I’ve snorted coke, necked cocktails and even had an affair while ‘WFH’ – I get all my work done so who cares?
WHEN Anna* started working from home during the pandemic, she could have won a prize for the most conscientious employee, chaining herself to her laptop and barely taking a lunch break.
However fast forward four years, and her work ethic has slipped so dramatically she’s even ‘worked' from a hotel bed with her lover, snorted coke on a Friday afternoon and cracked open a bottle of wine - all in office hours.
Here the married 41-year-old communications expert, from London, reveals exactly what working from home looks like for her...
Sitting in the beauty salon chair on a Thursday afternoon I quickly fire off an email telling my boss I’m on a call.
Then I settle down to enjoy my pedicure worry free - despite the fact I should still be at work.
I had a choice of time for my pedicure, 7pm or 4:30pm, but by 7 I wanted to be in the pub, so 4:30 it was.
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It’s not a rare occurrence for me to juggle my working hours to fit my leisure activities.
And I feel no guilt about it at all.
I wasn’t always like this. When lockdown happened back in 2020 and we were all forced to work from home I was the most conscientious employee imaginable.
I logged on at 9am, didn’t even take the full hour for lunch and stayed at my desk beyond my 6pm finish.
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I work full-time in communications and even when I didn’t have any immediate deadlines, I’d do some extra research.
My turning point happened when the shops reopened in June.
I went out for my lunch and in my excitement about being able to browse in the likes of H&M and Zara I lost track of time.
When I realised I’d had an extra 40 minutes on my lunch hour I was overwhelmed with panic and raced back home ready to apologise profusely... only to realise that absolutely no one had noticed my absence.
We arranged to meet for more walks and soon our relationship turned into an affair
Anna
It sowed the seeds of my gradual decline into an employee that chooses how to spend her working day.
To start with it was just logging on in my pyjamas and then going off to have my shower and get dressed on company time.
Then I started having the odd nap – always setting my alarm for 20 minutes later so if someone did notice my absence then it wouldn’t have been for long.
As I started learning the tricks to disguise my skiving – emailing everyone to let them know I was on back-to-back calls, or updating my teams status to say ‘on a call’ - I realised that other people were doing it too - or had a lot more real calls than I do.
I eventually confessed to a mate that I was having the occasional nap, and she laughed and said she sometimes had four a day and had binge watched most of Selling Sunset in work hours. It made me feel better. And we egged each other on.
Sex and secret affairs
Soon I thought nothing of watching TV when I wasn’t busy, having leisurely lunch breaks and batch cooking.
My husband works shifts for the NHS so when he was at home during the day we’d even occasionally have sex.
But our relationship suffered through lockdown so it wasn’t that
often.
Which brings me to my worst skives. I bumped into an old school friend on a walk in January 2021 and we got chatting.
Despite all of this, I don’t feel I’m doing anything wrong – crucially my work always gets done to a high standard, it has never slipped
Anna
We arranged to meet for more walks and soon our relationship
turned into an affair.
He’s a policeman so could easily do ‘overtime’ and as a key worker
could book into hotels.
So every week or so when his day off coincided with my husband
being at work we’d meet at a hotel and have sex.
I’d take my laptop with me and check my emails regularly and do any calls I had to do, from my bed – with my camera turned off.
Drinking wine and snorting coke
It fizzled out after a year or so, but I did enjoy the naughtiness of doing something so ‘wrong’ and getting paid.
Ditto when I crack open the wine at 3pm on a Friday afternoon – still very much a weekly occurrence.
I very occasionally have a line of cocaine too, if I’m going out later that night.
I’m now back in the office for two days a week, which I enjoy as I like the structure and seeing my colleagues.
But I also enjoy my days at home. I never feel frazzled any more, having to come home, sort the washing, do my housework and cook.
I get all of that organised in office hours as and when I’m not swamped with work.
Working from home - the facts
- Before the pandemic, in 2019 just 4.7 per cent of UK employees worked from home.
- However by April 2020, 46.6 per cent of employees did at least part of their job from home.
- UK employees work from home for an average of 1.5 days a week, compared with an international average of 0.9 days.
- Over eight in 10 UK employees who work from home have admitted to watching TV on company time, with Gen Z workers - age 18 to 24 - most likely to reach for the remote.
- One in five remote workers admit to napping during work hours.
- However 87 per cent of employees insist they are more productive if they are not travelling into the office.
'Self pleasure' breaks
I can also always get a beauty appointment – because I can arrange them at unpopular times like a Monday morning.
And now that I don’t see my lover, if I’m feeling frisky and my husband isn’t on a shift then we’ll have sex, if he isn’t at home I’ll take a little time out to pleasure myself.
My favourite skiving move was telling work I was getting counselling back in 2022 – saying the only possible time was at 9am on a Friday morning.
I went for three weeks before I realised that my anxiety was down to the pandemic and that I was getting better, but as far as they’re concerned it’s ongoing and I get an extra hour in bed on a Friday.
I’m far from the only one who takes the odd hour or so.
One colleague was even silly enough to post a story on Instagram of her with her feet up watching a Christmas movie with her kids at 3pm on a Thursday afternoon – she swore blind that it was from the night
before, none of us believed her.
'I can never leave'
But despite all of this I don’t feel I’m doing anything wrong – crucially my work always gets done to a high standard, it has never slipped.
I’ve been at the same company for 12 years so I can do it blindfolded.
Equally if I’m really busy I’ll work late in the evening or at the
weekend.
That’s one of the reasons my boss trusts me and values me.
And when I had Covid, I worked through it.
I love my job and like doing it well, I just don’t think it’s necessary to do it all between 9am and 6pm.
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But it does mean I can never leave - the idea of being in a new job
and having to account for every moment of my time with a boss who doesn’t trust me is not a happy thought.
* Name has been changed.
