If you WFH, what's your Friday afternoon like?

[OldPine]

This week has been full on. 12 hour days Monday & Tuesday. Lots to sort Weds & Thursday so am not gonna lie, I'm now lying on my bed periodically tapping the track pad on my laptop while Mumsnetting and holiday shopping. DH is mowing the lawn! Anyone else taking Friday afternoon a bit easy?

Often, I do more on Fridays than other weekdays. I typically squeeze an extra task in on Friday evenings in between watching something on TV. (Self-employed and work by the task rather than the hour.) In the past, I've knocked out some writing in the middle of the night when insomnia struck, then took it easy the next day, when sleepiness finally kicked in. If all my work gets done properly, by the end of the month, it doesn't matter what day or time it happens.

There are downsides to the job, too—such as having no-one to call who can cover for me—so I feel no shame in taking advantage of its positive aspects, such as the extreme flexibility it offers.

If you read the post that that post was quoting, they’re talking about having to work outside of normal work hours or on holidays etc so not a case of them just totting their laptop around during the day, but sometimes being needed outside of that time.

Well, mine is quite niche so I won't be able to oblige unfortunately. Soz. Skilled technical is about as far as I can go. Maybe others will say more.

But anyway, the 'real world' thing always sounds ridiculous. People should have the honesty to admit that they're trying to use it as some kind of badge of legitimacy, despite clearly having no experience of understanding of the roles they're talking about. The fact that something doesn't resonate well with a person when they hear it doesn't make their instinctive response any less ignorant.

Agree with this. If you’re actually in the thick of it, in a hospital, restaurant, classroom, whatever, with actual people snapping at your heels, it’s a world away from any job, frankly, that allows you to put your own front door and a computer screen between you and the real world. Yes, you might be called at all hours etc. but it’s still not the same as being somewhere at work.

I admit that if you’re, say, the PM or the actual head of the armed forces, you don’t get much what we’d call down time. But your average MNetter (who’s always ‘leading a team’) doing some made-up admin job or other from the comfort of her own sofa 🤷‍♀️Sorry, not buying it.

Oh I agree. I get paid an awful lot to have a very cushty life by going into the office once every week or so. Also 'leading a team' is so much easier than being the team. An individual contributer has an operational to do list and deadlines coming out of their ears, a 'leader' is easier in my experience.

My contract is hours per week, rather than hours per day.

So I tend to work way over my hours M-W, with the hope of finishing early on a Friday.

Usually though, Friday ends up being my busiest day 😂

I don’t really do any work on Friday. I decline any meeting or calls and move them
to another day in the week (fortunate to have enough autonomy to do this). I usually go to the gym, shopping, deal with life admin etc and pick up DC from school. I WFH and go into the office 1 day a month.

I think most of my team do the same. No-one has to pick up anyone else’s work, we all manage our workloads.

I don’t understand the anger directed towards people who have the flexibility to take it easy on Fridays. Such an odd attitude. I work in an industry with a niche role that allows for that but are some downsides to my job. I don’t resent people who don’t have to endure those downsides in their jobs. We all have our crosses to bear.

Exactly, being out in the reality of the world with a stessful job and simultaneously dealing with the public is a double barrel. No escape, gruelling, physically and mentally exhausting 😪

The real world thing can only be called be ridiculous by those who don't live it, because if they did they would understand. Of course many online jobs are difficult, however while doing them one isn't simultaneously being bothered by others. Xx

It's just jealousy - like if they're not allowed to do it, nobody should 🙄

@BernardBlacksBreakfastWine except it's not
My job is behind a screen but I'm still dealing with customers on the phone every single day and I actually find it tougher than retail
I mean if call centre work is a made up job then it can cease to exist tomorrow and everyone will get on fine?

Good luck ringing a car dealership, the bank, oh 999 won't exist

To clarify, I don’t think call centre jobs are made up.

I’m talking about the interminable bullshit that seems to dominate a lot of work time. I am a teacher (which I know will get some posters’ backs up straight away) and I am usually busy doing what I deem ‘real stuff’ - either teaching in the classroom or marking work or developing resources. Increasingly, from management, I feel we get a rising tide of what I’d call made-up work; audits and quality assurance projects and working parties that we’re supposed to get on board with during our non-existent available time. And all of it is just bullshit. It’s box-ticking nonsense or interminable meetings where nothing real is actually achieved. That’s the sort of work I was referring to; people in management, in various organisations, may well be up to their eyeballs in that sort of work as they sit in their home office, but I have little sympathy, I’m afraid, as it is probably of their own making.

Actually, lots of the jobs I'm talking about involve a great deal of being bothered by others. I get pestered much more when working these days than I did when I used to clean in a pub before it opened and there was nobody there aside from one other staff member, for example. Because people use phones, email and instant messaging.

The problem you have here is that you don't know what you don't know. You aren't able to understand how ridiculously unaware you sound, continuing to pronounce on jobs you have no experience of and don't understand. It's proper Dunning Kruger.