Older relatives not understanding WFH...

[TickingAlongNicely]

I am self employed. I work from home. It can only be done at home, unless I lug massive bits of equipment away with me (I can't work from a hotel room for example).

My children are Secondary school age. They don't need looking after, just someone around really in school holidays.

Every school holiday from my parents...
What are you doing? (I'm working)
What are the children (homework, chilling, hanging out, resting. )
Why don't you come and stay for a few days (I'm WORKING)
What do you do all day at home (WORK)
Don't you want to spend time with the children (I do in the afternoon/evenings, I start work early...).

I'm pretty sure if I worked in an office I wouldn't get this barrage of questions!

I agree. My Dad worked from home for decades, he also worked well into the evenings. We used to have to creep around him when he was on conference calls to India and the States (long before Teams).

He's in his 70s now. He'll occasionally call me during the day to ask something but as I can give him 5 minutes, without the fuss others seem incapable of doing, it's fine.

In my experience a very generational thing
I'm a freelancer and work from home, I rent out a second home
Still have parents (mostly mum) asking why I don't have a job (or a 'real' job or a 'proper' job)
Also (mostly dad) asking why I don't sell the other house; they don't understand that it generates income
Mum also (like other posters) rings at random times during the day and gets very miffed when I say I'm working "But you're at home, not at work" is a common response from her

What threads about people skiving?

I’ve seen people start threads asking people to “admit” they’re not actually working, only to be met with a bunch of people talking about how hard they work from home.

People with office jobs are just as obtuse
They think if you're WFH that means they can get instant responses to any email or message or that you're always free to take a phone call
I have just as many meetings as you. I produce just as many documents, schedules, workplans as you

This is always the case for people - of whatever age - who live in very small worlds and can't/won't understand that not everybody is exactly the same as they are.

There was a time when the Internet was still unfamiliar to most people, and folk would sneer about "Oh, is that something that you read on the Internet?!" As though a high-level peer-reviewed scientific study conducted online would clearly have far less merit, importance or truth than something actually printed in a book - even if it's Fifty Shades of Grey!

Have not refreshed.

Don't answer the phone?

Some people also struggle with understanding that you probably can spare them a couple of minutes; but not any couple of minutes whenever they happen to call or turn up.

Yes, you may put a wash on in your break, between phone calls or Teams/Zoom meetings - but nobody is telling their boss or key client to hold on for a few minutes in the middle of a meeting as they suddenly have a quick mundane task that supposedly must be done NOW!

Wasn't the point I was making, never mind 😆

I feel your pain! Not so bad now but PIL used to drop round regularly for a chat and a coffee. Not so much any more but a few weeks ago we were talking about going back to work after a couple of weeks off at Christmas and they couldn’t fathom that we would have that ‘Sunday night dread’ as we don’t go in to an office. I really think they believe we just float around the house all day when in reality it’s sitting down at my laptop at 7:30 and not stopping until dinner and then sometimes back to it again after dinner. They are lovely people but they just don’t understand that’s all

Can you just nip to the supermarket?
Can you just take my dog to the vet for his boosters?
Can you just pick my friend up from the station?
No, no and NO.

Working from home is doing the same work in the same quantity and quality as you do in the office. Just in a different place (at home, without the commute).

Why is that not proper work? You have some strange ideas!

Oh I hear you loud and clear on that one! My parents understood the work from home thing in that people could be at home doing what they did in the office. What they didn't understand was that I was freelance/self-employed and people would come to me and ask for me to do a project, that no two projects were the same, that I had quiet weeks and busy weeks. They just didn;t understand it, especially as I was doing "internet stuff" which they didn't get either.

My inlaws are the same - you either have a "proper job" which means having an employer and set hours irrespective of place of work, or if you are self-employed you are a plumber, hairdresser, taxi driver or builder. So I am really just playing at working.

So yes elderly people just cannot understand at all.

My parents could. (However, they'd been teachers... DM couldn't quite get her head around my 4 then 5 holiday allowance being all the time I had off, not just the time I could actually 'go on holiday' ... it's a life experience not an age thing)

Anyway op, if you don't already have a separate work phone you need one, and set yours "to do not disturb".

You have my sympathy OP.
DH and I both WFH. Our friends know this. Yet still regularly turn up, without warning, on weekdays during working hours. And then I might get a comment that I seem a bit stressed. D'you think that might have something to do with having a deadline you're effing up? Kicked a friend out last week because I had a client call about to start and he was quite prepared to sit there and listen.
SILs have announced that they're coming to stay with us for a couple of weeks in the summer, hasn't even occurred to them to ask if I'll be working/able to take time off.

I never know whether you are deliberately winding people up with your replies @Viviennemary - they are always so old fashioned and backward. Like you’re stuck in the 1950’s. 🤷‍♀️

Can you just not pick up the phone when she rings? There are people in my life where I have had to do that. I don't mean every time she rings, but if it is work hours. If you never pick up when she rings during work hours, she might eventually get the message.

This seems to be a theme - it would explain why so many older people are so passionately against WFH, as they don’t seem to understand what it entails.

I have had a few exasperating incidents while on zoom calls over the last year or two (not just parents) - being interrupted mid-flow while presenting, walking across the background etc.

Mines always suggesting we get a train on eg a Thursday mid-morning to visit, as it’s cheaper then. Ignoring that I need to you know, be at work then.

Yes it’s only proper work if you’re literally digging coal out of a rock face with your bare hands, waist deep in icy water.

Anything else is just laziness. What are law and finance anyway, just time wasting.

and in my experience NOT generational!

My dad is 75 and understands perfectly
He will come in and make me a coffee, drop some shopping off and creep out
Or sit and drink a coffee with the cat and wait for my break

This, don’t answer and say I can’t speak just ignore it. Or say in your message I’m at work , you are at work even if at work is your spare room. You need to train them.

ha ha that was my dads view! It’s an amazing lack of critical thinking / emotional intelligence (was going to say a bit thick but trying to be a better person).

Stop enabling it, you can only control your behaviour not theirs.

Yanbu op, my elderly neighbour said to me and dh over Christmas. Yous are always getting work done in the house, wheres the money coming from because yous don't work. Me & dh just looked at each other, we are self employed and had just finished a very busy week 😅

Oh behave, you’re embarrassing yourself