Explain that working from home is WORKING

[wfhorwtf]

I work a desk based job where I'm on my laptop most of the day doing fairly intense analytical work. It's mostly quiet, maybe three or four short calls a day with colleagues, and everything else happens over email or teams. The rest of the time I need proper, uninterrupted concentration to write code, analyse data, read documents and produce updates and reports. I work from what used to be the box room, now repurposed as a home office.

My partner has recently moved in. He's worked manual trades all his life and has never really needed a computer, either for work or leisure. To the point where he doesn't even know how to type on a keyboard (non-phone one I mean). The problem is that he's currently between jobs, gets bored, and feels like I'm ignoring him. He'll call out to me several times an hour to ask my opinion on something, show me a funny video, or give me updates about some friends or political news. It’s all well-natured, but even a quick interruption completely breaks my concentration. Watching a 10 sec video can easily cost me 10 min of getting back into the zone. Maybe that's just how my brain works, or age.

This has been worse over the last few days because of Christmas prep on top of the usual household chores. To be clear, I do my share of the festive slog, though if I'm honest he probably does more. I just tend to do it in the evenings, which is also when he'd rather relax or do something fun together.

We had a heated conversation this morning, and it became clear that he genuinely doesn't understand that I'm actually WORKING. Not out of malice, he simply doesn't have a reference point for this kind of work. Compared me to one of his exes who was constantly scrolling social media on her phone and ignored him. From his perspective, I'm "doing nothing" all day and just staring at a screen, while he's busy with visible and tangible tasks. I'm trying to get everything wrapped up before a mandatory two week Christmas furlough at work.

How do I explain that just because my job doesn't look busy from the outside doesn't mean it isn't?

Agreed if my friend is studying live feed she can't just say time for tea and chat, she has to keep observing and scribble notes. These can be expanded on at another time.

Sorry OP but he does sound a bit thick. . . . Or totally disrespectful. Either way I’d be wondering how I ended up shacked up with him.It’s not that much to understand!

Maybe ask him how he’d feel if he was in the middle of carrying something heavy or awkward and you stopped him to look at a funny video you’d seen every few hours and explain it’s a similar thing only in your case your brain is doing the heavy lifting.

I think, thankfully, he's fully recovered on the cognitive side. But there were a couple of scary days in the very beginning.

Just tell him, when the door is shut you are working and he is not in any circumstances (excluding emergencies such as the house is on fire) to interrupt you.

I agree with you he is not "stupid", no one is that stupid, but he does have issues with respecting and valuing your work and/or being self absorbed. He doesn't need to "understand" what a desk job entails it to do that, he doesn't need to understand to respect when you are working you are not available and do as you ask.

If he needs something that really cannot wait until lunchtime/end of your working day he can send you a text which you will read when convenient/having a break.

Respect in a relationship is important.

I do something with a similar need for concentration, and there are times when it might look like I’m doing nothing - I’m not typing, or reading, and I might not even be looking at my screen when I’m figuring something out - and when my DH was between jobs he kept trying to talk to me when I looked like I wasn’t busy. Every tiny interruption broke my focus and it was taking time to get back into the flow, but he thought that as he was “only asking quick questions” it wouldn’t be disruptive. Eventually I explained what I was doing in great detail (knowing that he wouldn’t understand most of it; making my explanation accessible could have diluted the point) and hammered home that ‘staring into the middle distance’ was as much a sign of me working as typing was.

We came to an agreement that he’d only interrupt if it was urgent enough that, if I was a teacher, he’d phone to ask someone to interrupt a lesson and call me to the phone so he could speak to me immediately. Anything else he’d send a message, and I’d either reply when I had chance, or I’d go speak to him when I had a free moment. That seemed to solve the issue!

But if he wasn't being controlling, as soon as you reminded him he'd say 'oh shit sorry'.

He wouldn't huff or storm off or compare you to his ex who ignored him.

The weird thing is that a driver's alone at work for hours and hours. How did he satisfy his need for company while working? Was he on his CB all the time, listening to the radio, playing podcasts, or what?

Surely he could do that.

And, yes, it should've been easy enough to draw an analogy with you "just" calling him to make a one-hour detour to "pick something up" for you, or insisting he pulled into a layby to watch cute videos you sent him!

“How do I explain that just because my job doesn't look busy from the outside doesn't mean it isn't?”

It’s not hard, you just say “please do not disturb me between 9am and 5pm (or whatever times). It may not look to you like I’m busy working but every time you come in, my concentration is broken and I then have to spend time getting back in the zone. Unless it’s an emergency like the house is on fire, do not come in to my work space”

If he can’t understand that he’s either extremely thick or extremely disrespectful of your boundaries.

I would have asked to take a seat in my chair, pulled up some complex code, and asked him to finish it for me.

When he explained he couldn't I would point out that I also don't know how to do X that he does (ideally work related), but that if he tells me it requires X, Y and Z, I will trust him, because I don't do that. So he needs to trust you in what you are telling him your role requires.

This ^

HGV driver

Ask him then if it would have been acceptable to ask, while he was driving along an empty straight road (so outwardly - to someone who didn't understand driving - appearing to do very little whilst obviously to those who do understand driving doing a lot), for him to nip over to the hard shoulder for a few seconds to look at a video...

As he's a bored, unemployed Tradie - put him to work adding a lock to your office door.

Then he can't just pop in and out and decide if you're busy depending on what your eyes are doing.

If that does not work, get him to work on packing his bags and finding somewhere else to live.

He's mostly done long-haul European routes, usually double-manned, so it was surprisingly social. When he's been solo tramping, it's been podcasts, news, and audiobooks. Because of that, he used to be far far more well-read and on top of current affairs than I am, for the benefit of anyone telling me he's anti intellectual.

C’mon OP. 🤦🏻‍♀️

You’re treating him as if he’s a child that needs attention and to be babied.

He’s a fully grown adult who doesn’t respect you and clearly doesn’t give a fuck about your work priorities otherwise, he’d have listened the first time you explained it to him and left you alone all day until you’d finished working.

I’d give him one final warning about interrupting you then bin him off if he’s still interrupting and trying to get your attention.

This might actually work. About a quarter of the videos he shows me are HGV drivers pulling off some fairly unbelievable manoeuvres, and I'm famously a terrible driver myself. I'm half-tempted to start saying, very innocently, "Well, it looks like they're not really doing much. How hard can it be? Just a round thingy to turn and, what, fewer than five pedals to push?"

Yeah this

I don't think that will work, @wfhorwtf
He wants your attention all the time and doesn't understand the principles of your job.
Could he go and do some volunteering?
The Salvation Army are busy at this time of year, also soup kitchens, community food hubs etc.
Maybe he needs to get out of the house.

He does understand that you're working (unless theres a drip feed that he's got some kind of mental incapacity), he just doesn't care about interrupting you.

Then suggest he sets up a workstation for himself, to keep up with the podcasts etc. Put him to work finding resources outside the home - chess clubs, lectures, discussion groups, libraries, museum tours??

I really don't feel a grown-up should need coaching/coaxing like this. I'm making a huge allowance for his radical change of circumstances.

On the whole I agree with everyone saying it boils down to disrespect; I'm trying to find a way through without offending your devotion to the bloke. But I think you must clarify your own thinking: if you allow his wants to damage your professional performance, you'll both suffer consequences.

I find it strange that he seems to have no kind of understanding or respect for your work- are you sure there's no cognitive impairment?

I wouldn't get into playing around like that, just very clearly, you are not to disturb me, I am working, you may not get it, but you don't have to, this is my career, please stop interrupting. Also, considering you've been together nearly a decade, I would also be adding that I don't care about his ex's social media addiction from ten years ago, and to stop comparing me to them for doing my job, as it has nothing to do with what he is doing, interrupting your work.

Honestly I'm a bit suspicious of this "can't understand that it's work" thing. Initially, fair enough, but after being told several times then it's not a failure of understanding, it's just thoughtlessness. I guess if you engage with him sometimes (when you're getting a cup of tea or something) it might have reinforced the idea that you're open to being communicated with.
In terms of practical advice, it sounds like you're better at abstract thought than he is (not slagging him off, people have different cognitive styles). So you probably need to use a metaphor - what if he was trying to build a wall and you came along and knocked his bricks on the floor every time he picked them up. Something like that.
A final thought - coding requires more analytical intelligence than most trades - do you think he feels a bit threatened by this and needs to demean your job as not real work.
If all the above fails, he's a cock and you should get rid.

My ex used to do this. What's happening is you're being reminded, subtly but repeatedly, that you don't matter. Your career is less important than some stupid youtube video. It's very much a "boiling the frog" effect, but over a long period of time, it will wear away at you.

I know you keep saying he isn’t stupid but it sounds as though he really cannot see anything outside of his own experience and understanding. Someone who really believes that your full time job is the same as “scrolling social media and ignoring him” just because you’re at a computer doing work he doesn’t understand is… well, is just a bit stupid.

Either that or does actually get it and he’s just completely disrespectful and even though she has explained it to him, he thinks his desire to speak to her is more important than her need/wish to get on with her work.