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?

Ask him if he would consider it acceptable to call you at the office several times an hour if you went into an office to do your job. If he knows it wouldn’t be he is capable of understanding that you are paid to achieve the same work at home. If he thinks it would be then headphones and a lock on the door is probably enough to get your point across. Even if I wasn’t working the constant need for attention would drive me insane though.

It doesn't matter whether or not he understands your work. He needs to accept that during your working hours, you are not available (except perhaps in a real emergency of course). I would be inclined to tell him that his interruptions are unnecessary and disrespectful and they either stop or he moves back out.

Get a lock on the door and tell him you are unavailable when the door is locked.

I have friends who WFH and during the day they don’t see one another unless they are both in the kitchen at lunchtime.

Do you have a seperate room to work in?

In short he needs to grow up and stop expecting you to entertain him.

god from your description, his cock would need to be made of gold!

come on OP you're clearly very smart! He isn't listening to what you're telling him, not because he doesn't understand, but because he doesn't want too.

Noise cancelling headphones. When your wearing them tell him you cannot be disturbed.

Put a lock on the door, sign on it “I’m at work” and get some noise cancelling headphones and just ignore him. He’s being selfish wanting your time because he’s bored, even if he doesn’t understand the ins and outs of your job he knows that work, whatever format or location it is, isn’t something partners can just hang around in.

I totally get what you mean OP - my DH works from home and I used to drive him crazy with just chatting to him from the kitchen while he was working in the dining room (just moved house so no office set up yet) I would see him sat there at his laptop and just think I could ask him things / chat while he was working - but he couldn’t concentrate and it drove him crazy.

Our solution was that DH made a “do not disturb” sign - when the sign is up (and the door closed) I don’t interrupt. If the sign isn’t up it means he’s doing something that I can interrupt. We both understand it, neither of us are offended or upset by it.

i don’t agree with other posters that say your partner is controlling - I certainly didn’t interrupt my DH for that reason - I just needed it to be spelt out to me in a clearer way that I couldn’t interrupt his work.

He'd have to have a chocolate penis that ejaculates money for me to consider this man anything remotely like 'pretty amazing'.

Do NOT change your work role because of his 'hurt feelings' and his lack of intelligence when it comes to the simple concept of working in your home office.

"just pressing a few buttons"? I am going to agree with the rest. He is either extremely stupid or he doesn't respect you at all.

This is actually a really good idea. He worked as a lorry driver, so I'm sure I could come up with a similar analogy. Something like asking him to take a one-hour detour on the road just to watch a ten-second video.

I would be genuinely be worried about an adult who cannot comprehend that there are different types of 'work' to their own. Is he otherwise reasonably bright?

First paragraph in OP.

"I work from what used to be the box room, now repurposed as a home office."

Doesn’t matter how amazing he is in all other respects OP, his stupidity cancels everything else out. Yes including a big gold cock and huge amounts of dough in the bank.

just needed it to be spelt out to me in a clearer way that I couldn’t interrupt his work.

Why wasn't that a given?

Ok, so let's assume the best and he just doesn't get it. Although based on hour posts, it sounds like you've really tried to explain so I'm not entirely convinced best case scenario is realistic.

The answer here is very simple, and if he can't get it, then hyes, y ou're back to NOT best case scneario that he's really dumb, really controlling or just downright disrespectful:

• I get paid to work full time. Do you believe I am working or that I'm just sitting on my butt doing nothing and get paid money for nothing?
• You might not see or understand the exact nature of my job, but if you love and respect me, you will believe me when i tell you that while I might not look busy, I am, and that you interupting me is a big problem.
• My job might be different, but you interupting me when I'm working on a data process is no different to me insisting you stop and watch a video while you're midway through plastering a wall or moving a beam - it completely interupts the flow of work and can be downright counter productive.

He doesn't actually have to understand though. he has to believe you and respect you. and if he's not doing that, he's a dick.

How long has he been currently between jobs OP?

Imagine that:
The data on my screen are a list of numbers. My job is to add them all together and report the sum. I'm not able to use any tool for that, I have to do it in my head. Every distraction means I have to start from the beginning.

In the real world it's not just adding up numbers, but it is still about getting the whole thing to my head and deciding how to process it.

Sod all these attempts to rationalise it to him like he’s a child! Tell him that between the hours of X and Y you are at work and not to be interrupted. At all. You will be available for socialising during your lunch hour/break at Z o clock for 40 mins or whatever. Otherwise it needs to wait till you’ve finished work.

Just really clear and simple. If he’s a decent bloke then he would be able to comprehend that. If he persists in breaking those boundaries then you have a lack of respect in the relationship. That would be a major issue for me.

Your job sounds pretty cool.

Get a Do Not Disturb sign for the door and wear headphones. And repeat, repeat, repeat you can't talk.

He sounds like my in-laws twenty years ago.
They rang with updates and queries because my husband was ‘at work’ out of the house.

They had an excuse
because of their age and very conservative life.

Younger generation, no excuse.

Yes it's like how having a quick toilet break when you're driving adds 20 min to your journey.

There are documented studies about the costs of interruption - think it's something like every 5 minute interruption costs 25 minutes.

However OP...you're defending him on the basis that he has no experience of this type of work so doesn't understand. I mean...most people have some imagination, empathy, or belief in what the person actually going through something tells them. Like I've never been a farmer, but I understand from inlaws who work in that area how gruelling and never ending it can seem.

You are making excuses for him and asking for advice on how you can get him to respect your job and your time. That should pretty much be a given in any relationship, and I'd be pretty insulted if anyone, let alone a partner who knew me well, compared the 'thinking' / reading time in my job to 'scrolling on socials' or insinuated I was doing nothing. My mum had a manual type job and has never worked in an office type of environment plus gave up work when I was born and would never dream of disturbing me when I was working from home other than in an emergency

I refuse to believe anyone is too stupid to understand the idea of desk based work. He went to school presumably so he knows what concentrating on a non-physical task is. My 5 yo is able to grasp the concept that Mummy and Daddy spend their day on the computer and it's work.

If you really believe that this man, who is an adult and as far as you have mentioned does not have a serious learning disability, doesn't understand working on a computer, then you are willingly being taken for a ride.

When does he go back to work?