Be honest… what do you really do if working from home?

[Wffhh]

Just that really.

I often have a bath at lunchtime. Go to shops. Clean. Last Friday watched a Christmas film in the background in bed while doing some online training. Made a pie.

Sometimes I have to work very late. Sometimes on a weekend. So I think it balances out. Anyone else be honest? Do you ever have almost a day off doing life admin?

...you do realise that some workplaces don't measure performance by the hour? That many just care about the output being good, and as long as it is they also care about their employees?

My manager actively encourages me to do what I please as long as my work gets done. I've recently been promoted too, and I'm in publishing which is notoriously competitive. I also ensure my staff take adequate time away from their desks when WFH; if their work is done and they don't have a meeting until 4pm, why would I demand busy work from them?

OP is not the reason people are being sent back to the office. Poor management is.

I work from home and tbh I honestly get the same amount of work done as if I was in the office. But I work faster to create free time. I pop away from my computer to do some cleaner, out the online shop away etc. otherwise I do work. My productivity is just as high if not higher than the office dwellers

I'm retired now and prior to covid worked from home when I had specific pieces of training to write and believe you me I worked and got a lot more done without the noise and constant interruptions of being on work premises. Then came the pandemic and as I was in the NHS I was redeployed to do wholly Covid work, I did telephone triaging for staff for testing, read through and signed off all staff Covid risk assessments ( I worked for a very big NHS mental health trust) and also staffed a helpline for employees. I worked my socks off doing work that was sometimes distressing and stressful. I think this was due to my having a work ethic, I think if you are paid to do something then you get on and do at and give 100%.

Work. It never stops. Will put the washing on or put it in the dryer. Do have a proper lunch though.

I work! And during coffee break or lunch I do house jobs. But I’m actuallly working a lot

I suspect that it is often the same people who would chat all day in the office that are watching films and making pies when they should be WFH.

Others get on with the job wherever they are and enjoy the lack of commute and reduced distractions.

I get loads more work done at home.

I work flexibly from home. I do way more hours than I’m contracted most weeks, but I’ll take the dog for a walk in daylight hours and hang out a wash or pick up the kids from school. I encourage my team to work this way too. If work fits with their life and we pay fairly they won’t go anywhere. Not lost anyone I want to keep in 5 years.

I WFH the majority of the time. When it’s busy it’s not unusual for me to be glued to my seat for 7/8 hours with virtually no breaks.

Thankfully it is very rarely like that and the rest of the time (95% of the time) I can spend some time doing personal stuff. I go to the gym, shopping, do a bit of housework, meal prep and sort out family life admin. If the weather is nice I go for a walk and stop for a coffee. I don’t spend the entire day doing this, but if it’s not busy I can condense my work into 1-2 hours and have the rest of the day to enjoy.

I manage my work and make sure it’s done to a high standard. None of my colleagues ever have to pick up any of my tasks.

I don’t feel remotely guilty. The company I work for makes billions in revenue and there are hundreds of employees who earn 10 times my salary and probably do less work than me (I’m very well paid so not really complaining).

I work. I might be slightly flexible with my hours as my colleagues are, but I will do my 30 hours over the course of the week (I have to allocate those 30 across my various projects and if I didn’t spend enough hours actually working someone else would notice).

I have occasionally done some tidying etc during the working day but only when super quiet and I literally didn’t have anything else to do which is very rare

I will do laundry and go for a run etc in my lunch break tho

I work ? And it actually annoys me that people say they can watch tv , as this cements the view of it being a free for all

WTAF. Having the time to take a bath, make a pie, go to the shops, clean and have a movie on isn’t working.

i am flat out with calls, meetings, presentations and work from 8-6. During workday hours you should be working.

Your post actually makes me a bit annoyed.

I can be honest, as I do work from home.

I am occasionally rolling out of bed 2 minutes to my shift start. I've been 15 minutes late in the past and no one has noticed, but this has happened perhaps 4 times in the four years I have worked for this company.

I will often not go to the loo or take a meal break (8 hour shift) until absolutely desperate.

When I do take a meal break sometimes that is with the work portal open and I continue to work as I eat.

If it is quiet, I will watch videos on youtube, read FB (I do have to check our FB groups and answer questions there, let new members in or reject applicants who didn't answer the questions and do general moderation actions)...

Occasionally if I have some freelance writing work and it is quiet, I may do that too but its rarely quiet enough these days for me to get my head down and concentrate!

We have a stated 1 hour response time, but aim to answer queries within 15 minutes wherever possible and on the whole we achieve that goal. Where we don't, it is more often due to system errors (messages being sent at the users end but not appearing our end for some time) or there's a big rush and loads of people to answer, than due to us being lazy or workshy.

As long as we're meeting our goals and supplying helpful responses to those who contact us, our 'boss' (not actually our boss, we're self employed) is happy.

We can also swap shifts or find cover there and then, as I had to do earlier this week when I was very ill without any warning during my shift, and it is up to us to sort out whether we give someone our hours, or we just sort a swap and owe them some hours back later.

I obviously can't speak for the others as I am not sat in their homes, but I am pretty sure (as I can read their responses and see how long between user sending and my colleague responding) no one else is slacking either.

I really do not think I could do as good a job as I do (and the user reviews suggest we do a very good job indeed) if I had to do this from an office. There would be far too many distractions!

I wonder if this is only for specific types of work e.g. for professionals who do not have to clock in and out or show that they are present by being on Teams?

We are seeing people being asked to return to the office more, which conflicts with what you're saying.

Several of my family members wfh and actually work ! This post just gives those who work hard a bad name .
If anything they do more hours/work now they are wfh.

No one checks up on me, but I have a lot to do and I enjoy my job so I work hard all day. I’ve had roles previously when I had little to do, but I have such a guilt complex that I forced myself to stay sitting at my desk pottering around trying to find something to do, I was always paranoid that someone would know I wasn’t working. In hindsight I wish I’d taken the chance to slice when I had it!

I think a lot depends on whether your job is based on you needing to be present to do tasks continuously through the day or whether you need to deliver a set product by a set deadline.

If it’s the latter then you don’t need to confirm to ‘office hours’ if you WFH as long as the work gets done to the right standard by the deadline.

My workload tends to peak and trough but in the troughs I absolutely watch tv, have a bath, go for a walk, do housework, go shopping.

Role is output focused and no performance issues.

You only get one life, I'm not spending it chained to my laptop when I don't need to be.

I work, exactly as I do I the office. It's what I am paid to do.

I know that my employer intends to discuss with some employees in January about returning to the office as they are clearly not working their contracted hours.

I am on calls a lot of the day mostly on camera so at my desk. The rest of the day at my desk/ sat on my sofa in my office doing the work I can't do because -calls! Some calls are listening in calls eg the corporate ones so then I can put on wireless headphones and walk around the house and tidy etc.

I know someone who works for the NHS in a requisitions role and he watches Friends and other comedies during the day! He says he has plenty of time to do what needs to be done.

Work - inbound calls, completely monitored, probably more productive than in office as no chat, it's hard work

In the morning I work at my standing desk on the second floor, I can have 5 mins breaks to put a wash on if I need to, sort clean laundry etc. I go for a walk at lunchtime, do gardening, or go to the shop. In the afternoon i work from the sofa with a reality tv show on the background! I have to pause for phone calls obvs, so one show usually lasts all afternoon.
It is a skilled role, I have to answer customer queries but they are usually fairly standard answers that we have lots of pre prepared templates for, so I can do it with the tv on in the background and not muff it up. If it’s a particularly gnarly problem I may need to pause!

Same. I manage a team. I know for a fact one person does the school run most days. Someone else often finishes early at a weekend to set off to see family. I don’t care. They work hard and get stuff done inc early starts and long days when needed

I work too hard / intensively and don't give myself enough breaks, to be honest.

What annoys me most about these threads is the people who have never worked from home who act like people are glued to work in the office. Newsflash: they aren’t. I used to work exclusively in the office and I had several colleagues who spent a good third of each day skiving in one way or another, be it extra breaks, random gossip, or deliberately being super, super slow.

Now I work from home my distractions are minimal. I can make time to catch up on some of my own things and still smash through all my deadlines. If you think home workers should be glued to their keyboards the entire time then so should office workers, and the reality is they aren’t. The difference is what the ‘non-work’ time is spent on. I have a significantly healthier work life balance this way.