Working from Home - what exactly do you do?

[TheHumanExperience]

I would love to work from home but in a creative way.

All I can find, are insurance, customer service and admin vacancies.

I wonder if anyone does something a little more interesting, or a job they actually love and can't wait to start every morning. If you do, what is it, and how did you get into it, and is there any hope for a late starter?

How do you take the plunge if you are considering self-employment from a steady but boring job, it's a big risk.

I work as a Graphic Designer, worked from home before the pandemic too. It's not very well paid but I don't get micromanaged and can pretty much plan my own day as long as the work gets done.

I work in a LA as a senior manager. My role is nominally office-based but tbh I can do most of my work from home so I typically do three days at home, two in the office to physically meet my team. My organisation has an agile working policy so if you can do your job from home, you’re free to do so. I would think these kind of arrangements are fairly common.

I work for the NHS, mostly from home, not heavily monitored at all. Although I do get on with work I have busier and quieter days, my manager can see my diary if he looks so would have a broad idea of what I'm doing but there are big patches in the day where I'm getting on with things rather than scheduled work. Like any job, over time it becomes obvious if you aren't doing your job but that's just the same if you are office based.

I definitely need to change my job, shame as I like the job, just can’t stand the micromanaging from one person!

I work in policy, wfh as much as I want but tend to do a couple of days a week in the office as I like it.

Don't recognise @Furcoatandnoknickerz description at all! I have a team of 10 and don't know how to track them beyond if their Teams status changes, but I don't question why!

I wfh in finance. Nobody is tracked in my dept.

Nope - not my experience at all. My work don't care if I don't answer a Teams call, or I'm 'away'. We're measured on outputs, not how long we sit in front of the computer.

@Woolandwonder Yes the amount of work can be monitored as everyone puts their work in their named folder, so there’s no need for the constant tracking. Obviously if you’re office based there are gaps as you can be speaking to patients/ colleagues etc.

I'm an Operations Director, no tracking as it would be me doing it! Very small, trustworthy, highly qualified team.

Slightly different as I'm technically self-employed. I tutor online. I have about 15 students and do about 20 hours a week. Getting daytime stuff is harder and I do tend to work on evenings and weekends. But if you can tutor for an in-demand subject and find students in the right time zones it can work really well. I'm not making mega bucks - but it's so much less stress than teaching and about the same /hour when it al shakes out.

Not true in my experience. I work in Cybersecurity and Compliance, I do a lot of my work on my mobile phone while out and about because I don't need to be sat at a computer screen to have a conversation with someone. I also flex my day to be able to meet virtually with colleagues globally so will often take long lunches but then have meetings in the late evening, or at 6am.

I’m never tracked. We are all respected and it’s understood we can and will nip away from desks to grab kids from school, have a quick coffee with someone, answer the door. We all work hard. Nobody would survive in our place who wasn’t dedicated and didn’t deliver. Some days I do lots and some less. But I never don’t deliver. I work in tech.

I'm monitored like that whether I'm home or in the office so no difference to me! Screens and calls recorded etc, personal time, breaks, lunch

I'm a personal assistant for a CEO. I'm contracted to be in the office 40% of the week, but I can work from home 60% of the week. I prefer to go into the office though. I think I am in the minority.

I have recently thought about starting a little stationery business. I have a garden office I could use and I'm creative... but I'm too scared to take the plunge. I sometimes think no one would pay for my (creative) work. I'm also in the process of planning my wedding, so I might try and do some bits for my own wedding and see how they turn out.

Me and DH both wfh (me full time, him 2/3 days a week). I am the arsey messenger unfortunately as my job is to monitor a call centre of 30 staff who all wfh too since covid. It's the nature of the role that I have to account for their time as calls are constant and so I closely monitor everyone and schedule lunch breaks etc.
I am somewhat monitored too as my manager would wonder where I was if the team were awol and I wasn't there chasing them up myself!

DH on the other hand is not monitored on time at all. He has loose office hours but often puts on/hangs out a load of washing if he has downtime. He just has work to get on with so is measured on output rather than having his every minute tracked.

@PeloFondo wow there is someone else! I knew I couldn’t be the only one!
I once had a snotty message for logging on at 1min past starting time. I’d had password probs , (in the building for 15 mins, ) nearly spent another few minutes changing it , good job I didn’t!

My wfh role is definitely less varied than it was was everyone was in the office. There are pros and cons but I do spend far too much time now in front of the monitor, and that's sad when I think about the face to face meetings I used to have evey day. Even if I went back to the office the meetings would still be on teams as everyone works in a hybrid way now.

I have an interesting and varied job, and I'm grateful for that and for not being monitored as others are, I just miss how it used to be.

@TheHumanExperience - if you're happy wfh provided the job is interesting there are definitely roles out there. They might not be advertised as wfh though. Technically I still have an office contractual base.

I work for a legal planning company doing admin from home

I work for a think tank. Technically my job is 1 day per week in the office and the rest from home but nobody really cares. No monitoring at all. I can work whatever hours I want so long as the work gets done.

I work from home as a senior civil servant.. and am definitely not highly monitored.

Another one coming on to say that my WFH is not tracked at all. In fact most of us are very chilled about it.

I'm a freelance commercial writer, was a teacher before. I do enjoy my job- it doesn't set my world alight but it is relatively low stress and extremely flexible, so I feel very fortunate. The downside is that it takes a long time to get started, or at least it did for me anyway. I reckon it took about 2 years to start making a full-time living from it.

I think you two are the outliers. I don't know anyone monitored in this way. What is your work area?

Call centre staff tend to be monitored closely but in terms of numbers of calls and quality monitoring and that was true before covid.

I don't monitor any of my teams in this way. We wouldn't do it as policy and if we could it would be counter productive. Any competent manager can look at outputs - that is the measure of effective work, not sitting at a keyboard.

@C8H10N4O2 I work for NHS!

@C8H10N4O2 contact centre/customer service/auto industry