Working from home includes, y'know, WORK.

[Gerrinson]

So, I already posted in CoC that it was good I took work home with me when I left sick today.

Now, I'm feeling slightly better, and I'm working remotely to get caught up on everything that needed doing today.

My wife called to see how I was doing and to remind that 'there's some dishes in the sink that need washing'. I pointed out that I was actually doing work - for which I get paid and remain employed. She still felt the need to 'nudge' me.

If I was on vacation and just sitting here playing games, I'd be fine with a nudge. But I am WORKING. Is that so hard to understand?

Maybe I'm just extra prickly today because I'm sick, but people are really super duper extra pissing me off today with inane bullshit.

[JoeGould1111]

I feel you there. My wife will always mention "Well, there's laundry to do, and dishes..." when I work from home.

[Seraph]

Preach it, man. I constantly hear "Well, you're home all day..." or "Its not like it's a real job..."

Granted, my husband doesn't usually pull this sort of thing, but crikies do I hear it from the rest of our families.

[MoonCat]

I'd be all, "Yeah, I'll do them AFTER WORK."

I'd love to work from home, I wouldn't be distracted by housework at all.

[Pixilated]

*snip*
I'd love to work from home, I wouldn't be distracted by housework at all.

I hear ya. It would actually give me a valid reason to NOT do housework -- not that I do it much anyway. (Luckily I live alone so nobody else is subjected to my state of perpetual chaos. )

I guess people figure you can multitask at home because you are at home and the boss is several miles (at least) away. So there's no reason why you can't throw a load of laundry in while you're writing up that report, and if you get stuck, do the dishes while you're thinking ...

[Gravekeeper]

That would drive me up the wall. The only difference in my job between remote and home is monitor size.

[Akasa]

I get pissy w/ BF when he tries to talk to me and I'm working. Usually he doesn't realize I'm in the middle of working when he does, cause I'll give him the stink eye and say "You do realize I'm trying to work?" and he'll be like "No, I didn't realize, sorry." Then he waits till I'm done.

[Eevie]

My mom usually makes compromises with my dad when he works from home. Dad going to wash some of his laundry? Mom will ask if when he's taking his out to throw her load in after his is done. She respects that he has work to do, but she'll never ask something that's out of the way, that he can't just do while he's getting his own things done. And I think it's partially cuz dad happens to be lazy. She can't expect him to do anything beside from some small things. Even if he gets free time, it just won't get done.

[Gizmo]

I get pissy w/ BF when he tries to talk to me and I'm working. Usually he doesn't realize I'm in the middle of working when he does, cause I'll give him the stink eye and say "You do realize I'm trying to work?" and he'll be like "No, I didn't realize, sorry." Then he waits till I'm done.

I wish mine was as understanding. Admittedly its not work but gaming in my case: I'll have been swearing at my computer for the past 10 minutes whilst trying to beat a boss... without this stopping he expects me to listen to him and gets funny when I don't or ask him to wait....

[Peppergirl]

I feel your pain. I work from home full time, and honestly - I have NEVER worked this hard in an office. Granted, it has its perks...but I get SOOO resentful that friends and loved ones think it's cake.

Also, because only about 10 percent of our company gets to work from home, so every time management dumps more and more and more on our department, its 'oh, but you get to work from home - that's a perk' in response.

Nevermind that our department is consistently, according to EVERYONE, the hardest, most difficult job in the company. We get to work from home, so by all means, feel free to dump more and more on us - and force us to do stuff that's not even our job.

[retailworker7]

My hubby works from home once in a while. It is usually when he is putting in extra time. Sometimes he has worked from home when I have been sick and needed help getting to the doctor. I usually know ahead of time when he will be working from home. I leave him alone while he is working. If I have some medical issue that requires him to work from home to stay home with me I make an effort not to bother him.

If my hubby is working from home and I am at work I just leave him alone. Depending on what he is doing he will sometimes do laundry. He sometimes has to wait for his bosses to review stuff and get back to him. I do not ask him to do housework but he will do it on his own if he has time. If I am sick he will use the down-time to check if I need anything.

[boringscreenname]

My husband worked from home for a year. He worked on 3rd shift, so I was either working at the same time, or at home sleeping on my days off.

The only time I bugged him during work is when our son had the flu, and I was pregnant. The kid was throwing up once every hour for like 4 or 5 hours. He helped me get everything cleaned up, then started a load of laundry, while I threw the kid in the bathtub.

I would mention chores that needed to be done. But he worked for a call center and had downtime in between calls. If he had time to do it, great, if not then he'd just do it before he came to bed.

I never asked him to do anything too time consuming, just start a load of laundry, switch a load around, or load or unload the dishwasher. Those things only took 5-10 minutes to do.

[Kagato]

Heh, reminds me of a friend that used to work from home. They got pestered by their semi-significant-other (they are now divorced) to do housework when they were meant to be doing work issued by their boss (they worked as a chartered accountant)

SSO: Instead of just sitting at the computer all day, why don't you do something useful like put out the washing or do the dishes or something?
Friend: (having had enough after being pestered day after day) Fine, I'll do that, you can sit here and fill out this pile of tax forms, file these returns, contact this list of clients... *rattles off about half a dozen other things* Oh, and you can contact my boss and let him know why the work isn't done by the 5pm deadline I was set, then you can contact the bank about getting us a personal loan and an extension on next weeks mortgage payment because I didn't get paid because I didn't get my work done this week because I was being expected to do unrelated work during my scheduled work time.
SSO: ...oh.

[PepperElf]

I entirely understand. If anything sometimes working from home can actually end up being longer hours than a regular job cos it's not always easy to separate "home time" from "work time".

Plus, one may end up working later than expected, or may end up being distracted by other things such as chores, kids or pets, or goofing off (my own personal issue).

[Racket_Man]

I did the work at home thing for a whileat 2 different jobs.

The first one was during Y2K. there were times when my beta site person would come in on a Saturday to run tests on the updated systems.

The second job I moved away from the city the job was in and moved 250 miles away. Since it was a tech support job all I usually needed was my computer, a phone line/internet connection/cell phone. I woke up around 7:30am, did the usual morning stuff and "did the 30 second commute" to my office in the back room. The only problem was this job was 24/7/365. not really a problem until my Ex went into the hospital for 3 weeks for MAJOR surgery. Juggled hospital visits, shopping, daughter in HS, dog walks, etc.