DH and I been WFH since the pandemic. He works full time, is the chief breadwinner and therefore, justifiably, has an office. I work part time, usually around the kids, sometimes when the pre-schooler is home and occupied with something. So, with no other suitable space I tend to work at the kitchen table (it's either here or on the sofa/bed which I find very bad for posture). Trust me when I say we have tried to find me somewhere more suitable to work, esp as we're in year 4 of this now so it's not exactly a short term scenario... this is the best we can do. Both our jobs are now fully remote, and we cannot afford for me to use a paid for office space or anything. My job barely covers the childcare as it is.
However, it's so very tiresome to work in a 'thoroughfare' area of the house. If I'm sat down at a laptop, trying to focus on something, in a meeting etc none of this seems to make me inaccessible to the family...and the worst culprit is DH!!! Even the kids now recognise if there's a red sticker on mummys laptop then they leave me alone! He's continuously popping in on his way to the bathroom, getting a drink etc and no matter how many times I ask not to be disturbed there always seems to be a justifiable reason to interrupt me ('just a very quick question love!' or even very 'kindly' bringing me a cup of tea or something but then stopping for a chat). He's a really lovely man, but he's quite forgetful and this request just doesn't seem to be penetrating. I've tried wearing noise cancelling headphones, have a colour coded post-it note on the back of my laptop (i.e. green means you can talk to me, red means please kindly do not fucking disturb!) but here we are, more than 1000 days into working from home and he's just come in for a chat again, asking for clarification on some stuff i specifically told him before sitting down so he wouldn't have to interrupt me.
I have a job where I really need to concentrate on things, and if I lose the thread of what I'm doing I'll make a mistake which will either take me time to untangle or impact on others. If I was in an office there would be a meeting room I could book or a breakout space or something I could go and use so there would be a clear message not to disturb me during tricky tasks. Here...idk, maybe I could lock myself in the bathroom?! Work in the car??
The issue is, I am increasingly getting exasperated/stroppy with him, which is then rude, which then means he gets grumpy with me because I wasn't polite and I end up as the 'bad guy' in the scenario when for FOUR YEARS I've been asking to have my work respected and having that pretty basic request continuously ignored.
So...AIBU to be huffy?
YABU - there's never an excuse to be rude.
YANBU - sounds like you've been more than accommodating to try and make this work, if he doesn't like being sighed at maybe he should remember not to interrupt you!