To be so glad WFH became a thing (and to absolutely hate anyone who tries to curtail its availability)

[Designless]

It's just life changingly good

It’s not just that is it. The older folk happily wfh on this thread don’t really care about young people who are missing out on face-to-face contact with mentors and learning from seniors. You can learn so much from working with colleagues face-to-face and learning from senior partners in the firm

I am not so sure about this osmosis theory. I am trying to decide what I learned from hearing conversations when I was in an early stage in my career. You do pick up things from overheard conversations more generally, but that is a different issue to learning how to do the job. Anyone who is good at mentoring should be able to do it remotely or based on 2-3 face to face days a week. Most people who work from home go into the office 1-2 days a week at least.

As for working from a bedroom, there are co-working spaces. Such spaces have areas for private calls so confidentiality shouldn't generally be an issue.

WFH full time was absolutely dreadful for me but hybrid is great and I’m glad remote positions exist for others if it suits them and can be done without detriment to the rest of the organisation.

I would love to have the option once or twice a week for all the reasons mentioned. However whenever I gave mentioned all these positive aspects, usually work from homers go out of their way to say how hard it is. How they don't take breaks etc etc.

Agree with this. There just aren't that many employers that are fully remote and ultimately if you find it damaging to WFH then don't work for a fully remote employer. We've all had to do things in our working life that weren't the best for us and didn't suit us personally or professionally, which is exactly why we strive to change things, including our jobs if need be, and find balance that does work. People just entering the workforce aren't and shouldn't be immune from those learning and development experiences either. I found working in retail utterly horrendous and suffered it as long as I needed to before I could get out of customer-facing jobs. Someone else will find working from home in say an admin based role horrendous and can make equally appropriate decision.

I’m glad it’s available to lots of people, I do it sometimes but would hate 100% wfh.

I do miss working with a team in the office, the vibe of Friday night drinks, the collective energy. That just doesn’t happen with wfh, I miss that a lot.

The context in which I referred to playmates was in response to the specific example of young people wanting folk to mess around with and socialise with after work.

thats not patronising that’s descriptive

Agree - it is the great opening up.

Yes (and no.)

It doesn’t just depend on firm boundaries. It also depends on your home layout. We have an old cottage. It doesn’t matter where in it DH goes, you can hear him (and therefore he can hear us.)

DS is now five and sort of understands ‘daddy is working’ but at two, he didn’t. Life was pretty miserable as any time spent at home was trying to stop him going in to DH so we spent most of our time out of the house.

Once again, I have a two year old at home with me and I’m so glad I don’t have DH at home, frankly. With the best will in the world you just feel in the way in your own home.

I would have loved working from home as a youngster. No exaggeration to say the office gave me suicidal ideation. I didn't realise this was the cause until it stopped being the cause. Being trapped among all those other people was awful. And yes as above the toilets etc

Open plan offices are the worst.

Without meaning to sound rude I think this thread just highlights the class system in this country. The ‘ haves’ who have adequate space, money to pay increased utilities to work comfortably at home and the ‘have nots’ who are shivering sitting on their beds in their cramped rentals.

Not necessarily. I work from my kitchen table with a plug in fleece blanket wrapped around me as I can’t afford to put the heating on all day. It’s still better and cheaper than travelling into an office.

Remember when they seemed like they were the worst they could possibly be and then HR said hold my beer and introduced hot desking?

Oh yes, I remember being in my early 20s and having senior partners spend hours every day teaching and guiding me. Oh hang on, no they didn't, they spoke to me when they wanted a coffee and sometimes handed me something and asked me to photocopy it, but wow, those 5 minutes spent queuing in Costa or photocopying documents really did give me some incredible experiences to add to my CV. 🙄

So if hairdressers have to spend their whole working day standing up should I also have to do that? People can pick what suits them.

I was one of the ‘have nots’ 10 years ago after my divorce & I was bloody thankful that I didn’t WFH then.

I think having the choice is the ideal. If I need to show a newer staff member how to do something I book it for one of the days we’re both in, & my workplace has a pretty good social engagement programme that a lot of the younger ones are involved in.

It is amazing for people who would otherwise not have been able to work at all due to disabilities etc too.
My DP has a WFH job, and it is the longest he has stayed in one role.

Me too

It's amazing to think how humiliating being a trainee in the early noughties was! "I ASKED FOR DECAF"

Can't pull that bs over Teams.

yep, people who are anti work from home are anti women and anti families in my opinion

It's genuinely life changing for so many. I become infuriated with colleagues who bang on about inclusion and fairness and the equality act and accessibility then are big backwards wankers about this.

I've never been described as a 'have' before. Have I jumped classes just because I can work from home?

I disagree with the wfh ethic. Fair enough on the odd occasion but as a permanent way of life - no. In any case its up to the employer whether folk are allowed to work from home and not for employees to dictate their conditions.

Oh my god how could I forget 😅 My employer started making noises about this after Covid but thankfully we avoided it.

Who the hell are you to disagree with me being happy and productive in my work? Do you think it's immoral to earn money from something that doesn't make the worker miserable?