'My Boss Assumes I'm Slacking Off When I Work From Home'

Dear Boss,

I work for a small company with about ten employees working full time in the office. We all report directly to the CEO, Phil. When the pandemic hit, Phil went into full panic mode and had us all move our desks 12-plus feet apart, wash our hands every 20 minutes, sterilize everything in between uses, etc. Nothing super-weird, and better than having no reaction at all, but it was a hypervigilant process that made me expect him to be very accommodating when our state went on lockdown.

Boy, was I wrong. Our industry is considered essential, so we’re still open, but Phil is being odd when it comes to working from home. For background, about 95 percent of our work can be done remotely. The other 5 percent would require about 15 minutes in the office once a week. I was the first one to pose the idea of working from home, and Phil nervously agreed, but only to three days a week. My co-workers were given similar instructions but were “encouraged to come in every day, if possible.” A few of them do.

Since then, Phil has gotten pretty weird about the situation. He refers to people who are working from home as being “off work” (which is NOT the case; we are all working and available while at home, which he knows because he calls us for work-related things during work hours). What is the best way to handle this?

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