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Office jobs: Is your day mostly just sitting around trying to look busy?
- Thread starter ThLunarian
- Start date
I fucking long for those days...yes basically from 22-25 it's that from then onward if you have put in more effort then sitting around and trying to look busy you get caught in the idiocracy trap where you look like the smartest person in the room if you are smart and job hop the cycle cotinues and then your days turn into endless meetings that could have been emails.
Yeah, I used to be like that, since I was a programmer on a consulting company, there'd be lots of downtime where I'd be basically browsing the internet all day, this can help too if you feel like cheating: http://geektyper.com/studio/
Nowadays I'm an architect, which means I don't have enough time in the week to finish my work, so nope, now I'm on meetings all day long
Nowadays I'm an architect, which means I don't have enough time in the week to finish my work, so nope, now I'm on meetings all day long
No there's pretty much always stuff for me to do. The past few months have been lighter but if my bosses found out they'd probably be mad, and one of the only reasons that happened is because one of my bosses got extremely ill and basically stopped coming to the office (and when he's in the office he gives me extra work on top of my full-time client work). Even then I'm still working through most if not all of the day, just at a kinda slow pace, and instead of multitasking I just browse my phone when I wait for something to run.
Early this year in February there were a few weeks where I'd come in at like 8, work for like 16 hours, and I'd be working the whole time. I got paid like 35k/year in the bay area for this too (my salary has since been raised to 45k/year).
Early this year in February there were a few weeks where I'd come in at like 8, work for like 16 hours, and I'd be working the whole time. I got paid like 35k/year in the bay area for this too (my salary has since been raised to 45k/year).
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Man, I wish. We have more work that we know what to do with. I currently have 1.5 years worth of work in my queue that people want some this month.
lol I cant believe how true this is, sitting right now at work and I've done everything in the first 2 hours and have nothing to do for the next 5 or so hours lol ffs.
I know that the network administrator at my old school didn't care at all about looking busy. So much that he put a lawn chair in his office and fell asleep in it on a daily basis. He would lock the door and turn his phones off (unplugged them from wall; cell on silent). Apparently they couldn't fire him for some reason either.
As for me, there were days that there was nothing to do. Days before holidays were always the worst for me. I did what I could to remain busy, but there really wasn't anything around.
As for me, there were days that there was nothing to do. Days before holidays were always the worst for me. I did what I could to remain busy, but there really wasn't anything around.
I'm in accounting and I'm busy most of the time, end up doing a bunch of overtime on a regular basis. I tend to take up a lot of side responsibilities and I'm a lead on a team so I spend a lot of my day answering questions, reviewing/approving things.
I do hate when there are slow days tho. Time moves so slow.
I do hate when there are slow days tho. Time moves so slow.
It has varied throughout my career. When I was in Public Accounting and had to worry about billable hours, i never had enough time in the day. Then I became a Staff Accountant for a private business and I worked in average I'd say 2 hours a day. Did that for a few years and eventually got promoted to Senior Accountant. Then, at the same company, I suddenly didn't have enough hours in the day. Working overtime and being given project after project. Then I found a Staff position at a different company that paid the same as the Senior position of my old company. Now I'm back to like 3-4 hours of actual work a day. Have my busier times of the month, but I'm never overwhelmed with things to do.
I can deal with slow days, but what's really starting to annoy me recently is just how often people in the office ask me questions. I came into the office at 7:30 this morning, had a ton of stuff to do so my plan was to just stick on some Spotify and power through it. I'm not even slightly exaggerating when I say that between 8:30am and now, I haven't got to listen to a single song from start to end without someone trying to get my attention to ask me something. I don't mind helping out other people but sometimes I feel like I spend more time helping others than doing my own work.
it's only miserable when you have to look busy but can't do just stuff because people see what you are doing.
I started in customer support (e-mail, livechat, some phone support) with direct client contact, moved up to 2nd line support (basically support for customer support, no end-user contact), changed jobs 3 times, still pretty much only shuffle e-mails and tasks in Jira but I make about 4 times as much money as I did when I started while working 1/10 of the amount I worked on the lowest position, at most.
I feel disgusting. Despite the fact that the money is really good for my skills and my country, I feel like I cheated the system and got lucky while people working 10 times as hard as I do make 10 times less money. I want to change career to something that actually makes you work (like programming), but the pay cut I would have to take would be so big that I don't know if I can do it, so I just keep existing and hating myself for using my luck/priviledge.
But hey, at least now I have enough money for therapy, so maybe one day I'll have the strength to sacrifice my pay for a more fulfilling job.
I feel disgusting. Despite the fact that the money is really good for my skills and my country, I feel like I cheated the system and got lucky while people working 10 times as hard as I do make 10 times less money. I want to change career to something that actually makes you work (like programming), but the pay cut I would have to take would be so big that I don't know if I can do it, so I just keep existing and hating myself for using my luck/priviledge.
But hey, at least now I have enough money for therapy, so maybe one day I'll have the strength to sacrifice my pay for a more fulfilling job.
I definitely feel this at times, especially when I look at how my parents break themselves for a living (and I used to as well). I may sound cavalier about having down time at my office job, but there isn't a day that goes by that I don't thank any and all pantheons and deities for the luck of having the job I have now.
Worked for years in a TV company doing 3D animations / Motion Graphics.
There were crazy work days and there were "nothing is happening" days.
I would always schedule so that when I would get a few days (or even weeks) with no work, I would work on my own learning new things, new tools, researching, improving my knowledge, etc. Always had something lined up to do on my "off" time. Management knew and approved as this meant I kept updated on the latest 3D tech, etc.
If you have a job where they don't give you that much work, use it wisely as this doesn't happen that often.
There were crazy work days and there were "nothing is happening" days.
I would always schedule so that when I would get a few days (or even weeks) with no work, I would work on my own learning new things, new tools, researching, improving my knowledge, etc. Always had something lined up to do on my "off" time. Management knew and approved as this meant I kept updated on the latest 3D tech, etc.
If you have a job where they don't give you that much work, use it wisely as this doesn't happen that often.
No. I'm busy AF and frequently find myself staying late or coming in on weekends to catch up on tasks that have fallen by the wayside.
IT for a state owned facility and it's hit and miss. Some days I'm going constantly and some days are really slow. This week has been particularly slow but a couple weeks ago had a few 12 hour days and full week of running around due to equipment failure. We have pretty strict network restrictions but thankfully Era and Youtube are not blocked.
It depends on the day. I work in manufacturing so if everything is going well I don't have much to do but when we run into issues that will shut the line down we need to have it fixed 5 minutes ago.
The workload is not heavy but the importance of the tasks are vital. We can't get back lost hours on the shop floor.
The workload is not heavy but the importance of the tasks are vital. We can't get back lost hours on the shop floor.
I did this for about 3 years where I pretended to be busy. Was finally laid off last year.
Now? Absolutely insane. As I type message this is the only downtime I have had (not counting the day before thanksgiving) in months. Some days I end up working 12 hours just to keep my head above water.
Now? Absolutely insane. As I type message this is the only downtime I have had (not counting the day before thanksgiving) in months. Some days I end up working 12 hours just to keep my head above water.
I did it for years and it is fun for a few days then it is hell. You're constantly looking at the clock counting down the hours until you go home. The days never end and you're always wondering who is noticing you trying to be busy and you start to wonder if your job is safe.
Last year the department head brought me into the office and there was a HR person there. I legitimately thought I was being fired for spending too much time on the internet. Turns out I was being laid off.
I try to embrace the slow days because the busy ones can be unpredictable.
A few weeks ago, I agreed to help out on a project for the experience and goodwill and ended up working on it several days after/before work and having to clear my schedule to complete the tasks by the deadline.
A few weeks ago, I agreed to help out on a project for the experience and goodwill and ended up working on it several days after/before work and having to clear my schedule to complete the tasks by the deadline.
Maybe not so harsh but this is me. Did my basic duty to understand things and now I'm the go to with endless meetings and being so busy I have to skip breaks and lunches or face never having room to take a PTO day again.
No, and I wouldn't continue working somewhere that was like that. I work best when I'm flat out like a lizard drinking water and when I'm under pressure. I have a nasty cold at the moment and I hate it because my pace drops and the day just drags by.
I'm a controller that works for a understaffed nonprofit. I am busy, lol
Sometimes yeah, I feel like if I'm seen not always working I'll get a snide comment
At the very least they don't get pissed about it, but it does give me anxiety
At the very least they don't get pissed about it, but it does give me anxiety
When I worked in the game industry, basically everyone only worked like 4 hours a day during a normal 8-9 hour day.
During crunch, we still only actually worked 4 hours a day, but you had to be in the office for 12+ hours.
Now I run a hobby shop, and we usually only have 2-3 employees on shift at once. We can knock out everyone's work for the whole week in 2-3 hours.
But we have the same problem. The owner expects us to work every second, so everyone just ends up stretching that 2-3 hours out so they don't get reprimanded. We're not actually doing any more work. We are just under more stress to make that work last while looking busy.
No matter where I go, there's someone at the top who wants asses-in-seats more than actual productivity.
The best part of it all - I once convinced the owner to try out a system of rewarding productivity over time. I asked him to make a list of tasks to complete in the week - what he thought was an appropriate amount of work - and when we completed it, we could basically do whatever we wanted. Which, running a game/hobby store meant playing Warhammer, Magic or D&D (while still actually running the shop). The first trial week, we knocked out his entire weekly list of tasks in two hours. He went ballistic and accused everyone of being lazy, since obviously we could do more work - despite the fact that he's the one who made the list of tasks. The following week, he more than doubled the workload. We still finished in one day and had six more days of leisure time. The third week, he basically just made a pie-in-the-sky wishlist of nonsense to keep us busy. We finished it in 3 days. And... that's about when we ditched the whole idea. Management can never be happy that all the work is done, no matter how much you do, if you have any free time whatsoever. He constantly viewed any downtime as us 'stealing' from the company because we were not actively working on tasks/side projects/etc. Nevermind that if a customer comes in while we're playing anything, we pause everything and go help/talk to them. Nevermind that the store was making more money, better customer reviews, cleaner, more organized, etc. All that mattered, is that you look busy your entire shift so that management is 'getting their money's worth' of your labor.
During crunch, we still only actually worked 4 hours a day, but you had to be in the office for 12+ hours.
Now I run a hobby shop, and we usually only have 2-3 employees on shift at once. We can knock out everyone's work for the whole week in 2-3 hours.
But we have the same problem. The owner expects us to work every second, so everyone just ends up stretching that 2-3 hours out so they don't get reprimanded. We're not actually doing any more work. We are just under more stress to make that work last while looking busy.
No matter where I go, there's someone at the top who wants asses-in-seats more than actual productivity.
The best part of it all - I once convinced the owner to try out a system of rewarding productivity over time. I asked him to make a list of tasks to complete in the week - what he thought was an appropriate amount of work - and when we completed it, we could basically do whatever we wanted. Which, running a game/hobby store meant playing Warhammer, Magic or D&D (while still actually running the shop). The first trial week, we knocked out his entire weekly list of tasks in two hours. He went ballistic and accused everyone of being lazy, since obviously we could do more work - despite the fact that he's the one who made the list of tasks. The following week, he more than doubled the workload. We still finished in one day and had six more days of leisure time. The third week, he basically just made a pie-in-the-sky wishlist of nonsense to keep us busy. We finished it in 3 days. And... that's about when we ditched the whole idea. Management can never be happy that all the work is done, no matter how much you do, if you have any free time whatsoever. He constantly viewed any downtime as us 'stealing' from the company because we were not actively working on tasks/side projects/etc. Nevermind that if a customer comes in while we're playing anything, we pause everything and go help/talk to them. Nevermind that the store was making more money, better customer reviews, cleaner, more organized, etc. All that mattered, is that you look busy your entire shift so that management is 'getting their money's worth' of your labor.
On average I have about 3-5 hours of actual work to do, the rest of the time I just sit there and look busy.
It's a blessing and a curse. When I can find stuff to do, the day goes by at a pretty decent pace. When I can't find stuff to do I'm miserable.
To be fair I've been quite busy this week, but it's mostly because the judging for the office Christmas Cubicle Decorating Contest is on Friday and our dept is really gunning for first.
It's a blessing and a curse. When I can find stuff to do, the day goes by at a pretty decent pace. When I can't find stuff to do I'm miserable.
To be fair I've been quite busy this week, but it's mostly because the judging for the office Christmas Cubicle Decorating Contest is on Friday and our dept is really gunning for first.
I may have a few choice excel files that look crazy busy that I may or may not put up on my screen from time to time. The funny part is the new guy (10 years younger than anyone else here) started doing this too but it's obvious (always the same file, scrolled up to the header). I almost wanna take him under my wing and teach him the ways but he'll get it eventually.
One thing you gotta look out for are the immediate rush of clicks when a door opens or someone shuffles by. Gotta have that at the ready already. Whenever I walk to the bathroom it's a series of clicks as people move their browser to the background. IDC but shits funny to me.
I always leave mine open or outlook. I just look up when someone passes.