To think working from home is a cushy number?

[MrsSlimShady]

I’ve got a new job that entails loads of e-learning, and webinars. They said I could do it at home and I literally sat there on the sofa and ate crisps and had cups of tea in my loungewear on the computer.

My DH works 3 days a week at home. He has back to back meetings but also manages to go the shops, go the gym, do exercise classes before work and at lunch time and do other chores. He’ll say his first meeting is at 0900, then nothing till 1130, then he can pop out 3-4pm….. it all goes like this.

I have another job and I have a 2-3 hour commute, and I am on my feet all day. I cannot get one chore done for my outside life. It has to wait till I’m off unless it is a text or email.

I know there are people working from home who work really hard too, but come on, AIBU to say that if you WFH you are really lucky and have it a lot easier than most other people?

One of my friends works from home. She starts about 8.30 and finishes after 18.00, five days a week. Not my idea of ‘cushy’ but there are always people who will take advantage.

I do this… it sits there. I just get distracted. I didn’t say it was logical. I constantly think “I’ll just do this then get a drink” then someone calls me or I get a message and think “just do this first” and before I know it it’s 3pm. I have a busy job whether I’m in the office or at home. Other days I can listen to a webinar while throwing the slow cooker on but not days I’m chairing meetings. It varies. I can’t pop out and exercise but I will often walk the dogs and keep an eye on the teams app on my phone. I’m entitled to breaks but have a number of part time colleagues I manage so I try to give quick responses so they aren’t delayed with their work waiting on me.

I hate wfh, but I have lots of staff who thrive at it. Let's not pretend that everyone in the office is a grafter. .

You're forgetting there are downsides to WFH as well

It is said that some people in zoom meetings have no pants on.

Yes it’s great. My barriers to working were an inability to commute and becoming overwhelmed when household tasks built up so WFH is perfect as like you say there’s time to get other things done etc .

Ditto this, although my 2 days a week in the office involved a -
35 minute drive at 06.30 to nearest train station (Grantham) to ensure I got the right (prebooked therefore cheaper) train (allowing for tractors etc).
1hr 10 minute train into London
20 minute tube across London to office to arrive at 09.00.
Repeat leaving office dot of 17.30, getting home at 20.30 -
Trains per Office day were approx 50.00GBP. Cheaper on Fridays. Every week, in rain, in snow, unlit roads. Trains cancelled, delayed; I once spent over 90 minutes standing at Peterborough Station with no Northbound trains (LNER chucked everyone off a Leeds <-> London train and was able to get on that). Occasionally I'd do a back-to-back and stay in a cheap hotel, paying someone to pop in and check on my cat.

Only happened because of Covid, when I moved out of London, quit the job but was offered the WFH / Office deal because the bosses could see that remote working could actually work.

So the WFH days were lovely, the office days were hard and tiring.

It definitely gives employees a better work/life balance.
Sitting in traffic for an hour everyday is aging.

This is exactly what happened to me. After 10 very happy months in my new customer service based WFH job they outsourced our entire department to an overseas firm. Can't say it isn't satisfying seeing people on social media pass comment about how awful the service is now though, compared to before 🤭

I previously worked in various physical jobs on site, and just couldn't face going back to that. I've managed to find another WFH role, not customer services based this time and I just have to hope the same doesn't happen again. What we do is quite complex, so I don't think it will.

It definitely feels cushy to me, but not based on the workload or anything. Just the freedom to get a cold drink from your own fridge with no risk of someone else having nicked it. No getting stuck with the attention seekers doing their am-dram recollection of their weekend. No getting told off for breathing too loudly. Using your own toilet. Grabbing a blanket if your cold, or sticking the fan on if you're too warm.

No commute. No Sunday night dread.

The best one by far though is being here with the kids coming and going through the day. They're old enough to be self sufficient but I'm here if they do need me for something.

I don't take the piss - if I need to do something householdy I do it on my break. I don't nip out to the gym, pop to the shop, walk the dog etc despite them being the most flexible company I've ever worked for.

Is Pope Catholic?

In a way yes I agree, no colleagues who you dont like to deal with (in the same space) no answering the phones in the office or office politics like who buys the milk/unloads the dishwasher. No commute and no having to justify leaving early or popping to the shops.

I think it totally depends on the type of job.
doing call centre type work from home wont be any more relaxing!
I have a hybrid contract so can wfh 3 days a week but tend to do only 1 or 2 days as i like being in the office. However the nature of my work means that I can easily potter round the garden, go for a walk, shopping etc.

Exactly. The ones watching Netflix while wfh didn’t have a different workload in the office, they just found other ways to fritter the day away.

Yanbu. I love WFH.

I get to take dc to school. I take the dog for a nice walk in my lunch hour (we're two minutes from the beach). I make my own lunch. Never have to worry if I have a delivery or workman coming etc. I dress in comfy lounge wear, I finish work, step out of the office and I can spend time with dh and dc immediately. It's fabulous. Plus, of course, cheaper without driving for an hour a day.

All of our laundry is done within my working day - and I get it done without it affecting my work at all. The 5 minutes to chuck a load in, 10 minutes to hang it up, 10 minutes to fold/put away dry laundry are just minutes I'd probably be chatting to some acquaintance in the office. But it makes our lives run so much more smoothly.

I can absolutely imagine a time in future when I'd prefer to work at least some time in an office, to see people and get that human interaction. Maybe when all the dc have left home. But I really, really don't need that right now - I see and chat to plenty of people every single day. Life is just so busy and non-stop that WFH is actually the 'alone time' that I need. I LOVE dh and dc leaving for the day, then sitting at my desk in the silence, dog at my feet, coffee in my hand, to get my work done in peace.

Your husband's job does sound pretty cushy, but there are plenty of people in offices who seem to just drift from meeting to coffee break to meeting with no real focused work in between. It's a job-specific thing not a working from home vs office based thing.

Working from home is pretty great for me. When I'm signed in and working I have to work, but my hours are flexible so I can put washing on during breaks, or log out if I need to run an errand or do the school run. I can eat my own food in my own kitchen at lunchtime, or if other family members are home we can eat together.

Does pope WFH?

Does bear shit in the woods or at the office?

My son works mainly from home. He doesn’t have it any easier as his time is monitored so no sneaky breaks or trips to the shops.

It obviously is a lot easier because employees really push back against the demand to go back into office and lots of people will prioritise it when job seeking. It’s much easier grab down time, people multi task when on meetings etc etc., some people have kids at home while working, no commute. I could go on, but really crux is if you ask someone who works from home will they go back into an office and by and large they don’t want to to, so the advantages must be there!

You don’t have to “train up” to do a remote role.

All you need to do is apply to a company or organisation that offers remote/home working.

No. My complex advice note on high risk project for a demanding client to a short deadline is just as difficult at home as at the office. Except that this week I’ve been trying to write it while also fitting in taking my teens to various appointments and social things.

DH works in the NHS so he has to be on site. If he takes time away that means patients have their appointments cancelled. I have the job that can be a bit more flex in terms of location but it is very demanding and I am often also juggling other things too. It’s just the way it is.

I can stand one day a week wfh but that’s more than enough. It saves one car day but that’s the only benefit. I choose a day when I’d be around so I can get the bins in after collection. They would otherwise sit on the pavement getting in the way of passers-by and could also go missing. It’s a cushy day, but boring and uncomfortable due to having to sit on a dining chair all day.

We have an agile working policy where I work. I manage a large team who all work mostly from home and there is absolutely no monitoring of time. Only my admin team cover set hours.

The rest of them work whatever pattern suits them. It seems archaic and unnecessary to work set hours in most jobs nowadays.

The main problem is that management hasn't caught up with the changes to WFH. They're accustomed to "managing" by themselves and staff being present in the same place, so in their mind, they're "managing" their staff by watching what they're doing.

Managers of WFH staff need a completely different skill set which is very slow to happen.

Hence that recent Detective Constable sacked for not working when she should have been, but instead online shopping and setting up her phone to constantly press keys on the keyboard to stop her laptop going into sleep mode - her line manager should have been on top of things to notice she wasn't working and shouldn't have been relying on IT to notice she wasn't!

Likewise too many training "courses" have just lazily been made available online without the effort of making them proactive - they're still boring "talk" lectures but online instead of in person, yet, with proper IT, they could be interactive, requiring engagement, etc. It's not rocket science.

I think organisations need to massively up their game to improve the WFH supervision and take better advantage of IT benefits.

My son works partly WFH for one of the UK's biggest insurance firms. He simply can't "half watch" training videos or do online shopping whilst he should be working. His line manager is all over him. The firm is set up to have huge numbers of small teams, with 2 Teams meetings per day, and all in his team know what eachother are doing, their tasks, timescales, milestones, etc - no way at all he can "hide".

Some people take the piss, but I work solidly while at home. Down to individual work ethic I think

Same with my place and DH’s for a long time, but it’s happened recently with both that when there is suddenly a shake up (which is happening more often and readily now with the state if businesses), and there is a swathe of redundancies, it becomes apparent that the WFH coasters have had a big hand in making their own roles redundant by either not doing it well enough or doing so little of it that the work can be more easily absorbed.

We both had 10-20% shaved off in redundancies, and it was mostly this type work-from-homer, and particularly the higher paid ones, that got the boot.