My friend who also WFH wants us to work alongside one another

[Lorelai007]

I recently made a new friend with another mum who, like me, also works from home while she sends her DD to nursery. We've socialised a couple times, and I enjoy her company, but she's just asked me if I would be interested in working alongside one another on weekdays to create more of an office environment. I'm really not too keen on this idea, since I like coming back to my own home after dropping DS off at nursery, then I clean and do laundry while listening to a podcast, relax with a coffee on my balcony, then I stick my headphones on and do some work in between cooking and other household chores. Sometimes if I'm really tired I have an afternoon nap, or even a small glass of wine while reading my book before it's time to go and collect DS. I'm a bit of an introvert and during the week I like to be in my own space without interruption, it's how I recharge after spending all evening and morning and the weekend taking care of my active 3 year old son. I told my husband my reasons for not wanting to hang out with my friend on weekdays, and preferring to stay home alone, and he just laughed and jokingly said how I hate other people. This isn't true, I just can't function being in someone else's company for an entire day and then having to entertain my DS. I don't want to jeopardise my friendship, but I have no idea how to politely decline her suggestion. Also, we have completely different jobs and I need two monitors to work, plus my office is too small to accommodate the both of us.

Say you work with confidential information and are not allowed

3pm is also wine time chez nous and yes I wfh

I'd be a bit concerned about where the "working" bit of working from home fits in to this busy schedule of not actually working. If I believed any of this. This is the sort of thread that fuels employers demanding people return to the office.

Where I work, our Teams colour changes to yellow if your screen is inactive for a significant length of time, so you wouldn't be able to have a nap, for example.

It's occurred to me that the "friend" wants to use the OP's Wi-Fi and heating as well as companionship.

That’s just a feature of Teams I believe.
you can change and override your status, and set it to show as permanently available (green) if you wish.
However I think it’s highly suspicious if someone does this and not really in the spirit of how it’s supposed to be used.
statuses such as ‘be right back’ and ‘do not disturb’ are however quite useful.

Where I work nobody (thankfully) pays attention to your teams status or monitors it if you were to be away. In fact, I'm often on appear offline for days/weeks at a time.

Whilst I agree that is the right thing to do and not to monitor staff ie. It's fine to take breaks and yes do small things inbetween if your schedule allows it that day, as I do this from time to time myself and again it's very transparent with my employer..

I don't agree when it comes to the OPs approach as they've made it very clear they are doing fuck all the majority of the time. And as many other posters have said this is exactly why some companies are trying to kill off remote working. As someone with certain valid issues meaning full time office working was always a challenge, people like this ruining it for others really isn't fair

I've no skin in the game because I'm self employed but given the op's boss is happy ( says the op. The work they are required to do is done and that is what their employer wants and needs) it could equally be argued that if you are in a comparable job to the op where the boss wants x amount done in a day and it turns out that that work can actually be done in a few hours, leaving the rest of your day free then stretching that out to fill an 8 hour working office day involves lots of pointless 'must be seen to be working' work and the conclusion could be drawn that people in offices waste hours doing unnecessary stuff.

If you choose to work more hours getting more done than your job requires for the same pay when your boss is already perfectly happy that the work they want done is done - what's the point?

I want x work done in 8 hours. You will receive £Y.

I did it in 4 hours. Time to relax.

I did it in 4 hours, I'll do more work for the next 4 and collect no extra salary

I could do it in 4 hours then knock off but that would make me look lazy so I'll work really slowly to make it last.

Two out of those three are daft.

@ErinAndTonic I don't feel that I am being watched all the time at all. We are a team, and constantly message each other and have regular calls, so we often need to check that someone is free before calling.

There are online spaces that create this type of office space. Tell her to look at Flown.

I'm not convinced it's a real post but the way the OP has worked it sounds like it's a regular routine where she fits in a few hours of work during a day of chores and other things

Some days might be quiet or sometimes you might he able to do a day's work in 4 hours.. but if that happens every day surely it isn't technically a ft job? (Admittedly OP hasn't said whether it's a full or pt job)

I worked at home with a colleague once, I found it more enjoyable than wfh on my own but I do a practical job where you can often be chatting while working (I have the radio on if I'm on my own) which obviously wouldn't work for a lot of types of work

People have all sorts of different jobs, not everyone works a standard corporate office job pushing paper around for eight hours a day.

I go swimming or take a long walk every day, spend most days reading books, watching TV, or going round art galleries or museums. That's all part of my work process and my work/career is structured to permit this. I earn a ton of money this way and my "bosses" are perfectly happy and it would be unthinkable in my industry for them to interfere or micromanage or even ask how I spend my time. The only thing that matters is that I deliver the final product by the deadline.

My dad was an on-call expert for nuclear facilities, his job (for which he was highly paid) was simply to be on-call in the case of an emergency. So his job was just sitting by a phone all day, but he didn't do any actual work unless the phone rang, and the phone only rang if something had gone badly wrong. He couldn't nap or drink as he had to be alert and ready to go at a moment's notice, but he could spend all day watching TV or reading or gardening or shopping or basically anything else, as long as he was alert and in hearing distance of the phone.

Lots of jobs don't require nose to grindstone for 8 hours a day.

It's the most lightly-loaded job I've ever heard of! But at least you're honest. If this is the norm with wfh, no wonder no one wants to go into an office 😁

Shall we just say OP's post is far more 'try hard' than her work input?

I work from home, I put washing on (since it takes less than a minute), I answer the door to callers, I skype my co-workers, I even have music on in the background. I don't jump the shark by listening to podcasts and getting pissed. If I want a nap, I don't bill the time (I'm a self-employed contractor).

I suspect OP is a boss who wants people back in the office. Weird type of reverse.

I think that is the whole point of this thread.

Yeah got to be a reverse. I barely have time to go to the loo in between meetings. Have a nap?! LOL. I'd get harrassed on slack/teams/email/WhatsApp after about 20 mins of no responses.

My company allows all UK staff to WFH (and did before COVID) but they sacked someone who kept appearing on screen with a glass of wine in hand in the afternoon. Daytime drinking when you should be working (and then looking after a kid) seems like a really slippery slope to me, for anyone thinking about it.

Just say no, it doesn't work for you. You do t have to explain yourself.

I've worked from home for 10 years and it would be my idea of hell to work alongside side someone else. Half the reason I enjoy wfh is I don't have to be sociable

That sounds similar to my day, except we use Teams, not Skype.

Presumably OP doesn't do the same kind of job as you?

I don't know why people can't wrap their brains around the fact not everyone has the same job.

My job involves zero meetings, zero billable hours, and zero supervision or management. I also can't be fired. Those jobs exist.

I line manage staff who work from home and I wouldn't be impressed with you appearing to do your work around your housework etc !
Yes we know it goes on but I regularly monitor my team and check in on them. Your organisation seem very slack tbh.
As for your friend suggesting working together this could potentially breach GDPR.
Just say no.

I manage colleagues who work from home.

As long as they get the work done to a good standard I really don't mind if they also do other things.

Presenteeism is as pointless wfh as in the office.

I don't monitor them. I support them.

I don't think it's a weird request but it's also not weird to want to say no.
I have a big studio and a friend who works in the same industry (both own companies) sometimes comes for a coffee and to work out of my office. We use it as a time to bounce ideas of each other, talk about CPD, our professional body etc plus a bit of socialisation and company.
I have a lot of dedicated office space, fast WiFi and parking so it makes sense to come to me.
I would say they aren't our most productive days but they are good for our sanity however I made the offer with no expectations.

I wouldn’t be allowed for customer and company confidentiality

Presumably OP doesn't work in a job that involves confidential or customer info, though. Zillions of jobs don't involve any aspect that includes handling personal data.

I genuinely don't understand why posters assume their job is the only job that exists on the entire planet, and every one else does their exact job. Why? Clearly the OP doesn't do the same job as the posters saying they wouldn't be allowed to do what she does.

I think we all want a job that has time for naps, wine, podcasts.
There's laid back and there's do you actually work??