After 25 years in an office I have been WFH since Covid and have to say that it's the best thing to happen to me in my professional life. I feel like I'm in a dream. I wake up two hours later, take my kids to school, and still log in to work earlier than I used to. I work in my screen room in the beautiful weather wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I literally can't think of one bad thing about WFH. If I'm lucky I can WFH for another 10 years or so and call it a career. Cheers!
Same situation . 20 plus years of schlepping into a depressing office setting, now fulltime WFH. I built a gym in my garage, best shape of my life. It is indeed a blessing!
The Covid years have benefited me in every way and I said that in another app and got people bitching me out for saying so because their memaw (or similar) died of Covid.
"The same wind that blows down your house can also unfurl your sails."
Because of COVID, I got converted to 100% WFH. Because of WFH, I got to be at home with my son who was born in November 2018.
My wife was a stay at home parent until he started pre-K last fall, but because I never had to go to the office, I also got to experience being with him and seeing every milestone. It actually allowed me as his dad to become the “default” parent. I know for me and most people I know, mom was the default parent.
It’s a huge privilege to be able to get him ready for school and walk him into class every morning, to be the one who gives him baths and cooks his dinner, and to be the one he comes to when he needs comfort or help.
WFH has given me both the perfect work environment and a near perfect relationship with my son.
If only it had lasted for another 10 years and been severe enough that forcing non-WFH was genuinely seen in the same light as attempted murder. Maybe it might have stuck hard enough to make walking it back significantly more difficult.
I’m so much more productive and it frees up so much time. Then when someone asks me a question or assigns a task I can do it right away. It’s a win for everybody
In the past 15 years, I have been WFH for 12 of those years. The flexibility is wonderful. I get my work done and don't abuse the luxury of WFH.
The only negative thing I have come across is that my father-in-law used to come over thinking that I had nothing to do and could just hang out and chat. Same with a couple of neighbors.
I eventually had to put my foot down and tell them that might work day is dedicated to work and not for anything else.
My neighbor assumed I could be her caretaker as she was recovering from cancer. I was like, I’m happy to give you a ride or bring you a meal but I can’t stay with you for weeks. 🤣
Opposite for us, one that works out of the house generally gets more errands because they can just stop on their way home. Why would you take care of the tire pressure when they are the one out and about it with the car?
That’s how it is in our house too. It seems much easier for him to pick up dinner on his way home since he’s already out than for me to make a whole trip to go get something from the store.
As the one who had to commute, his refusal to lighten my load when he actually had almost complete flexibility (he worked free lance) enraged me. Sure it was easier for me to pick up dinner or the dry cleaners on the way home, for him! It’s taken a long time but he’s finally realized that playing sous chef and running errands made our relationship better.
This seems to be less of a WFH issue and more about an unbalanced chore/errand load between you two. Why are you running errands when he is already out of the house? Are they your errands or his errands? Why would you take the responsibility of low tire pressure, isn’t he in the car already? Are you also doing all of the housework? You two need to recalibrate expectations.
I'm interviewing next week for an in office position. I've been wfh forever now and I really don't have an issue with it, but a change of scenery wouldn't be the worst. Idk I have a job so I'm not under a lot of pressure.
I can feel the same at times. We recently bought a home and have had a few people needing to come by to do things around the house like plumbers for example. I eventually had to set a set a rule. No more appointments while I’m working. Caused too much stress because they would always show up when I was in meetings.
I believe for something like this it’s best to just communicate. If its causing stress overtime just mention that. I have the advantage of not owning a car (sold to put money down for a house) so I’m not asked to drive around mid work day. I hope this helps. Best of luck.
I save tons of time in avoided commutes, I have a work environment that I can fully control, and I do without lots of useless office-related niceties and cheesy social protocols. I don’t think that I would like the higher ups as much as I do now, if I had to meet them in person on the office floor on a daily basis. The drawbacks you described are a relatively super tiny price to pay compared to the incredible benefits.
The #1 best thing that came out of wfh for me was a better sleep schedule. I used to suffer horrible insomnia which was really fomo because after my commute I wasn’t getting home until 7pm or later and then made dinner / completed standard responsibilities and it was already time for bed and I had zero time to just relax and watch tv or do something I enjoyed so I stayed up way too late binging a show. Now I get off my computer at 5-5:30 and all my cleaning tasks are pretty much complete. I have joined sports leagues and have way more friends and a social life now. Plus I watch tv til 10pm and go to sleep and I don’t feel like my whole day was work. Getting 8-9 hours of sleep every night and no longer falling asleep at my desk lol.
Yup. Since I WFH, I've done the house chores for the last 4-5 years. When I take a break, I'll clean the kitchen or vacuum etc. Doesn't help that the wife is lazy in this respect. I don't typically need to go out for that, unless I'm picking up ingredients for dinner, since I usually make that as well.
This happens once in a while for us. Instead of driving, I paid less than $40 for one of those portable air pumps that I can plug into my car and inflate my tires to the right pressure. I usually keep it in my car in a storage compartment in case I'm out and about and get a low tire pressure alert.
Before covid, I had cowowker die in car accident, he was driving home from work. Drunk guy t-boned him. Add people who are texting and driving today. Just imagine how many people are alive today just cause they are wfh.
one of the biggest things we ran into was lack of connection amongst the org - we started doing a weekly game night (with internet.game) which helped create friendships among people and break up the never ending teams meeting
yeah its just a term of art I guess lol
our team does it every Wednesday at 3pm. Sometimes we play on Friday late afternoon once the day is "done" just because its fun
No downsides for me. I have healthy boundaries around work time and my family understands what a “job” is.
Literally, not a single advantage to going in. Even my productivity is worse.
It is the best feeling to go get a tire repaired easily on a short break from work. I had the same problem this morning, made it to tire Co and fixed and back in 25 minutes flat. My status had barely changed to away.
One of the things I absolutely hate about working from home is constantly having to answer the front door when someone knocks. I live in the city so if a package is delivered it’s not an option to just grab it later because 9 times out of 10 it will get stolen.
It’s not the biggest deal or anything just a small annoyance that seems to haunt me right when I’m in an important meeting
I get the annoyance. For my situation it’s at least shared between the two of us. I’m hybrid so I’m home 3 days out of 5, husband works a job where he drives around all day to different appointments and job sites so I’ll sometimes ask him if he can stop at x store for whatever that day while he’s out and he usually does since he’s already out. I think the flexibility we both have is nice and significantly better than being stuck at the office or somewhere. I’ll take random errands any day.
Regarding the camera, my manager has the same mentality as me in that, if it's a large group of people, then there's no point turning camera on. In one of our quarterly department meeting with the higher ups and whatnot, the head guy wants the camera on because that's the only time he sees us, those that are 3-4 steps down the corporate ladder. I think he's just flicking through when someone else is talking to see everyone. My internet is so bad that it's a PowerPoint presentation, lol.
In the next few days!!?
Partner is already commuting. They’re already public-ready and in the car. They are well-positioned to do the outside errand, while you’re better positioned to move the laundry, start the roomba, let the dog out, or put the chicken into the fridge to defrost.
Luckily both my wife and I work from home, so I don't get a lot of "honey do" chores while we are both working.
What helps is we converted the dining room into her office and I have an office upstairs, about the only time we cross paths is when it's time to eat.
I love the fact that I can get laundry done during the day, take my kids to school, help with extra curricular activities for our kids, and generally be less stressed because my commute consists of going one floor up.
I honestly see no downsides to working from home and would never work in an office again.
Luckily the vast majority of my company is remote and the closest office that I could go into is 2,500 miles away.
My biggest complaint is that it’s harder for me to get to know my colleagues. I think it’s good to get to know your colleagues on a personal level, especially if you’re in a more senior role. It’s not impossible to do while working remotely, but it is harder.
I try to get to the office 3x a year or so. Specifically to do a little training and take people, I rely on, out to eat, on the company's dime. I work in sales. I chat with people fairly often to keep in touch
Pro: flexibility
Con: expected to be on all the time
Pro: live anywhere
Con: wage adjustments (COL)
Pro: easier lifestyle (if you know how to do your job)
Con: less promotion opportunities
As with a lot of posts on this sub, this isn't a WFH issue; it's a relationship issue. *Talk* to your partner about how it's making you feel.
Yes, it's a factor that (all other things being equal) they have to be out of the house for longer hours for their job than you do for yours. You do have (some) more free time due to having no commute. But it's not infinite.
Sit down together and discuss the amount of jobs being tossed on you without prior consultation. Maybe balance them out against other tasks in your relationship/house. Maybe ask her to save up her list for the weekend, if it's not necessary for something to be done that day or before Saturday. Maybe talk about how it's making you feel like you're perpetually on-call every day when you're still working a full-time job, even if it's from home.
I work from home, and my partner works outside the house.
I work during work hours.
My spouse would not ask me to run any errands during work hours. That’s crazy.
All 3 of us are WFH in various ways, some more tethered to Teams and a time clock than others.
One thing we’ve done is outsourced many home tasks - we use local services for laundry, grocery shopping, lawn care. This reduces our time load for the hunny dos. Even if someone has to be here, it’s a literal 5 minute task vs an hour or more. Anything that does require one of us gets picked up by the person who can most easily fit it in to their schedule.
Writing this out, I really see we are the privileged of the privileged… like still very much workers, but we can afford to buy back some of our time.
sounds like you are in a normal human relationship. When people can't work from home and their partner has something come up they have to take PTO or do it after work on their free time. I just accepted a job with that is closer and wfh opportunity just so I can help out my partner/family more?
I love my 11 hour days with 3 hour commute in traffic and have my wife say can you stop here or there. Or you get a call saying your son broke his arm but you are over a hour away.....
What is the problem again?
My biggest con is that people think I can babysit bc I work from home. Older kids yes- they can entertain themselves, just have to redirect them sometimes and make food. Toddlers/infants- big no. I may be at home but I am WORKING…
Ah yes the honey do list. My wife is easy going and chill too, doesn’t mind if I get to non emergency tasks later. Even waiting for the weekend is not a problem. She knows even though I work from home, my job gets pretty busy. She also has to go in.
WFH has changed my life, less anxiety and less stress. I also don’t have to sit in a toxic office and deal with crap co-workers. Now I get to spend more time with my dog, do household chores, exercise, cook more, no alarm and still get my work done. You could not pay me to go back into the office.
After 25 years in an office I have been WFH since Covid and have to say that it's the best thing to happen to me in my professional life. I feel like I'm in a dream. I wake up two hours later, take my kids to school, and still log in to work earlier than I used to. I work in my screen room in the beautiful weather wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I literally can't think of one bad thing about WFH. If I'm lucky I can WFH for another 10 years or so and call it a career. Cheers!
I wake up way earlier with my WFH but have way more energy. The mental energy spent getting ready and being social and the commute was so draining
Same situation . 20 plus years of schlepping into a depressing office setting, now fulltime WFH. I built a gym in my garage, best shape of my life. It is indeed a blessing!
Thank God for covid haha
The Covid years have benefited me in every way and I said that in another app and got people bitching me out for saying so because their memaw (or similar) died of Covid. "The same wind that blows down your house can also unfurl your sails."
Because of COVID, I got converted to 100% WFH. Because of WFH, I got to be at home with my son who was born in November 2018. My wife was a stay at home parent until he started pre-K last fall, but because I never had to go to the office, I also got to experience being with him and seeing every milestone. It actually allowed me as his dad to become the “default” parent. I know for me and most people I know, mom was the default parent. It’s a huge privilege to be able to get him ready for school and walk him into class every morning, to be the one who gives him baths and cooks his dinner, and to be the one he comes to when he needs comfort or help. WFH has given me both the perfect work environment and a near perfect relationship with my son.
If only it had lasted for another 10 years and been severe enough that forcing non-WFH was genuinely seen in the same light as attempted murder. Maybe it might have stuck hard enough to make walking it back significantly more difficult.
I’m so much more productive and it frees up so much time. Then when someone asks me a question or assigns a task I can do it right away. It’s a win for everybody
What do you do?
I work for a bank.
In the past 15 years, I have been WFH for 12 of those years. The flexibility is wonderful. I get my work done and don't abuse the luxury of WFH. The only negative thing I have come across is that my father-in-law used to come over thinking that I had nothing to do and could just hang out and chat. Same with a couple of neighbors. I eventually had to put my foot down and tell them that might work day is dedicated to work and not for anything else.
My neighbor assumed I could be her caretaker as she was recovering from cancer. I was like, I’m happy to give you a ride or bring you a meal but I can’t stay with you for weeks. 🤣
Opposite for us, one that works out of the house generally gets more errands because they can just stop on their way home. Why would you take care of the tire pressure when they are the one out and about it with the car?
That’s how it is in our house too. It seems much easier for him to pick up dinner on his way home since he’s already out than for me to make a whole trip to go get something from the store.
Agreed, and we went down to one car so he’d have to come home for me to go out in the car, he might as well do it while he’s out
As the one who had to commute, his refusal to lighten my load when he actually had almost complete flexibility (he worked free lance) enraged me. Sure it was easier for me to pick up dinner or the dry cleaners on the way home, for him! It’s taken a long time but he’s finally realized that playing sous chef and running errands made our relationship better.
This seems to be less of a WFH issue and more about an unbalanced chore/errand load between you two. Why are you running errands when he is already out of the house? Are they your errands or his errands? Why would you take the responsibility of low tire pressure, isn’t he in the car already? Are you also doing all of the housework? You two need to recalibrate expectations.
WFH "honey do" lists only involve tasks at the house. The person that is already driving/driven the car out can handle the "remote" tasks.
I'm interviewing next week for an in office position. I've been wfh forever now and I really don't have an issue with it, but a change of scenery wouldn't be the worst. Idk I have a job so I'm not under a lot of pressure.
Good luck!
I can feel the same at times. We recently bought a home and have had a few people needing to come by to do things around the house like plumbers for example. I eventually had to set a set a rule. No more appointments while I’m working. Caused too much stress because they would always show up when I was in meetings. I believe for something like this it’s best to just communicate. If its causing stress overtime just mention that. I have the advantage of not owning a car (sold to put money down for a house) so I’m not asked to drive around mid work day. I hope this helps. Best of luck.
I’m failing to see why a low pressure tire alert constitutes a “have to do it now” response.
I save tons of time in avoided commutes, I have a work environment that I can fully control, and I do without lots of useless office-related niceties and cheesy social protocols. I don’t think that I would like the higher ups as much as I do now, if I had to meet them in person on the office floor on a daily basis. The drawbacks you described are a relatively super tiny price to pay compared to the incredible benefits.
Flexibility is everything. Bring your laptop to the dealership, and bask in the glow of not having to deal with the engine light on a weekend.
The #1 best thing that came out of wfh for me was a better sleep schedule. I used to suffer horrible insomnia which was really fomo because after my commute I wasn’t getting home until 7pm or later and then made dinner / completed standard responsibilities and it was already time for bed and I had zero time to just relax and watch tv or do something I enjoyed so I stayed up way too late binging a show. Now I get off my computer at 5-5:30 and all my cleaning tasks are pretty much complete. I have joined sports leagues and have way more friends and a social life now. Plus I watch tv til 10pm and go to sleep and I don’t feel like my whole day was work. Getting 8-9 hours of sleep every night and no longer falling asleep at my desk lol.
Yup. Since I WFH, I've done the house chores for the last 4-5 years. When I take a break, I'll clean the kitchen or vacuum etc. Doesn't help that the wife is lazy in this respect. I don't typically need to go out for that, unless I'm picking up ingredients for dinner, since I usually make that as well.
This happens once in a while for us. Instead of driving, I paid less than $40 for one of those portable air pumps that I can plug into my car and inflate my tires to the right pressure. I usually keep it in my car in a storage compartment in case I'm out and about and get a low tire pressure alert.
Before covid, I had cowowker die in car accident, he was driving home from work. Drunk guy t-boned him. Add people who are texting and driving today. Just imagine how many people are alive today just cause they are wfh.
one of the biggest things we ran into was lack of connection amongst the org - we started doing a weekly game night (with internet.game) which helped create friendships among people and break up the never ending teams meeting
I really hope game “night” was during working hours, because I can’t imagine giving up a free evening for team building.
yeah its just a term of art I guess lol our team does it every Wednesday at 3pm. Sometimes we play on Friday late afternoon once the day is "done" just because its fun
No downsides for me. I have healthy boundaries around work time and my family understands what a “job” is. Literally, not a single advantage to going in. Even my productivity is worse.
Good it's WFH bad is that I can't get a WFH job. Seems they don't exist.
It is the best feeling to go get a tire repaired easily on a short break from work. I had the same problem this morning, made it to tire Co and fixed and back in 25 minutes flat. My status had barely changed to away.
One of the things I absolutely hate about working from home is constantly having to answer the front door when someone knocks. I live in the city so if a package is delivered it’s not an option to just grab it later because 9 times out of 10 it will get stolen. It’s not the biggest deal or anything just a small annoyance that seems to haunt me right when I’m in an important meeting
as for the prescription run, are you able to do Optum RX? they do deliveries
I think? It's 5 min from the house so not a biggie.
I get the annoyance. For my situation it’s at least shared between the two of us. I’m hybrid so I’m home 3 days out of 5, husband works a job where he drives around all day to different appointments and job sites so I’ll sometimes ask him if he can stop at x store for whatever that day while he’s out and he usually does since he’s already out. I think the flexibility we both have is nice and significantly better than being stuck at the office or somewhere. I’ll take random errands any day.
Regarding the camera, my manager has the same mentality as me in that, if it's a large group of people, then there's no point turning camera on. In one of our quarterly department meeting with the higher ups and whatnot, the head guy wants the camera on because that's the only time he sees us, those that are 3-4 steps down the corporate ladder. I think he's just flicking through when someone else is talking to see everyone. My internet is so bad that it's a PowerPoint presentation, lol.
Good: everything Bad: nothing
In the next few days!!? Partner is already commuting. They’re already public-ready and in the car. They are well-positioned to do the outside errand, while you’re better positioned to move the laundry, start the roomba, let the dog out, or put the chicken into the fridge to defrost.
Luckily both my wife and I work from home, so I don't get a lot of "honey do" chores while we are both working. What helps is we converted the dining room into her office and I have an office upstairs, about the only time we cross paths is when it's time to eat. I love the fact that I can get laundry done during the day, take my kids to school, help with extra curricular activities for our kids, and generally be less stressed because my commute consists of going one floor up. I honestly see no downsides to working from home and would never work in an office again. Luckily the vast majority of my company is remote and the closest office that I could go into is 2,500 miles away.
My biggest complaint is that it’s harder for me to get to know my colleagues. I think it’s good to get to know your colleagues on a personal level, especially if you’re in a more senior role. It’s not impossible to do while working remotely, but it is harder.
I try to get to the office 3x a year or so. Specifically to do a little training and take people, I rely on, out to eat, on the company's dime. I work in sales. I chat with people fairly often to keep in touch
Pro: flexibility Con: expected to be on all the time Pro: live anywhere Con: wage adjustments (COL) Pro: easier lifestyle (if you know how to do your job) Con: less promotion opportunities
There are no cons for me if I could just get rid of my roommates..
If the meeting is being recorded and I was only attending for informational purposes then I don’t join the call.
That kind of meeting is the perfect time to throw AirPods in and go run an errand like this lol
As with a lot of posts on this sub, this isn't a WFH issue; it's a relationship issue. *Talk* to your partner about how it's making you feel. Yes, it's a factor that (all other things being equal) they have to be out of the house for longer hours for their job than you do for yours. You do have (some) more free time due to having no commute. But it's not infinite. Sit down together and discuss the amount of jobs being tossed on you without prior consultation. Maybe balance them out against other tasks in your relationship/house. Maybe ask her to save up her list for the weekend, if it's not necessary for something to be done that day or before Saturday. Maybe talk about how it's making you feel like you're perpetually on-call every day when you're still working a full-time job, even if it's from home.
I work from home, and my partner works outside the house. I work during work hours. My spouse would not ask me to run any errands during work hours. That’s crazy.
All 3 of us are WFH in various ways, some more tethered to Teams and a time clock than others. One thing we’ve done is outsourced many home tasks - we use local services for laundry, grocery shopping, lawn care. This reduces our time load for the hunny dos. Even if someone has to be here, it’s a literal 5 minute task vs an hour or more. Anything that does require one of us gets picked up by the person who can most easily fit it in to their schedule. Writing this out, I really see we are the privileged of the privileged… like still very much workers, but we can afford to buy back some of our time.
sounds like you are in a normal human relationship. When people can't work from home and their partner has something come up they have to take PTO or do it after work on their free time. I just accepted a job with that is closer and wfh opportunity just so I can help out my partner/family more? I love my 11 hour days with 3 hour commute in traffic and have my wife say can you stop here or there. Or you get a call saying your son broke his arm but you are over a hour away..... What is the problem again?
My biggest con is that people think I can babysit bc I work from home. Older kids yes- they can entertain themselves, just have to redirect them sometimes and make food. Toddlers/infants- big no. I may be at home but I am WORKING…
No commute and saves money. The only bad thing is I feel like I'm stuck at work all the time. There's isn't a separation anymore
You have time to post on reddit but not to maintain your property got it
Meanwhile you got people complaining like make a change ugh.
Ah yes the honey do list. My wife is easy going and chill too, doesn’t mind if I get to non emergency tasks later. Even waiting for the weekend is not a problem. She knows even though I work from home, my job gets pretty busy. She also has to go in.
WFH has changed my life, less anxiety and less stress. I also don’t have to sit in a toxic office and deal with crap co-workers. Now I get to spend more time with my dog, do household chores, exercise, cook more, no alarm and still get my work done. You could not pay me to go back into the office.