Things that make going to work OK.

[OrmIrian]

1. The coffee fairy. Who ensures there is always coffee, milk and sugar in the kitchen. I have never had to make a mad dash to the corner shop because we've run out.

1. The toilet paper fairy. Same as above. Also applies to paper towels and soap.

1. The cleaning fairy who ensure the toilets, kitchen and the office generally are 20x tidier and pleasanter than home.

1. Clean windows. Never had to stare pointlessly out of the window through smudges and streaks.

1. People are polite. No-one ever grunts at me, ignores me or says 'but it's not fair. X had some', or 'I don't want to do Y'. They might be cross about something but they confine themselves to mildly snotty e-mails copied to someone else. No-one tends to have tantrums and throw things.

1. If I make an effort to scrub up a little no-one says 'Mummy why are you wearing those funny shoes?'. They might think it but they don't say it.

1. People always say please and thankyou, and I never have to say 'what do you say?' when I fix a problem, or e-mail a report.

1. Most of all, whilst I am grateful for all these, I am most grateful of all that these things happen without me having to do anything about it! And it they don't, it's somebody else's fault.

Nope you didm't kill it rebel. It just limps along slowly anyway!.

I almost dread to ask where you work .

Love this thread and agree with so many things on it - esp. the hot cup of tea.

Omiran - it's so interesting you saying the relief working f/t. I work p/t (3 days) and whilst everybody says .it is the best of both worlds sometimes I feel as though it's the worst of both I worry about DS whilst at work and work whilst at home and I am forever doing 'lists'.

Ignore grammar - posted before preview.

It surprised me too mammy. I really didn't want to do it. But when I did it before DH was working full-time so it was much harder. And now we actually do about 50% of childcare. Rather than me doing 90%

Flowery bean bag: I am a freelancer working from home and I LOVE it!! I wouldn't swap it for an office job ever! I get all day to myself, all the non-interruption advantages that WOHM peeps have plus the absolute heaven of having NO-ONE to order me around - no boss, no annoying coworkers. If I feel like going shopping seeing people I engineer a meeting in town, if not there's no-one to distract me. No-one to tell me I can't MN during the day .

I do exactly what I want, pick and choose my jobs, if I've got a lot of money coming in I can laze a bit, if not I can work more. And I get to pick up the kids straight from preschool, spend the afternoon with them.

And while I have to be the tea-coffee-bogroll-stationery fairy/fleet/IT manager all in one, I can just put it all down as expenses so that takes a chunk off the housekeeping. And luckily I have an IT-literate DH who does all my computer maintenance in the evenings so no waiting on the mercy of some overworked IT lackey.

And said DH has had enough of being sociable to people at work all day so when he comes home just wanting a bit of peace and quiet he's the perfect babysitter while I just have to go out and see my mates because "darling you just don't know what it's like working alone all day long"

I don't really enjoy the working from home bit. It sounds much better in theory than in practice for me. The day is divided up too much with nursery, school etc so I end up in fact having short spurts of activity and too many schedules to hadle. Shortly back to FT WOTH, I'll give that a go again.

I found that too cthea. In some ways it's great. Good for getting the odd bit of housework but not for getting much work done. I did 5 whole weeks of it recently and that was enough to last a very long time.

Eating breakfast and lunch and not having to share it with DD. Heaven.

I love...the quietness, the peace, the adult conversation. I work in an all-female place so only thing missing is male eyecandy. Apart from all that, I love walking out the door in the morning and leaving dh to get the kids to school (he works from home), bliss.

I'm using this thread to remind me of all the things that are good about work, but at the moment I'm struggling to appreciate them - just gone back full-time to a completely new job (didn't want to, but it's complicated) and have to do all the nursery drop-offs/pick-ups/preparation for DS and DD, apart from when I'm on a week of night shifts which is a whole new story. I work for the NHS so lunch breaks and IT support are not exactly the highlight of my day, and going back has just brought into focus the things that I didn't like about the NHS in the first place. Plus DD is still feeding in the night (need to sort that out before my next set of nights - DH is great, but doesn't have norks) and DS (just 4) has taken umbrage to going to nursery full-time and is being ultra stroppy. Plus I'm trying to write my thesis in the evenings and do all the good mummy Halloween/Christmas stuff, too.

AND SOME BASTARD YOUTHS HAVE JUST STAMPED ON THE PUMPKIN WE PUT ON THE DOORSTEP ALL READY FOR TONIGHT!! Sorry. So it's good to read about people enjoying work and good to remind myself that I would go mad if I stayed at home, but I'm all for throwing in the towel at the moment.......

(Apologies for hijacking OP, and for depressing nature of post. Actually I feel better already for just writing it down )

lol Ormirian (I ALWAYS have to look to see how that's spelt!).

I do admin in a residential setting.

It's been an odd week.

smellyeli - have you thought of getting a home help in the evenings. I did this shortly after starting ft work afetr dd2. I found I didn't stop once I got home until I collapsed into bed. It transformed life for the whole family. Gumtree is teaming with people who want a bit of extra pocket money out of normal hours.

Hadn't thought about a home help - what does yours do? I would feel odd with someone else in the house doing 'my' work, I suppose, but it might be worth a try - thanks.

Ours originally arrived at 6pm about when I got in. Entertained kids while I prepared their meal (stuck left overs in microwave ), then while I sat with kids and fed them, she'd run a bath, get pyjamas ready, sterilise bottles and the best bit is when I bath the kids she cleans the kitchen. She often helps with laundry, putting on a load or sorting out the dry stuff and then reads to dd1 when I put dd2 to bed. She would leave at 7.30pm The going rate is £8 an hour in London so for 4 nights a week we were paying £48. Dh would be home early on Fri. I ended up working further from the nursery so more recently has also collected kids for me from 5pm. Life is so much easier and all I do once she's gone is cook in an immaculate kitchen then eat and relax.

Sorry to hijack tread.

Thanks! I will look into it.

OrmIrian can I hijack once more just a little bit please.

I have worked full time taking 6 months maternity leave with 3 kids and have always been really pleased with that arrangement - I'm not keen on doing whole days of childcare every week. My dd1 starts school next Sept and I have prepared myself for a big fight to get shorter hours. I aim to be able to collect from school at least 3 days a week. This may prove to be a very difficult fight to win. Do you think I'm mad to even try?

I did it ohIdo. I went from 39 hours plus in the office, to 39 hours incl 6 hours a week working from home, to 30 hours a week including 2 days at home, back recently to full-time with one day working from home with the proviso that I will come in on that day if essential and if notice is given and that I can work more days from home if neccessary.

It depends on your employer and the nature of the job. Is yours the sort of job that can be done in shorter hours?

If you make someone a drink, they don't throw it on the floor and scream "NOT BLUE CUP, WANT RED CUP! RED CUP!!!!"

And they usually say "Oh, thank you very much."

In theory it could be done in fewer hours, but I won't know for certain what it'll be like trying to do that until I'm trying to do it IYKWIM.

1. Coffee is overpriced horrible gloop, I bring in my own.

2-4. Found the cleaner crying in the loos the other week. She usually wanders around looking miserable, trying to clean at noon what people have been wrecking since she last cleaned up at 8.

1. Actually, one of my colleagues did shout and storm out of a meeting t'other day. Then he sent the miffed emails.

1. Hmm.

1. Hmm... If they talk to each other at all.

1. No - it's usually my fault because I've been daft enough to point out the thing that was broke and that no-one wanted to fix.

1. No, I have to buy my own. The stuff hidden in the stationery cupboard is cheap and orrible.

10. Hhahahahahhhaah. TBH, I'd rather be at home and have the luxury of saying, "Hello!!!!! Can you hear me????"

this thread has made me laugh

I get really fed up at work but looking at all these responses

I agree with them all..

I especailly like an hour for my lunch

the post that made me laugh really hard was colditiz

want red cup!! so true

LOL funny why do I go to work then, none of those seem to apply at my work.

1. No coffee fairy, some places there is a kettle and 2 yr old tea bags, sour milk or ancient little UHT tubs, but today I was brought 2 cups of tea, BLISS!

1. Quite often it is portaloos (enough said) or overused loos with queues at them.

1. Cleaning fairy, haha often knee deep in mud.

1. Windows not clean that is if I even have windows.

1. Fellow staff can be very freindly, rude, shouty or just off hand, big mix. Same with customers wide range of attitudes.

1. Always get slagged off for new haircut and my silly socks all freindly banter though.

1. People sometimes polite.

1. Always frustrated at the things that don't get done, from staff welfare to how we do the job.

1. Never provided with pen and paper, I provide my own.

10. To get my staf to do things it is all about bribery (biscuits work well), persueding and generally working very hard with them.

11. Heating haha, often freezing both indoors and out.

I think I will stop now bfore I decide to never go back to work. I love it really I suppose its the challenge .

OK! I am now aware how lucky I am. Obviously I am featherbedded in my job. Which is just how I like it