How is almost everybody physically able to WFH?

[someladdersandsnakes]

This is something I just don't really get. I work at a company which doesn't pay that well in a city where housing is very expensive but still basically everybody has somewhere at home that they can work every day. I currently have an office at home because it's a 3 bed and I'm now expecting our second child, when the baby arrives it won't be physically possible anymore to do regular WFH because the only place will be the dining table in the front room, only really suitable for occasional use because there isn't enough space around it for a proper office chair or anything. Nobody else at my company seems to have a similar problem though. I thought appropriately sized housing was a major societal problem yet somehow since the pandemic everyone has a suitable permanent workspace in their house? Including families, young renters, people still living with their parents, etc.

DH and I are doing a major renovation and lived in a caravan in the garden for 2yrs. We both WFH, full time, but we managed! Now in the house, we do have an office, but I prefer sitting at the dining table because the view is better.

Most people I work with work from the living room or a bedroom. During Covid people learnt to make it work. Anyone at my work can work from an office 5 days a week if they choose to but most would rather work at home even if they don't have an office.

I have a desk in the summerhouse but also have a good away desk and chair in my bedroom and often use the dining table if I need to.
Will be converting the garage and will also have a desk in there so kids have a study area in due course.

I’ve got an office / study with custom made furniture to make the most of the space, but I still use the kitchen table more often than not 😂

Because I'm older and the DC have moved out so now have a spare room.

When they kids were little we lived in a much smaller house with them sharing, wouldn't have worked - well it would have had to be the dining table.

I think most people would wfh at all cost so they’ll find space wherever they can rather than make early, lengthy and costly commutes.

I was lucky enough to get a small inheritance from my aunt in 2018 and treated myself to an oak corner desk and fancy office chair. When we went into lockdown I honestly thanked her every day, I now work from home about 80% and I still love that space. It’s not impossible on a lower income but I understand the table above, it’s much much easier with a larger house (or in my case a large bedroom!) and money for appropriate furniture.

Having said that my company did send out office chairs so people could WFH but you still need the space.

We have a 2 bed, depending on what he’s got on DH will work from home anywhere from 1 or 2 days to all week. When he’s home he works from the desk in our bedroom.

If he’s not there I might use the desk. But don’t really enjoy working in our bedroom I end up feeling a bit depressed, so usually sit at the kitchen table where it’s lighter or sometimes I just have my laptop on the sofa which I know is bad but doesn’t bother me really. We have a company background we all use for teams calls (if I was on a call I’d be sitting at the table obviously!)

If I really need to focus or just need need to change scenery a bit I might go to the library or to a local bar that offers ‘remote working’ options where you can sit there all day with unlimited tea/ coffee for about £20 - not an option I can afford regularly but sometimes I ‘treat’ myself - I actually do miss having a office to go to but our office is at the other end of the country.

I use a hall table and a sit/stand stool in a corner of a bedroom. And a blur filter on my Teams background. It's wedged in front of an unused french door. Home school operated from our dining table, because the kids were young and also their rooms are too small for desks. We get by!

I have a home office at the bottom of the garden. It helps that DH owns a business that supplies them. He got a faulty one so I got it for free because it was repairable to a useable standard, but not a customer standard

I also have an open plan area inside which I put a desk in for when I want to be in the house.

I don't know anyone who works from home.
All my family/ friends go into work. Yet on MN l see it often.
Then again my family and friends are either a nurse an hairdressers ( own salon ) a beautician ( own salon) a lecturer an even a funeral director. My neighbour is a painter and decorator and another a landscape gardener.
I'm trying to think of anyone who could work from home that l know.. and l can't.

I have mobility issues and couldn't work without a proper desk set up, even when I first started WFH in 2020 and it was potentially temporary I took home my chair, screen etc.

I was lucky initially to have a spare room as a dedicated office and since moving to a house with no spare room, I've had a garden office built, I'm at least 95% WFH and need space for confidential calls etc. I can't have anyone wandering around and making noise.

I work from my child's bedroom desk (nice set up actually) and DH works from a desk in the living room where he had a computer anyway.

I could never work from the table as I need a monitor, and I prefer to be in a part of the house I don't see all the time so it feels mentally different.

On Teams meetings I see a mix - people working in garden offices (built during covid), office set ups, dining tables and bedrooms.

You break the "rule" of keeping work out of your sleeping or living areas. Our main workspaces are in a bedroom and at the dining table. We recently pulled out a fitted wardrobe in a bedroom, to reconfigure the room so the bed is no longer in shot from the PC camera.

How many are storing up health issues by working at dining tables, chairs, not walking to an office/ workplace/space, snacking instead of proper breaks, I wonder?
Skeletal issues from sitting at wrong heights from screens, covered by health and safety in an actual workplace.
I did it for 4 months in a poorly designed 'office', migraines became frequent. I quit.

I wouldn’t want to be hidden away in an office - I like to be close to the kitchen and see family come and go when I’m not on calls else it’s a bit lonely

Dh works in our living room. There is a desk in our spare room but that is intended to be a nursery for our future child so we kinda decided early on to acclimatise to that!

I work in the office full time myself.

I have an office, with built in desks, put in by previous owners. It was a massive selling point for the house, as I have been home based for a decade plus. H has a desk in a spare bedroom. Both kids also have desks.

During the pandemic, we also had another family member here. He had a table in a sitting room.

We are in an enviable position and we know it.

For people with less space, who need a second screen, you can get laptop screen extenders that clip onto the side of your screen, so it is compact and portable, can be easily packed up at the end of the day.

I work in my 10 year olds room at his desk. I have a laptop and no extra screens and pack up everything end of each day. Sometimes I work at the dining table. I do a mix of WFH and office each week. My DH added a desk in our conservatory as he needs a permanent set up. So he is freezing in winter and too hot in summer. It's not ideal but it's fine. We get by.

I’m just wondering whether there will in future be an epidemic of health problems caused by WFH in inappropriate conditions. In an office your employer has a legal obligation to ensure you have a workstation which complies with your individual requirements.

Our house isn't large or expensive, but it is slightly oddly laid out, in that there is both a front living room and a separate living/dining area. So I have my desk in the front room, and everyone else can hang out in the main room and not bother me.

In our previous house, I worked from the bedroom, which was roomy enough to accommodate a small desk space. My job requires a large monitor, separate keyboard and wired Internet connection, so I can't just work anywhere.

I have a proper desk and office chair in our odd room that's been a spare room and play room over the years. Still has a sofa bed in it too, but I'm now going to make it more of an office going forward. It's down stairs, and I'm near a window. I love it.

I wfh occasionally during the pandemic. I'm a community mental health nurse and had the occasional admin day. I did it off a small fold up table in the front room, as this is the only room with good WiFi. My husband's retired which meant for confidential reasons meant he wasn't able to access the WiFi,

I hated wfh with a passion for several reasons. Fortunately I'm in a role now which means wfh is impossible.

In London, many young people are in house shares. During the pandemic they had to wfh sitting on their beds. None of them have the luxury of a home office either.

I have a desk in the corner of my lounge: dining area. It's only me and adult DS so it's fine, but it wouldn't be ideal if I had younger children / a partner who wanted to use the area during the day.