Would you accept unrelenting boredom for £50k p/a?

asajj

I made a mistake of staying in a job that I didn't enjoy and didn't provide anything but unrelenting boredom and a paycheck, for 2 years. I moved on for different reasons and took a career break. Back to work now and I can say that those 2 years cost me a career probably. I didn't do much so I wasn't really able to explain what I did at my last job during the interview for example. They took it as an unwillingness to work. A small example to explain why I felt that way.
I regret it now. It is up to you but at the age of 27, I'd say you are making a mistake especially if your heart is in something else.

Tom99

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]What criteria do you use to select an answer? Could you develop a program to help sort the list and provide a likely answer?[/FONT]

About-time

Interesting dilemma. I personally have been in the same job for pushing ten years now, and (although I make nothing like £50k) it's the pay that keeps me here whereas under normal circumstances I'd have drifted off and done something else ages ago. Specifically for me it's shift allowance and access to decent levels of overtime that keeps me there, as both increase the pay vastly over other options available to me.


So, honestly, if I was offered your job I would snap it up. It would represent a big payrise, and I wouldn't have to work shifts or overtime anymore. But I would be using as much of that extra salary as possible to clear debts and save up, and no doubt I'd formulate a plan to escape after a certain period of time to the kind of jobs I look at now but can't afford to take.


I don't know your position, but if you're debt free and have money in the bank, it sounds to me that you're ready to jump ship now.

Masomnia

steampowered wrote: »

You also need to think about whether this job is equipping you with the skills and opportunities needed to climb the career ladder in future. You are only 27. If you are ambitious, skilled and hard working you may well be able to develop your skills to a point where you are able to earn more than £50k while doing a much more interesting job.

This was my first thought. At 27 I think 50k is doing very well, albeit I live and work in London too so in the round it's not unusual to be earning that; great for now, but in a few years time it's going to look less and less attractive. If the job even continues to exist for much longer.

A mate of mine is an accountant and doesn't enjoy it, and isn't particularly good at it (works for his dad), but he does it because he earns enough to have a nice flat, nice car, expensive nights out and likes the prestige of telling people he's an accountant. So he does it...

Long term will doing this job get you where you want to be? If the answer is no then start looking for something else.

trailingspouse

My concern is that spending that much time on your own without human interaction is not good for your mental health.

Would I do what you do for £50,000 pa? Yes, if I needed the money.

Would I also spend the remaining 13 hours a day looking for other work? Yes, if I hated it as much as you do (and it does sound phenomenally boring).

You say that you couldn't get another job that pays as much - but would they have a career structure that would mean you could work your way up the ladder? £50,000 seems a lot at 27, but isn't that much after 20 years when you could be at the peak of your career. It might be worth taking a drop in salary if it leads to future gains.

martinthebandit

Can’t you just employ someone else to do it for you at a lesser salary, once you’ve trained them up you can concentrate on writing the novel, or training, or doing a degree or whatever?

Or, if your coding (or excel) skills are any good I’m sure you could automate quite a lot of it.

w06

If deciding what to do with a number, repeatedly, surely that lends itself to automation. A few lines of Python or even an Excel formula would do your work for you

getmore4less

Tom99 wrote: »

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]What criteria do you use to select an answer? Could you develop a program to help sort the list and provide a likely answer?[/FONT]

This was my first thought as well reading your first post.

How do I add automation to make the task quicker, easier, less boring.

If you have been farming out the work then

I look at a number in a spreadsheet of over 100,000 data-filled cells and read an accompanying description (corporate jargon), I then assign it to one of 10 categories based on my 'experience', I do this for all 100,000 cells. I total the categories. That is it. For 9 whole hours, every day.

Must be a very loose description of experience.

What sort of deadlines do you have is this measured work ie. so much money per 100k cell or timed work

How is the quality of your work measured?

Are you really allowed to outsource the work?

It would need a look at the types of data but I suspect there will be some easy things to make this task much more profitable.

fraserbooks

For me working with colleagues would be a plus not a minus. Work out how much money you actually need to afford your lifestyle and then add a bit for savings and emergencies, if that comes to less than £50,000 look for something more interesting with better prospects. Remember many jobs include holidays, sick pay, pensions etc. I would not be accurate to do your job, my concentration would go. I never earnt any thing like your salary even after 6 years at university but I did enjoy my work.

McCloud1

trailingspouse wrote: »

My concern is that spending that much time on your own without human interaction is not good for your mental health.

Would I do what you do for £50,000 pa? Yes, if I needed the money.

Would I also spend the remaining 13 hours a day looking for other work? Yes, if I hated it as much as you do (and it does sound phenomenally boring).

You say that you couldn't get another job that pays as much - but would they have a career structure that would mean you could work your way up the ladder? £50,000 seems a lot at 27, but isn't that much after 20 years when you could be at the peak of your career. It might be worth taking a drop in salary if it leads to future gains.

You're right, it does make you feel isolated and disconnected from reality. It's been four years now and my social life has gone from highly active to non-existent in that time.

No, no advancement or lateral movement, it is a niche and the choice is do this or quit. My position only exists due to my boss' relationship with our primary client. All employees save the boss do what I do.

I always intend on doing the same with the remaining 15 hours, however by the end of the day I'm so mentally spent from doing something so boring over and over that I don't even have energy to do things I enjoy, like painting or video gaming. I just stare at videos on my phone and pointlessly browse online.

getmore4less wrote: »

This was my first thought as well reading your first post.

How do I add automation to make the task quicker, easier, less boring.

If you have been farming out the work then



Must be a very loose description of experience.

What sort of deadlines do you have is this measured work ie. so much money per 100k cell or timed work

How is the quality of your work measured?

Are you really allowed to outsource the work?

It would need a look at the types of data but I suspect there will be some easy things to make this task much more profitable.

w06 wrote: »

If deciding what to do with a number, repeatedly, surely that lends itself to automation. A few lines of Python or even an Excel formula would do your work for you

Unfortunately you cannot automate it, I've tried. I learned Python specifically because I figured it's useful for working with data even if it's a bit of a faff figuring out the best module to use it with Excel. My job exists but it requires a human to read very poorly written descriptions, understand the processes it refers to, and then assign it. I tried using keywords but there is too much overlap.

Whilst my job does not require skill, you do need to be familiar with certain processes and therefore do require prior experience.

My boss charges my time at £190 per hour, I'm paid PAYE £50,000 plus the bonus as a salary, it's not contingent on the number of hours I do.

The quality of my work is only measured if the !!!! hits the fan and they need to use what I've done and it becomes obvious to the team if it doesn't make sense. This happens maybe 0.1% of the time, it's very hard to care when you know this.