Office Workers: Be honest, are you genuinely busy at work?

Kim_kim

xapprenticex wrote: »

If your office work admin of the scanning and printing variety then i imagine there isnt much. I work in Finance, which is office based, i've not had a quiet day since the day i started, if that were not the case id have moved on by now, quiet days equal slow days, slow days equal boredom, I dont handle boredom well, its depressing.

Me too - finance

The higher up the ladder I go the harder I work.

If the rest of the world paused and I could carry on my work (so nothing is coming in, nothing is unfolding). It would probably take me about 2 weeks to get straight. And I work fast.

Deep_In_Debt

I'm very busy all day long. I work in healthcare recruitment so it is pretty full on all the time.

jonnygee2

If I just did what was given to me, I could do very little indeed. My immediate boss is very senior, I rarely even see them. Most actual tasks are easily delegated.

But if I did nothing we wouldn't hit our targets. I need to constantly be involved in a lot of different things, from finding new business opportunities to training the team.

So in the end, yes I'm busy. But if I want to do nothing all day - it's an option too.

Tigsteroonie

I'd love an office job where I'm "not particularly busy". I'm going at full pelt for 7 hours each day (with a lunch break obviously), and just grateful that my employer has a short working day so that I don't burn out.

Seems to be a pattern though - I'm in the Finance side of shared services.

Pennywise

I've worked at hundreds of small/private businesses (auditing), usually in or close to their general offices/accounts offices, and in almost all cases, they've been run off their feet with piles of work to do and constantly on the phone or in and out to other departments.

The only "quiet" offices I've seen are in larger organisations which usually employ the "one person one job" attitude meaning a lot of time they have little to do.

Doshwaster

nicechap wrote: »

You can buy this seminal work on Amazon about it.

https://www.amazon.com/Bonjour-Laziness-Hard-Work-Doesnt/dp/0752871862

I like the theory of the Lazy Project Manager

https://www.amazon.co.uk/lazy-project-manager-2nd-Productive/dp/1908984554/

The idea is that if you want a job doing then you should give it to a lazy person as they will find the most efficient way of doing it for the least effort.

pmduk

I remember an office job I had where our work for the year came in a 3-month spell. Nowadays the main time-waster in offices is the meetings-mentality. You'll sometimes see people comparing diaries to check that they're not missing out on meeting they could attend.

steampowered

Expectations depend very much on the company and sector.

In my job (professional in the city), an "average" day would be 9am to 7pm, and a long day would be starting at 9am and finishing at perhaps 4am (and yes, back in for 9am the next day).

There are people in the team that I perceive as a bit lazy, but they still probably do a lot more hours than Joe Bloggs (though admittedly are well paid for it).

LilElvis

A few years ago I took a temp job covering reception/post. After a couple of weeks of combining the job with sorting out a several decades worth of superfluous paperwork shoved onto shelving (and still having 70% of the day free for drinking coffee and surfing the net) I was asked to sort out a few unreconciled accounts. Then someone in accounts went on holiday and I did their job too. I combined 2 jobs and was still spending at least a third of the day online shopping, posting on social media and basically not working! I was gobsmacked at how little those full time employees had to do all day. I was used to working flat out all day and still needing to do (unpaid) overtime to keep up. I certainly preferred being challenged than bored out of my mind even whilst, allegedly, doing two jobs. Probably why my usual earnings were double the salary of those combined roles. I gave up temping after that assignment - watching daytime TV would atrophy your brain less. There's a world of difference between minimum wage office work and a challenging, professional role.

CapricornLass

I'm currently in Project Support , dealing with multiple projects. I started in March, and apart from the first week when I was waiting for passwords to come through, I've had my nose to the grindstone from 8 am to 4.15pm with just half an hour for lunch ever since. 4.15 because by that time my little brain has had enough!


Its interesting, and very varied, and I love doing it, but when a dozen things fly across your desk which all need to be done 'Now', you sometimes wish to you had a bit of time to draw breath!