WFH Outside

[Anonymous]

I can currently hear birds chirping outside and the windows are closed and I’m inside. How unprofessional am I being?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Use headphones. Many are now designed not to pick up ambient noise at all. I had a worker drilling right next to my home office door on a call once and I apologized for the noise, but the person on the other end said they couldn't hear anything.

ALL ambient noise is annoying, it's not just about the birds.

+1

[Anonymous]

Birds are peaceful

[Anonymous]

This thread exemplifies that many people’s jobs consist almost entirely of micromanaging trivial nonsense. Any boss who cares about this enough to actually follow up on it clearly has a BS job. Sounds like a lot of commenters on this thread do, too.

Disagree. A quiet work environment is important as an indicator of respect for one's co-workers. They do not want to hear your birds, your vacuum cleaner, your radio, or your crying baby. These sounds are made more annoying by the compression schemes used by conferencing software. Find a quiet place indoors when attending online meetings, please.

[Anonymous]

I agree with the boss. The phrase was it "sounds unprofessional." If you are inside with a window open, unless the bird is right by your window and you are sitting by the window, you won't hear the chirping.

It sounds (the key word here) like you are hanging by the pool & relaxing with a laptop nearby. That doesn't mean you were. That's the way it SOUNDS.

Depending on who is in the call (clients, upper level management, etc.), you want to sound as professional as possible.

[Anonymous]

I would have said I was indoors

[Anonymous]

some calls are okay to take outside, others are not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the boss. The phrase was it "sounds unprofessional." If you are inside with a window open, unless the bird is right by your window and you are sitting by the window, you won't hear the chirping.

It sounds (the key word here) like you are hanging by the pool & relaxing with a laptop nearby. That doesn't mean you were. That's the way it SOUNDS.

Depending on who is in the call (clients, upper level management, etc.), you want to sound as professional as possible.

I agree. It also looks like you don't take your job seriously. It's a phone call, why can't you just pop inside for it and then go outside for the times when you are just messing with the spreadsheets?

[Anonymous]

Depends on who was on the call. Internal call with just your team, ok to be outside. External call with clients who pay tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for professional services, not ok to be outside.

[Anonymous]

I work on my screened in porch all the time. You can hear birds but it is technically part of my house. I don’t see an issue with this at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the boss. The phrase was it "sounds unprofessional." If you are inside with a window open, unless the bird is right by your window and you are sitting by the window, you won't hear the chirping.

It sounds (the key word here) like you are hanging by the pool & relaxing with a laptop nearby. That doesn't mean you were. That's the way it SOUNDS.

Depending on who is in the call (clients, upper level management, etc.), you want to sound as professional as possible.

+1. I doubt you have a desk outside, or a work monitor. Were you at a dining table? On a lounge sofa? Regardless, it looks unprofessional because it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wfh at the movies and restaurants. When they tried to call, I just don’t pick up the phone.

LOL no you don't. You're just a painfully transparent anti-WFH troll. Congrats

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wfh at the movies and restaurants. When they tried to call, I just don’t pick up the phone.

How do you work at the movies? Come on.

[Anonymous]

what a douchebag. your boss is an idiot.