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.

We have a spare room / home office. When we bought our house in 2019 I was full of regret for our extra bedroom and wondered if we could've held on for a cheaper 3 bed but since 2020 FH and I are wfh and it's a godsend.

We have a home office because we bought a townhouse with 3 beds and a study/single bedroom wide enough for a desk, and we only have one child.

I have a proper set up in the spare room which is great till we have visitors, DH (who WFH all the time) wanders about the house with his laptop and works in different places despite me saying he could have the spare room (I like going into the office). We are in the NE and have a high income so large house. Lots of younger people at work still work in bedrooms when WFH.

But if I was @someladdersandsnakes I'd have the children share a room while they are young so you can retain your office.

I use my my bedroom - tiny IKEA desk.

The CEO, however, has a separate office in his garden.

But I expect a lot of people who went for turning two rooms into one open plan will start to regret it

I have an office in the smallest bedroom now only have one DC at home. I love it.
It's not practical to sit on the sofa with the laptop as I usually need 2 screens but plenty of colleagues do. My neighbour sits at her dining table all day. I could do that and look at the garden while working but the dining room chairs aren't comfy so I don't bother.

DH works in his office (3rd bedroom that has always been his workspace for 20 years). I have a desk in the living room - large room so no issues with space - as I WFH some of the time. I've just bought a beautiful new desk to work from as I hated the office style ones provided by work.

Adult DD has to work from either her bedroom or the kitchen table if I am also WFH.

When COVID first hit lots of people in my organisation were working from their beds 😯- you could see the bed posts and pillows even with video effects turned on. Some of it was necessity and some of it was laziness.

We aren’t customer facing- or rarely.

We know some of our staff are economical with the truth, so there’s that! We have corporate ‘background’ on teams so they could be anywhere.

We have an office pod, so do our neighbours. I’ll often sit in the dining room, at the table and I get the occasional bad back.

My bedroom dressing table is my wfh desk. Blurred background on calls so people don’t get to see my boudoir.

We have corporate branded backgrounds for teams so I don't know anyone else's set up. I have have dual screen desk set up in the spare room.

I have a home office now (we moved out of town for more space) but from 2020 to 2023 I had a desk in the corner of my bedroom, and just blurred my background or angled the camera away from the bed.

I don't judge peoples' backgrounds (though I am quite interested in them), but I don't like to see beds, it feels a bit invasive.

I’ve seen people have a desk in the bedroom like older children have as well as people who use a dining room table.

Not going to lie OP, your post has kind of wound me up.

We live in a two-bed house, with two kids, and I WFH full time.

The kids share a bedroom. I have a desk and computer in our bedroom. It works just fine.

With a three bedroom house it would be easy. The kids can share until they’re at least nine, and you’ll have your own office. If you’re set on them having separate bedrooms, then put the desk in your bedroom.

It’s hardly rocket science.

I have a proper ergonomic set up with second monitor and screen riser. My laptop is plugged in to the internet via an Ethernet cable so I get 360Gb upload! (We've just had BT fibre installed!)

I make sure I'm comfortable and take regular breaks - I have some MSK issue and I'm determined to stay as fit as I can.

I started WFH in 2019 and back then was on the dining table. I prefer the secretary desk. My commute every day is unpacking all the equipment and then packing it up at the end of the day.

An awful lot of people are just muddling through this. I am lucky enough now after 3-4 years of working from home to have a dedicated home office but until a few months ago I had a desk attached to the end of my bed.

It pisses me off when people are judgemental about backgrounds and people’s home office environments. I really resent using corporate backgrounds - I dislike the idea that people are supposed to airbrush their homes and circumstances out of sight as if they were a source of shame.

I remember during the first lockdown being called out on a zoom call by my (millionaire with three homes) boss for visibly working in my bedroom.

I emailed him privately afterwards to say: “If you are prepared to pay the rent on a home office for me you can complain about the interior of my room but otherwise you can kindly accept that my circumstances don’t allow me much choice.”

My husband and I both work fully remotely. We only have one child and specifically bought a 4 bed so we could each have our own office. I have a standing desk riser and we both have multiple screens. His office is a tiny box room and mine is bigger but also has the tumble dryer and some workout stuff.

During covid in our old house he worked from his man cave and I worked from the dining room table which was awful and ruined my back.

I guess for the next couple of years the third bedroom is still your office (during the day) but it's got a cot in it too. Baby's clothes etc stored in other child's room if there's not room for cupboards as well as cot and desk. Once baby is not waking so much at night, both children could share?

By…not having a third child, to be honest. It was foreseeable that another child = no home office…

it wasn’t the only reason for not having a third child but it was a consideration. We both work from home and I love our wee office.

What a rude thing to say! Did he reply to your email??

We both WFH now. DH since the start of the pandemic, though did some WFH prior to that. Me when I went back to work after my second maternity leave in 2022. We are fortunate to have a (small) home office and four bedrooms. Having that said I tend to use a desk in the front room. We are currently expecting our third child and I may transfer to their nursery room as it’s much sunnier and warmer x

I work from the corner of the dining room. I have a bookcase and some pictures behind me so it looks like an office. I arrange the camera so that the general household dishevellment around me is not in shot.

I worked hybrid long before covid so always purchased houses with more bedrooms than children. Love my home office room, it’s 100% my space, set up exactly as I like it and no one else has a reason to ever go in there. Bliss.

@Redlocks28

Why was it rude? I was pointing out what I saw as grotesque unfairness.

He did reply and said he would take it into consideration so obviously he was more open to listening to people in the organisation than you are.

At first I worked from the dining table when I had teams meetings and just sat on the sofa if I wasn't "on show" and used my laptop on my lap. Eventually got around to converting a nook of my bedroom that was previously going to be a big wardrobe into an office corner and I have a smaller freestanding wardrobe on the other side of the room. I would love a house big enough to have a bedroom that's just a bedroom for each family member, plus a large study with desks for everyone, plus a guest bedroom. Sadly that would require a huge mansion so we just make do with what we have.

There's obviously a huge range of factors that affect this. I have observed very young colleagues in their first job struggle to WFH because they're often in shared accommodation or living with parents and working from a not particularly well set up bedroom, then often as they move in with partners or into their own place, they often have a spare room to work from, then younger families find it harder again as children fill the rooms, then as they become more senior and earn more they move to bigger houses with dedicated office space. Most of our London colleagues work in the office apart from the very senior who can finally afford more space at home. By and large our city centre officers attract a younger crowd and are well used. Our offices in smaller towns are not well used anymore, which I think reflects the demographic.... More families etc. Some people are quite creative with workspaces in a hall or landing, some convert part of a garage, etc.