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?

This kind of comment is bullshit because it's 2 completely different and incomparable situations.

I don't do a manual job, I have a leadership role in a global company and WFH permanently. The fact that it's global means I'm on calls at 6am with Australia or Dubai, and at 8pm with US colleagues. The fact that it's a leadership role means I get pulled into urgent issues with little to no notice at whatever time or day the issue occurs.

So if I find myself with a quiet Wednesday morning or Friday afternoon then yes, I'll have a nap, or go for a walk or the shops, because I can't guarantee that I'll be able to do any of those things after 5.30pm as I'll likely be on a call.

Quite.

Unfortunately, we aren't allowed to have threads on here about the terms and conditions of remote workers. It's impermissible. Someone always comes along to whatabout over completely different jobs instead.

I wfh 90% in a creative role. My job isnt a 9-5 - sometimes it’s practically 24/7, or I’m working between time zones so very extended hours, others it’s relatively quiet and I do work roughly 9-5, or I’m in a project phase that needs lots of thought and not much action. Sometimes working means I need to go for a walk and think things over. Sometimes it means I need to sketch or read or watch something, so it would look to someone peering in my window like I’m arseing around. Other times I’m sifting data or bashing out documents and emails with steam coming off my keyboard.

Fridays are different only in that I try not to schedule meetings if i can help it as many of my colleagues are 4 days (off on Fridays) so it’s a good day for deep work, as I’m mostly left alone.

The irony is, success in my industry is measured by results and output not hours, and none of my senior colleagues would give a shit if closed my laptop and went to the pub on a Friday afternoon, as long as I was delivering (and when I worked in the office, that was far from unusual)…. But now I just can’t bring myself to do it (probably because of thread responses like these!)

Quiet day for meetings so it’s the day I get work done… I don’t work on a Monday so the last couple of hours are frantic emailing to keep the plates spinning until Tuesday!

POETS day 🍺

Normally Fridays are a slog to catch up all the stuff I haven't finished earlier in the week. I've still got my laptop open, although I'm obviously intermittently on my phone as well as writing letters, since I'm not being paid.

I work in an office and Friday afternoons are often a lot of chatting and not much work getting done. Most people have had enough by Friday and motivation is lagging.

Prepare for weekend. Any shopping , housework and sometimes an hours kip to re set.

I get paid the same salary and incredibly lucky regarding my hours

Who cares? They don’t like it they can get different jobs surely? Why do I have to worry about what others are doing?

It’s one of my most productive times. People try not to schedule meetings. It’s a good chance to get an uninterrupted block of focused work time.

A lot of people have Friday as a non working day whereas mine is Wednesday so it’s quiet and time to organise emails etc before finishing at 4

Mine are always frantic. I realise I've run out of time to get everything done and just smash through as much as possible.

Blimey, if it's something you'd actually want to do then don't be put off by people who know fuck all.

Why apart from admin?

I’ve only just finished. Last 1.5 hours has been with the company of a single whisky that arrived with the shopping 😁 happy weekend everyone!

lol and people wonder why companies are insisting everyone gets back in the office

Do people start these smug WFH threads just to piss off the people who can't WFH? Imagine if I started a thread saying I'd been for a Friday afternoon kip in the store room.

Wfh on Fridays. Finish at 4pm if it's quiet,work till 6pm if busy. Today finished 4.30 pm. Made a chilli. All good.

Mine can vary depending from chilled to bonkers depending what comes in.

But my company does summer hours where you can finish on a Friday lunchtime if you've done your hours for the week, so looking forward to that kicking in soon!

I’m a teacher so obviously can’t WFH but I do much less on a Friday afternoon than any other day. The kids are knackered by then (I teach little ones), they’re not gonna take much in, and I’ve already read with them all, they’ve done all their writing etc so Friday afternoons are down time for all of us. I go to the cafe for lunch with my colleagues, come back, teach a fun, easy lesson then spend the rest of the afternoon reading stories, playing outside, just having fun with them. Then I leave early and get home by 4pm. I work bloody hard the rest of the week but I love Fridays, and so do the kids.

Ah yes, people like the OP, such pisstakers that they were working 12 hr days earlier in the week?

The OP clearly works very long hours some days, why shouldn't the flexibility and goodwill go in both directions?

Fridays have always been a laid back day in my work.
Even when in the office the whole team would go down to the canteen for breakfast together for an hour or so, back to our desks and keep an eye on the motorway traffic out of the window and slope off as soon as it started to build (no later than 2pm)

Now we are all remote we have team catch up for an hour or so, half work half catching up usually! All usually wander away from laptops just after lunch

We all work hard and there is an understanding that when required we work late (I've done 10hr days mon-thur this week) and when it's slack we make the most of it (when my mum was dying I did a couple of hours a day) so we're very lucky to have such flexibility

I'm in construction and we give our installers Fridays off because they work so hard Mon-Thurs.

Our standard contract is 37 hrs per week/148 over four weeks.

There have been times when I've done my weeks "hours" by Wednesday lunchtime, and could pretty much take week four off.

We are an agile organisation; I expect my team to deliver projects on time, within budget and to meet the customer expectations and they do it very well.

People who are lazy and unproductive while WFH will be lazy and unproductive in an office.

If you hate your job so much, you're always free to find another.