsnet, because I've finished all my work.

Anyone else? And do you think it's OK?

@hawaiiantropico

I can probably answer your question as I'm in a similar position to OP, although if you applied 3 seconds of critical thinking I imagine you could answer it yourself.

I have a set task list every day. I can usually complete these tasks in 4-5 hours. I can't do tomorrow's tasks early if I've already finished today's, the nature of the work doesn't allow that. Sometimes they take more time, sometimes less. I usually have a few meetings or site visits scheduled every week. Ad-hoc work sometimes comes in overnight or throughout the day that needs my attention.

I finished my task list yesterday at 2pm. I went for a walk and left Teams on. I had a meeting with my manager at 3. Two tasks came through needing my attention during that meeting, which I had completed by 4:30pm. I had literally nothing, diddly squat, needed doing between then and 5.30pm so I read my book.

This morning I've come in and got on with today's work, because I have nothing leftover from yesterday. I have a site visit at 1pm. I'm on schedule at the moment to probably be finished at 3. My boss is completely aware of this and fine with it. If I asked her for more work she'd laugh at me.

HTH.

Sorry I don't agree with this at all.

I'm not a militant 'must be chained to your desk' person. But I'm not paid per piece of work I'm paid by the hour. There is always something more I could be doing.

You need to ask for some more work if you can't fill your hours with what you've got.

The fact you keep teams showing as available means you know it's not right.

She keeps her teams showing as available because she IS available. That's the very definition of it. She's not hiding away under the guise of a fake meeting, or do not disturb status.

There's been a lot of bullshit on this thread, but attacking OP for her honesty is a new low.

This seems to be pretty common and suggests to me that a lot of British companies are not running very efficiently….If so, it means that they have potential for either increasing profits or reducing prices to be more competitive. It’s interesting that this doesn’t happen.

I'm paid a salary and technically I work 9 to 6 but the vast majority of the time I actually work more like 6am to 9am, then a half hour break. Then an hour break for lunch. Then 2pm until 8pm. So I'm usually working way beyond my contracted hours. There's no such thing as having "finished" work because it's never finished. To actually finish it I would literally be working non stop.

I earn a good salary so I'm not going to nickel and dime them about the fact that I work beyond my contracted hours: them's the breaks in this sort of job. But as long as the work is done and I'm in regular contact with people and apportioning work appropriately if I can't get to it, why on earth should I put my hand up for more work when I can't finish what I've got?

OP is paid to be available. Sometimes she is busy doing the tasks and sometimes she's paid to wait for tasks.

Managing people and their time can be inefficient, and it's unavoidable. If you need people to be available when there's lots to be done, you can't let them go when they're not being utilised then expect them to be available to come back - They may have moved on to another job.

I have had jobs where people are scheduled to work for a couple of hours, clock off for a couple of hours, then clock back on. They were expected to go keep themselves warm, dry and amused somewhere until needed again. Efficient, I guess, until they'd all quit for better jobs and then management couldn't staff the business.

@TheMuskratOfDestiny but lots of people on this thread are not paid by the hour.

For example, my contract doesn't even have specified hours. It says 'pattern of work will vary...staff are expected to work such hours as are reasonably necessary to fulfil their duties and responsibilities...staff are expected to use such flexibility as is available to them to manage their overall working hours.'

So in other words, it's specifically written into my contract that workload and hours will vary and it's up to individuals to manage that appropriately. I've had days where I was in meetings at 5pm on a Sunday, and days where I've knocked off at 2pm on a Weds (and kept my phone on me in case anything urgent cropped up; it never does).

It all evens out in the end. There's no inherent moral value attached to the 9-5 shift.

God bless office workers. A fair day's work for a fair day's pay, eh?

Yeah I really don't get the issue with her showing as available. The other alternative, if that's the system OPs team use to show availability, is to put that she's unavailable. Now that actually would be dishonest.

@TheMuskratOfDestiny Teams shows as available because I am available, and if anything comes up that needs a response then I am there.

I sometimes check personal emails for a few mins or something like that but I can't imagine being in a job where I didn't have enough work to fill the day. I think mine is too far the other way...too much work to get finished in the working day...and I think I just assumed most jobs are like this. I don't think my situation is right, but to be honest if someone isn't fully occupied I'd expect the organisation to save money and cut the number of staff, or reorganise it so the person has enough to fill their day.

We have a measurable output in our job. I regularly have to work over my time because I have to do some of the harder assignments on the team (and yes, this is something me and other disadvantaged colleagues are trying to redress ... another story).

If the people doing the easier assignments were bashing out all their output, then asking for more, I'd be mad, as the targets would go up and those of us with harder assignments would be at an even greater disadvantage 😅

I really want to know what hawaiiantropico said that keeps getting their posts deleted!

I see the being paid to be available thing like paying a receptionist to be there 8-6 or whatever, but if there's not many calls/customers/visitors, thet wont always have lots to do.

In my job I have busy periods in the month, and less busy periods. Same with different times of year, so sometimes I put in more hours, sometimes less, but I am available during my working hours to deal with anything that comes up.

And if someone is so busy, they can't finish their workload, then I would expect the organisation to hire additional staff but this is not the case either.

I am hybrid and have been for years, even pre pandemic. I am part-time and feel so guilty and find it hard to “switch off”. I have to be quite disciplined because the line between home and work is blurry.
I feel guilty taking a lunch break at home but I don’t feel guilty on office days. It’s very frustrating!

I really want to know what hawaiiantropico said that keeps getting their posts deleted!

@dollybird Lol me too, it seemed like they were just repeatedly asking a stupid/ irrelevant question, it didn't seem that bad tbh, but maybe they did something worse on another thread (shrug).

Ooh I love to read this! I also never feel like I’m hard at it all the time though I get everything done, always get excellent appraisals, really good informal feedback from colleagues and been promoted several times. I do feel like a fraud but I get all my work done and to a high standard, I think there are a lots if jobs nowadays which just don’t require the hours allotted to them, especially now that technology makes a lot of tasks quicker.

plus a lot if what I bring to my job is my expertise and knowledge, so I’m almost in a consultative role where I’m worth my salary to be on hand to provide that expertise and knowledge when it’s needed even if I’m not churning out work all the time

It's the weirdest thing. I replied to a now deleted post - I couldn't tell you what it said verbatim, but I recall it was just a bit daft, not offensive.

I didn't find hawaiiantropic offensive either, just completely ignorant to differing workflows and indicating that if we weren't busy we had to find work to do. I agree in some sense but when you've not been super busy for the past 9yrs, all the littlest jobs have already been done.

Despite not being overly busy, I am fairly business critical and I wasn't allowed to be furloughed during covid though as the business would have struggled. <That was annoying.

I'm in the same position as you OP! I WFH and pop to the office every now and again for face to face meetings.

When I was in the office, I used to get all my work done around 3pm and twiddle my thumbs for the final 2 hours of the day. I had to keep asking for more work or to assist someone else on something but most of the time there was nothing else to do! So I would just trawl the news, read a few journal articles, ANYTHING, just to pass the time until the end of the day.

Now that I WFH, I can do some housework, life admin, walk the dog, etc. My work-life balance is incredible. I joined the gym and lost 4 stone. I set up a running club and joined a netball team. I wouldn't have been able to do this before.

My manager is super impressed with me, I passed my probation 2 months early and was given my full time contract, I am always around to respond to calls/emails/messages. All my work is done on time and to a brilliant standard. Some weeks its quiet, some weeks I'm in back to back meetings all day - it all varies.

If my work is done on time, is at a great standard, I'm meeting all my targets, and my manager is happy - then it's fine. My manager is the same, she pops to the shops, goes to appointments, puts her laundry on. As long as the work is done.

The frothing over people not bob cratchiting away during their WFH 9-5 is quite brilliant.

But.... she is available...

Meaning: Nor otherwise occupied, free to do something.

🙄

Remote working threads tend to induce a lot of frothing. It's quite entertaining.

Are you taking payment for the two hours a day you’re not working without letting you manager know you’re not working those hours?

If you can do your role in PT hours they might prefer to pay a PT salary…

But by the sound of it, OP's colleagues don't complete their work as quickly as she does. If they forced her to reduce her hours (thereby losing the budget) and she left, then they might struggle to get someone else to complete the work in the reduced hours.