4 ms·

I'm not sure how often this actually gets mentioned, but a huge problem is dealing with your spouse. "Oh, you're at home? Can you run these errands for me, and

by occam65 12y ago

I'm not sure how often this actually gets mentioned, but a huge problem is dealing with your spouse. "Oh, you're at home? Can you run these errands for me, and also clean, vacuum, and take the leftovers to my parent's place for me?" It's extremely difficult getting your spouse to respect the "working" part of working from home.

_puk 12y ago
Agreed completely. I've seen it suggested before (and it's something I've taken to doing) that you can provide cues as to whether you can be interrupted. I've got it to the point that if the door is closed, no-one should interrupt me. Most likely I am on a call. If the door is closed, but I have music on, then I am working, concentrating, in-the-zone or whatever, so any interruption is not welcome, but I can be interrupted if critical. If the door is open then I'm around for some social interaction. Couple of tips when interrupted: - Make them wait a few seconds.. hold on, let me just finish this.. re-enforces the fact they are interrupting you. - Ask for errands or such like to be written on a list you keep handy.. so you can do it when you get a chance. There's a maximum length to that list before it's obvious what is being asked of you. Obviously YMMV, but keeps my wife and kids out of my hair when needed.
thisone 12y ago
wow, I can imagine that's pretty difficult to deal with, respect wise. Not everyone, and I'm hoping not even the majority, will have to deal with this from their SO/OH/spouse, however. (I don't, thankfully. We both wfh to differing schedules, and work time is work time.)
digitalengineer 12y ago
">The main problem you’ll encounter when working from home is… well, you. " No, my kid really. She just think: He's home! Great, let's play or 'look at me! And again... and again... ' It's the main reason I need to get out of the house. Thank God they're a lot of empty office buildings in my city. A lot of them have been made into flex-work spaces for freelancers or small businesses and you can rent a place with wifi at a low cost. The only problem: They close for the evening. I haven't really found a way around that.
johnward 12y ago
This is the biggest one for me. My wife can't recognize that I am actually working. It's even gotten to the point that the neighbors would ask me to let their dog out...
falcolas 12y ago
I had this problem for awhile as well, particularly since my office also was where I went for gaming. We ended up coming up with a "red, yellow, green" symbol system. Ours is a number of colored magnets on a small whiteboard, but there's plenty of options there. Red means no interruptions, short of an emergency. Yellow means brief interruptions are OK, but conversations are not. Green means I'm open for anything (usually when I'm gaming, resting, etc). Of course, setting up this kind of restriction means that you also have to spend all of your time with your spouse with your spouse. Mentally as well as physically.
weavie 12y ago
Yup this is the hardest part for me. No matter how clear I am about how I'm not to be disturbed, she can be incredibly cunning about it. The 'here's a cup of tea because you are working so hard' ends up becoming a 30 minute discussion about her current social circles interactions'. Then there's the kids.
zippergz 12y ago
I found this to be more of a problem when I was occasionally working from home than now when I'm doing it full time. If it's an unusual situation, it's easy for my wife to think of a bunch of things for me to do. But now that it's an every day thing, she more clearly sees it as "I'm at work" and draws appropriate boundaries. Sure, there's still the random "can you sign for the package I have coming" or "please have the appliance repair person come today." But being able to do that kind of thing is one of the benefits of working from home, and she recognizes that she's asking me to take time away from work for it. It probably also helps that she works from home with some frequency, so she understands the need to actually be productive at our jobs rather than doing errands and house work all day.
mhurron 12y ago
You can't talk to your wife? I don't have this problem. Now the in-laws, ya, they think I'm sitting at home all day watching TV. THEY used to try to ask that things get done since I'm home (I live very close to them at the moment) but saying 'no, I'm working' and looking at them like they're idiots solved that.
Htsthbjig 12y ago
"It's extremely difficult getting your spouse to respect the "working" part of working from home." No, I used to believe so, but it is actually very easy. You tell her you are working and no you can't, and you actually mean it, you have to be really convinced inside. My advice is that you look yourself in the mirror, you are probably projecting insecurity in your body language. You don't need to get angry, quite the contrary , you need to control the situation in a calm assertive way. Women are like dogs, they feel insecurity(they are much better at body language than men) y and try to get advantage of it in a subconcious way, watch "Dog Whisperer" to understand what I mean. The worst thing is that they disrespect those that are easy to control. We are animals after all, and our inner chimpanzee is controlling most of what we do, the different is that we use reason to justify what our chimpanzee wanted afterwards.
- h2s 12y ago
  > Women are like dogs Fuck off.

by occam65 12y ago

_puk 12y ago

Agreed completely. I've seen it suggested before (and it's something I've taken to doing) that you can provide cues as to whether you can be interrupted. I've got it to the point that if the door is closed, no-one should interrupt me. Most likely I am on a call. If the door is closed, but I have music on, then I am working, concentrating, in-the-zone or whatever, so any interruption is not welcome, but I can be interrupted if critical. If the door is open then I'm around for some social interaction. Couple of tips when interrupted: - Make them wait a few seconds.. hold on, let me just finish this.. re-enforces the fact they are interrupting you. - Ask for errands or such like to be written on a list you keep handy.. so you can do it when you get a chance. There's a maximum length to that list before it's obvious what is being asked of you. Obviously YMMV, but keeps my wife and kids out of my hair when needed.

thisone 12y ago

wow, I can imagine that's pretty difficult to deal with, respect wise. Not everyone, and I'm hoping not even the majority, will have to deal with this from their SO/OH/spouse, however. (I don't, thankfully. We both wfh to differing schedules, and work time is work time.)

digitalengineer 12y ago

">The main problem you’ll encounter when working from home is… well, you. " No, my kid really. She just think: He's home! Great, let's play or 'look at me! And again... and again... ' It's the main reason I need to get out of the house. Thank God they're a lot of empty office buildings in my city. A lot of them have been made into flex-work spaces for freelancers or small businesses and you can rent a place with wifi at a low cost. The only problem: They close for the evening. I haven't really found a way around that.

johnward 12y ago

This is the biggest one for me. My wife can't recognize that I am actually working. It's even gotten to the point that the neighbors would ask me to let their dog out...

falcolas 12y ago

I had this problem for awhile as well, particularly since my office also was where I went for gaming. We ended up coming up with a "red, yellow, green" symbol system. Ours is a number of colored magnets on a small whiteboard, but there's plenty of options there. Red means no interruptions, short of an emergency. Yellow means brief interruptions are OK, but conversations are not. Green means I'm open for anything (usually when I'm gaming, resting, etc). Of course, setting up this kind of restriction means that you also have to spend all of your time with your spouse with your spouse. Mentally as well as physically.

weavie 12y ago

Yup this is the hardest part for me. No matter how clear I am about how I'm not to be disturbed, she can be incredibly cunning about it. The 'here's a cup of tea because you are working so hard' ends up becoming a 30 minute discussion about her current social circles interactions'. Then there's the kids.

zippergz 12y ago

I found this to be more of a problem when I was occasionally working from home than now when I'm doing it full time. If it's an unusual situation, it's easy for my wife to think of a bunch of things for me to do. But now that it's an every day thing, she more clearly sees it as "I'm at work" and draws appropriate boundaries. Sure, there's still the random "can you sign for the package I have coming" or "please have the appliance repair person come today." But being able to do that kind of thing is one of the benefits of working from home, and she recognizes that she's asking me to take time away from work for it. It probably also helps that she works from home with some frequency, so she understands the need to actually be productive at our jobs rather than doing errands and house work all day.

mhurron 12y ago

You can't talk to your wife? I don't have this problem. Now the in-laws, ya, they think I'm sitting at home all day watching TV. THEY used to try to ask that things get done since I'm home (I live very close to them at the moment) but saying 'no, I'm working' and looking at them like they're idiots solved that.

Htsthbjig 12y ago

"It's extremely difficult getting your spouse to respect the "working" part of working from home." No, I used to believe so, but it is actually very easy. You tell her you are working and no you can't, and you actually mean it, you have to be really convinced inside. My advice is that you look yourself in the mirror, you are probably projecting insecurity in your body language. You don't need to get angry, quite the contrary , you need to control the situation in a calm assertive way. Women are like dogs, they feel insecurity(they are much better at body language than men) y and try to get advantage of it in a subconcious way, watch "Dog Whisperer" to understand what I mean. The worst thing is that they disrespect those that are easy to control. We are animals after all, and our inner chimpanzee is controlling most of what we do, the different is that we use reason to justify what our chimpanzee wanted afterwards.

h2s 12y ago
> Women are like dogs Fuck off.