Is it just me thinking wfh is abused?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think housing has gotten so expensive that people are stretched super-thin. They can’t afford childcare so they try to wfh without it.

Was waiting for you to show up. Surprised you haven't blamed the boomers for this, too.

I was talking with a younger colleague last week. They're paying over $5000 a month between rent and childcare (we're not in DC) and I couldn't believe it. My kids are all older, but I have no idea how people manage with costs like that. I know how much he makes and his salary alone isn't enough to cover that.

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That's...not outrageous, PP. That's pretty normal. Heck, 15 years ago, we paid $2500 for our mortgage, $1200 for preschool and $350/week ($1500/month) for daycare.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:DP but I have two co-workers who kept their infants at home for a full year while working full-time without any additional help (other than two WFH parents). One of them said she couldn't find childcare, the other one one said her mom was living with them (mom was definitely not living with them, we had mutual friends).

It’s like you are sad that two moms actually got to spend time with their infants!
No work is as important as this. And if they left work they would have a hard time going back because of policies that are hostile to mothers (and to everyone frankly with all the endless interviews).
I am glad infants are getting quality care instead of being in daycares

DP. If these women had the arrangement cleared with their employers, I would have zero complaints. But if they are taking advantage of the system, they are hurting all women in similar positions. We need longer parental leave, but the answer isn’t being paid for work while caring for a child.

Also infants get quality care in daycare. It would be amazing if we had longer parental leave, but don’t make parents feel like their child isn’t cared for in a quality daycare setting.

Let’s not fool ourselves
Policy changes won’t happen while our kids are little.
Maybe our grandkids? Who knows
And even a quality daycare is worse than 1:1 with a loving intelligent woman
It’s acceptable and doesn’t hurt the kids in the long run as there are so many factors at play but at least let’s be real

Is it though? When said loving, intelligent woman is also preoccupied with work? I would not be doing a good job at either my job or mothering if I was both working and taking care of my children at the same time. The only reason we do it now is because my kids are 8 and 10 and will just watch tv and read books for the hour between when they get home from school and when their dad and I are done working.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don’t know any parents skipping daycare but know several who gave up afterschool care (and they can definitely afford it). They also take an hour each day (outside of lunch) to pick their kids up at school and walk them home (but still log off at 5-5:30).

It’s frustrating to see as someone with kids who does the right thing, but I don’t work for their employers. If these are your coworkers, complain if it’s impacting you. Otherwise just smile politely when they complain about not getting raises or watch as their career stall.

I am sort of like this, except I start my day at 7 AM, frequently eat at my desk, and only take 20-30 minutes for pickup, so I'm definitely working a minimum of 8 hours a day. My 9 year old just wants to come home and veg on the couch until I'm done work. I don't see how this is abusing WFH. Maybe you don't see your coworkers logging on super early to make up time.

Well with all those caveats it certainly sounds like you are not abusing WFH and should probably be slightly annoyed with those that are, and whose actions could jeopardize your flexibility.

I don't actually know anyone I work with who abuses WFH flexibility, so no, I'm not annoyed with hypotheticals. I can honestly say I have excellent, dedicated colleagues who go above and beyond wherever they are working from. The RTO push jeopardizing my flexibility in my workplace has absolutely NOTHING to do with abuse of WFH.

Sure. Tell yourself that pipe dream. I did WFH on Friday due to snow. I logged on at 9ish in my PJs. Breakfast with family 10ish, shoveled out big driveway 12-2pm, lunch 2-230 back on line 30 minutes, then showered and got dressed, back on line 430 pm to 5:15 pm. Pretty much my schedule when fully remote in 2021 and 2022.

As opposed showered and dressed at my desk 830am to 530 pm every day with a 15 minute lunch in person

This is the truth. The idea that most WHF are chained to their home office and not running errands, taking kids to appointments or activities, doing housework throughout the day is simply a lie.

Oh please, and the idea that people working in an office are chained to their desks doing work that whole time is also simply a lie. I'll be in the office tomorrow. I will spend a good hour of that time bullshitting with my junior team members who spend a lot of their in office time complaining to me about things, and then I'll spend an hour schmoozing with my clients/talking about our kids sports games, new restaurants we've tried, etc. I might go grab lunch with a colleague, too, and oh, I do have to go pick up some dry cleaning that I forgot to grab last week. I will also probably take an afternoon coffee break.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I actually think it’s the younger generation with no kids who abuse WFH the most. My nephew is at a ski house he rented with friends most of the winter. Order of priority is skiing, drinking, work.

This is so true. I've given permission for a ski vacation/work week and a beach week/work week in the past month. I know they're not working, but I also want to keep them happy so I don't have to do the grunt work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s probably still better than all the wasted time at the office.

In the office I work about 6 hours a day with coffee and lunch breaks and chatting with colleagues.

At home I rarely work more than 4 hours. There is no accountability because no one sees me so I start off strong for a few hours and then start doing chores and errands and pick my kids up early for fun.

I just say my project is taking longer than expected and no one checks. It's like billable hours at a law firm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I don’t know any parents skipping daycare but know several who gave up afterschool care (and they can definitely afford it). They also take an hour each day (outside of lunch) to pick their kids up at school and walk them home (but still log off at 5-5:30).

It’s frustrating to see as someone with kids who does the right thing, but I don’t work for their employers. If these are your coworkers, complain if it’s impacting you. Otherwise just smile politely when they complain about not getting raises or watch as their career stall.

I am sort of like this, except I start my day at 7 AM, frequently eat at my desk, and only take 20-30 minutes for pickup, so I'm definitely working a minimum of 8 hours a day. My 9 year old just wants to come home and veg on the couch until I'm done work. I don't see how this is abusing WFH. Maybe you don't see your coworkers logging on super early to make up time.

Well with all those caveats it certainly sounds like you are not abusing WFH and should probably be slightly annoyed with those that are, and whose actions could jeopardize your flexibility.

I don't actually know anyone I work with who abuses WFH flexibility, so no, I'm not annoyed with hypotheticals. I can honestly say I have excellent, dedicated colleagues who go above and beyond wherever they are working from. The RTO push jeopardizing my flexibility in my workplace has absolutely NOTHING to do with abuse of WFH.

Sure. Tell yourself that pipe dream. I did WFH on Friday due to snow. I logged on at 9ish in my PJs. Breakfast with family 10ish, shoveled out big driveway 12-2pm, lunch 2-230 back on line 30 minutes, then showered and got dressed, back on line 430 pm to 5:15 pm. Pretty much my schedule when fully remote in 2021 and 2022.

As opposed showered and dressed at my desk 830am to 530 pm every day with a 15 minute lunch in person

This is the truth. The idea that most WHF are chained to their home office and not running errands, taking kids to appointments or activities, doing housework throughout the day is simply a lie.

Oh please, and the idea that people working in an office are chained to their desks doing work that whole time is also simply a lie. I'll be in the office tomorrow. I will spend a good hour of that time bullshitting with my junior team members who spend a lot of their in office time complaining to me about things, and then I'll spend an hour schmoozing with my clients/talking about our kids sports games, new restaurants we've tried, etc. I might go grab lunch with a colleague, too, and oh, I do have to go pick up some dry cleaning that I forgot to grab last week. I will also probably take an afternoon coffee break.

Schmoozing with clients is part of work. Did you not know that? Relationship building.

[Anonymous]

I have access at work to UltiPro and was viewing timesheets to detect unusual behavior.

We are remote Tuesday and Friday. I noticed in summer in particular an excessive amount of workers taking a vacation day on Monday in order to get a four day weekend since Tuesday remote or taking Thursday off to make it a four day weekend the other way. Very little work done on that remote day.

People claiming working OT on remote days to work less hours in in person days.

People running doctor appointments or sick on remote days not putting in time then banking it for maternity leave or other medical time offs.

We also have people doing home repairs. Appointments, kids stuff in remote days and not putting in days.

People are piling up huge amounts of vacation days and my firm pays out vacation days when they quit.

I was remote in my prior job and I myself did not enter a single vacation day into system my last 10 months as planning to leave and we pay out vacation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have access at work to UltiPro and was viewing timesheets to detect unusual behavior.

We are remote Tuesday and Friday. I noticed in summer in particular an excessive amount of workers taking a vacation day on Monday in order to get a four day weekend since Tuesday remote or taking Thursday off to make it a four day weekend the other way. Very little work done on that remote day.

People claiming working OT on remote days to work less hours in in person days.

People running doctor appointments or sick on remote days not putting in time then banking it for maternity leave or other medical time offs.

We also have people doing home repairs. Appointments, kids stuff in remote days and not putting in days.

People are piling up huge amounts of vacation days and my firm pays out vacation days when they quit.

I was remote in my prior job and I myself did not enter a single vacation day into system my last 10 months as planning to leave and we pay out vacation.

Customers pay for work product not time sheets.

[Anonymous]

I do laundry, watch tv, drop off/pick up my younger (ms age kid). I will occasionally nap. So yeah, I agree with you, OP. Im not highly paid, and Im good at what I do and responsive to email. We only have 2 inperson days, and i get a good amount of socializing and personal work done, from camp registration to bill paying. I honestly dont think there’s a way to put the genie back in the bottle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most jobs are BS paper pushing anyway. If we're talking a lawyer missing filing deadlines, that's a different story.

Do you tell this to your kids when they bring home Bs or Cs and say whatever the assignment is meaningless BS anyway? Somehow I doubt you do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know any parents skipping daycare but know several who gave up afterschool care (and they can definitely afford it). They also take an hour each day (outside of lunch) to pick their kids up at school and walk them home (but still log off at 5-5:30).

It’s frustrating to see as someone with kids who does the right thing, but I don’t work for their employers. If these are your coworkers, complain if it’s impacting you. Otherwise just smile politely when they complain about not getting raises or watch as their career stall.

Maybe it’s time to reevaluate priorities and see that a walk with your kids is more meaningful than achieving some made up goals at work.
Unless you are a doctor or teacher or someone like that, your job can wait

Would you tell this to your server if after she took your order she took her kids for a walk before bringing you your lunch?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom of two here. I find it ridiculous that people wfh on a regular basis and are clearly taking care of children at the same time. Suddenly they can't afford childcare even though they don't have to pump gas in the car for a daily commute? It's ridiculous. I'm not talking about the one off snow day or sudden emergency but a regular pattern. Amazed employers haven't started creating policies around this or making employee come into work. Classic example of fussing babies and children needing attention during virtual meetings. Employees are taking advantage and double dipping. Ridiculous.

It works differently for different people. Human brain is programmed in such a way that it tries to find flaws, enlarge them and keep them in the permanent memory chamber.
I am a parent of 2 two children and I work from home. I will tell you I end up spending 11+ hours working from home as I tend to keep my laptop always on. I start my work at 8 am after dropping off the kids and work until 5 pm. I also eat lunch at my home office desk often while attending meetings. My team is scattered through different time zones and I cannot block my calendar for an hour of lunch. I take a break at 5 pm, cook, do chores, spend time with kids. At the end of the day when the kids go to bed, I log in to just catch up on next day tasks. I see some emails invariably, respond and unknowingly dive into work. Almost everyday I spend 2 hours at night on my work laptop. By working from home, I am offering my employer 3 additional hours of "FREE" work.

Please do not condemn WFH policy and generalize things just because you found a bunch of people who you think are double dipping. Those type of people are the ones who would waste their and others time even if they go to office. There are kitchen chats, vending machine chats, bathroom breaks and what not at office.

Are you paid by the hour or are you a salaried employee? If it’s the latter, you are not providing three “free” hours. You’re just doing your job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are literally wealthy heirs who spend everyday partying on yachts and traveling all over the world and you're worried that Jane who used to sit in cube 119 can now walk her kid to school at 8:00 a.m. You must have a happy home life.

Haha +1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know any parents skipping daycare but know several who gave up afterschool care (and they can definitely afford it). They also take an hour each day (outside of lunch) to pick their kids up at school and walk them home (but still log off at 5-5:30).

It’s frustrating to see as someone with kids who does the right thing, but I don’t work for their employers. If these are your coworkers, complain if it’s impacting you. Otherwise just smile politely when they complain about not getting raises or watch as their career stall.

Maybe it’s time to reevaluate priorities and see that a walk with your kids is more meaningful than achieving some made up goals at work.
Unless you are a doctor or teacher or someone like that, your job can wait

Would you tell this to your server if after she took your order she took her kids for a walk before bringing you your lunch?

Unlike office drones, a waitress actually does work that matters to someone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My friend is a GS-15 fed and she will mention how she reads a lot of personal books during the work day. She isn't even taking care of kids; just does her own while wfh

Fed employee here. Could this be while she's eating lunch? I used to routinely read a book during my Metro commute and at lunch. Now I work while eating, work for free after my tour of duty, and I'm too tired to read for pleasure.