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?

Or possibly just very thick?

Edited to say sorry, I see the suggestion of being thick has been mentioned before.

Even better....lock 🔐 the office door lol

It's not proper work for sure. Thankfully have got all colleagues back to the office now after some lingering post COVID.

It's not proper work for sure.

🤔 🤣

Good joke..

.

He’s an adult. He either does understand but doesn’t believe you - you he’s so thick he doesn’t understand. Neither is a good option

Tbh he shouldn’t get to dictate or override what you tell him. If you need to concentrate and work without interruption, just tell him. If he challenges, just close it down by telling him you’ve told him what you need and that he should respect that. It’s not up to him. If he carries on arguing the toss, I’d just suggest maybe living together isn’t going to work, and he should move back out.

I was going to suggest that, but it sounds like he might just shout through the door to make himself heard….

Ha...yes, probably by the sounds of him 😂

This man's an idiot.You work hard and he is too needy .Dump him.

Or having to pull over onto a hard shoulder to check the phone and then having to try pull back out. When traffic 8s busy and he has to be somewhere on a deadline delivery

He's only just moved in and already he is displaying disrespect for your profession. This is not good. He should still be in the "best behaviour" phase. I fear it will be downhill from here.

Do not even get me started.

My job is WFH, because I’m field based. Most of the time I’m conducting interviews (I work in recruitment) and I’m also on teams calls for meetings.

My elderly parents know this, but still seem to think I can ditch work to drop them places, take them shopping, help them run errands etc.

I’ve explained many times that they would never have thought of calling me for these things, back when I worked in an actual office, so why do they think it’s different now my office is at home?

I get the usual “Well I don’t expect it, but just wanted to ask in case you could”. Completely missing the point that they wouldn’t even think to ask if I was working in an office somewhere else.

I’ve been WFH for over 12 years and nothing has changed, regardless of how many times I’ve tried to get them to understand I’m working and therefore not always available to run errands for them.

You really need to ram it home that working from home does not mean you’re available to be at his beck and call. I fear however, he is already in that mindset of you work from home and are therefore ‘available’

Hold up! 'He's in-between jobs' What does this actually mean? If I had moved a man into my home and he was 'between jobs' I'd be really asking myself WTF have I done, not disputing on MN if you are BU because you think differently regarding work. Sorry OP but sounds like you have invited that man-child into your home. Forget that he turns up for everything else, the man needs to be working, unless I have misunderstood

You are intellectually incompatible. And possibly have invited a cocklodger into your home.

I haven’t read all the replies but read a few of your posts. This man sounds like a small child, constantly coming into your workspace and showing you things. Can he not entertain himself for a few hours?
And listen when you tell him you’re working? It does sound like he’s a bit dim to not grasp that you’re working.
I wouldn’t have the patience for this to be honest, but then again I’m very independent and would find this ‘dependency’ off-putting.

I work in an office mainly but sometimes work from home. Most of my partners have had similar type jobs. After the advent of internet dating, I went out with a heating engineer. Lovely bloke but he just could not get my job. What he really hated was that I often needed to pick up important emails in the evening whereas his job was totally defined. When he was at his job he was 100% dedicated to it but once he had finished, he didn’t need to think about it at all. It sounds similar to your fella!

in the end we broke up. He now goes out with a yoga teacher and is much happier and I’m with someone who owns their own business!

it may just be that it can’t work if he can’t get it. Nothing wrong with it either. Some people just like different things!

I'm being nosy OP- what exactly do you do?

I have a manual job for him. Get him to put a lock on your office door and don’t give him a key

can you work somewhere not in the actual house op?

I work at home a lot. If the office door is shut it means don't come in, it seems to work for us. If I had to keep explaining what I was doing I would never get through what I was supposed to be doing.

More fool you for moving him in, now your his full time entertainer.

I just want to say I think you sound like a really lovely partner, OP, and I don't think this is a simple 'set better boundaries' issue like other posters are making out. I think him feeling a bit lost is a big part of this as others have said.

My partner and I both WFH and have a decent understanding of what each other's jobs entail and he still interrupts me quite a bit even though he knows it frustrates me. He's just a lot more social than me and does have a job where sometimes you just click a button and walk away for a bit (software developer) whereas I am more like you in that I work with data. My partner can recognise when I really want him to leave me alone though without me telling him (I struggle to be direct because I feel guilty and I think in the circumstances you're doing well to be honest with yours!) He is also much better now that his role is more demanding and happier for it.

I haven't read the full thread so maybe other's have suggested this, but something I'd like to be able to do is have set points where I step away and have a 10-15 minute coffee break with him where we both get to properly connect without feeling interrupted, would that work? I haven't managed it because I have ADHD so once I'm in flow I find it really hard to stop at a set time and then before I know it, it's the end of the day. Also we do normally try to spend lunch together and coordinate when we could do that and my partner is helpful in that he tends to go out and get it/make it while I walk the dog, could having that arrangement help as then he gets to feel useful?

I understand this BC my DH has been the same in recent months since stopping work for health reasons.

It's annoying at best and frustrating BC I need to concentrate in my work and the stress is already making it difficult enough.

I do stop naturally every hour or so for a few minutes and make a drink, turn the wash off etc and try to interact then but it's not enough for him.
He's a professional who used to demand to be left alone when he was in the office..

When he's back in work, keep calling him so he has to stop what he's doing all the time. He will soon learn how annoying it is to be interrupted continually!

Post working hours on the door/ by your computer and not available for comment during these hours.
To be honest it's a bit of a red flag , his not being able to appreciate other kinds of work- what does he think you get paid for?