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?

I condense hours and take Friday afternoons off when ever possible. I am transparent with my boss when I’m taking time off

I don’t and wouldn’t play games pretending to work.

Any manual workers here also having a lie in or going for lunch with the hubby on Friday afternoons, instead of, you know, working? Checkout operators, shelf stackers, healthcare workers, construction workers, you get the picture.

I worked in retail for a decade and had plenty of downtime over the week.

Yes, I generally had to be "present" but I'm not going to pretend I was on the go constantly - lots of extended breaks, meetings that turned into catch-ups with coffee/biscuits, quiet afternoons standing around chatting etc.

DH is also a manual worker and sets his own hours, he hasn't worked later than 2pm all week and had today off.

Very, very few people work jobs where they're constantly "on" all week.

We have an agile working policy, so it’s output rather than hours that count. As long as they get their work done, I am happy for my team to write-off Friday afternoons - unofficially. They are professionals and I don’t treat them like factory workers.

I have 5 admin staff that do have to be available until 4:45 on a Friday. But I am flexible at other times in the week with them, if they need time for appointments etc.

We are supposed to have no meetings on Fridays, it's been emailed out repeatedly as a 'wellbeing' initiative to let everyone end the week by catching up of the eleventy-million actions we've picked up and not had time to do Monday-Thursday. I have a block booked out in my calendar to illustrate that I'm not available for meetings.

Inevitably every bastard and their dog remembers urgent, super high priority crap that needs doing this week and invites me to meetings 3pm-8pm to get it done.

I decline everything I can and professionally but firmly remind the ones I do have to speak to of the Friday rule, but most of them are American and it's their Friday morning so they don't see it as a big deal to have the meeting then.

I hate Fridays.

I used to work as a lifeguard and had loads of downtime in quiet periods and could have a snooze in the first aid room or play some badminton or sunbath

Same but without the school run.

Days are long with back to back meetings usually, and then Fridays not many people work so I don't have many meetings and use it to do all my work from the week. I also use it to catch up on personal admin that doesn't get done in the week, and feel much less stressed by the end of Friday.

My job is a full on leadership role but I take the piss every Friday afternoon I can. Laundry, cooking, maybe some Netflix.

I WFH FT & I usually spend Friday afternoons tidying up any loose ends from the week & getting to the bottom of my to do list before logging off. Certainly no meetings if I can get away with it. I also start & finish work as early as possible on Fridays. I’m usually done by 4, and today I had my feet up watching the tennis with a glass of wine by 4.05.

Happy weekend!

Spent in the Rat and Thistle.

Pisstakers can and do in every work place whether it's virtual or physical. They need to be effectively managed either way

Agree with this

I tend to have an easier Friday. But often because I’ve worked extra the rest of the week. I’m hardly slacking off

Yes we have targets/time sheets so anyone who did slack would have to make up the time another day I guess.

In fairness when I worked in a little shop during my university holidays we used to have very quiet days, and once we had done all the cleaning we would pass many happy hours just chatting away! That said, we were physically present and available to serve the occasional customer

No Friday is always manic because everyone else wants to clear their desk before an early finish so I get loads of crap dumped on me and urgent requests for info.

I like Fridays - a lot of my team are p/t and don't work so it's much quieter and I can get quite a bit done! Always wfh

Same as ever. Answering the phone all day! Expected to be fully working for the full day every day

I wish, I’m busy from first thing Monday to finish Friday. I did wfh today as been in 3 days already but usually go to the office on a Friday.

I was online at 5.47am Monday morning sorting out a crisis and remained online sorting that, bar a ten minute walk to and from the train station until 21.14pm that evening. Slightly shorter hours on Tuesday but still working on the train at 19.00pm. So no, I don't think having a few easier hours at the end of the week can really be classed as 'taking the piss'.

I'm part time and don't work on Fridays anyway, but my employer wouldn't care if I arranged my work to have a quiet one/early finish if I did. Long as everything got done, fine. Some of us just don't have jobs where that would be an issue.

Why not admin? It sounds like they’re getting shafted.

No I just work as productively as any other day and only stop at tea break and lunch, but I'm counting down the hours till our early finish at 4pm. I actually get more done at home because on our two office days there's more chat and tea runs.

Could you tell us why that matters? Just so we get the picture.

In my last job, pretty quiet - I was frankly underemployed, in a team of two and I would be mostly just online on my home laptop on a Friday as I was usually out of work that needed doing. I wasn't surprised when I was made redundant at a few months ago as I just don't think there was as much work as they thought there would be for me (it was a new post) - I did try to find some more to do but as it was a big and bureaucratic organisation I couldn't just opt go and do stuff for another team, it all had to be approved and come out of budgets etc so I couldn't make it happen.

About to start a new job which will, at points at least, be a lot more intense than any job I have had before, but then it pays well.

I can barely string together a sentence by Friday. I keep the day free to pick up the admin slack from across the week and to do thinking and problem solving which is what my job should mostly be. I'll only have calls, no online meetings, if absolutely essential. I logged off 10 mins ago so I still do a full day's work.

Friday is usually for catching up and prepping for the following week, but there was some drama yesterday(not relating to me!) and I have spent a lot of today arranging meetings to get it sorted out