Anyone here WFH? I WFH and certain friends think this means I’m hanging out
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Anonymous
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“Oh, I’m actually slammed during the workday. You wanna meet up for a drink at 5:30?” Or whatever social counteroffer makes sense for your life.
This is not hard. |
Anonymous
+1 sometimes I'll take a break and go for a walk outside, and some of my neighbors who are retired want to chitchat when they see me. I have to tell them that I gotta go because I have a meeting I need to prep for. Most of the time, it's true. The other times, I just got stuff to do at work. |
Anonymous
| I work from home, and have never had this problem - but my friends all work too. Recently one met a client near my home and asked if I could do lunch or a walk when she was in my area, but there’s no assumption I’m free during the day. My 8 year old has a relatively new friend. The mom wrote at about 3 recently “want to meet in the park with the girls? It’s beautiful out” and I said “we’re free to meet up at 5:30” and she said “I’m happy to come pick Larla up sooner if that would work…Susie is a bit bored and lonely and really wants to play!” I then met up with them all when I finished work |
Anonymous
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I have a little of this with friends who work for themselves. I work on the billable hour with the expectations I am available for my client(s) during their working hours of 8 to 6. I can probably hop out for a 30 min coffee but I can't just end my day at 3pm.
I think because I'm home it gives an illusion of flexibility but that's not really the case like with people running their own businesses. |
Anonymous
| This literally never happened to me during the five years I worked from home full time. |
Anonymous
| I used to get this—people would see me arriving home with the kids at 4, and think I was free, when really that was just a break and I needed to do 1-2 more hours of work. But I have never had to tell someone more than once that I work full time and am not done until 5:30 or so. |
Anonymous
not while working, it's not |
Anonymous
+1 when people ask me to pick up Kids, wait to meet repair people, walk their dogs, etc., I just say I’m in back to back calls until whatever time. A lot of the time it’s true. I’m not sure what they think I do all day. |
Anonymous
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Sounds like you need boundaries, OP.
If a salesperson stops by, I never answer the door. It's not in my agenda to answer the door just because their boss said they have to knock on doors in my neighborhood. |
Anonymous
You say you would love to meet for coffee but can’t just do it on the fly because you are at work. Then suggest a day and time to meet that fits with your work schedule, be that a 9-5 schedule (so 8am coffee?) or a more flexible one (so 10:30 on Thursday?). See if that works for them. Really not difficult. |
Anonymous
Just get the work done competently and efficiently. |
Anonymous
| This is only a problem for procrastinators who are excited for the opportunity to blame someone else for why they "had to" stop working and go play, after starting work 3 hours late. |
Anonymous
Agree to the request and then schedule a text to go out 3 minutes before or after the event to say "work emergency came up! Sorry I missed it!" Only have to do it once They'll learn. |
Anonymous
It’s probably ok to take a coffee break , OP |
Anonymous
Is this OP? This response was to the OPs scenario and question. OP asked about how to help friends dropping by understand. She didn’t mention elderly, confused people. . |