I’ve really messed up at work

It's because you're exposing the big manager as not actually having enough to manage in reality. Sounds lilke typical public sector where a lot of people do as little as possible but pretend they're very busy! You've gone against the grain 😂

Too late for a union. They won't represent someone with an existing issue.

Are you local government OP. I have worked in local government my entire life and this is so common. People employed in roles there is not enough work for but managers want to keep that role in their team as the number of staff you have is part of manager's own status.

I have currently taken on the work of one and a half colleagues who have left, on top of my substantive role. I still don't have enough to do to fill my time. And I am NOT a fast worker. The full time person I took on all the work from, handed me on only one piece of work that typically takes me between 0 and 1 hours work a week. She was a young and ambitious person who left the job within a year, after realising it was a dead end. The other person I took work on from had not looked at any of her files on our system for four months. My manager keeps talking about how busy we all are but we are not. Its utterly bogus.

I once investigated a manager who was reported for watching tv at work. He did. In the investigation it became clear that his entire team had nothing to do as their entire role was taken over by another government agency. Their manager knew about this, at a time the council was looking to make job cuts, but never offered them up as a cut (they could easily be redeployed to another team given their profession) as I presume he felt this would decrease his own status.

I once worked for a manager who had a vacant post for YEARS. This post was not needed. When cuts came around he filled the post just so that it would not be needed. The post holder, a manager, arrived to find that no job actually existed.

So yeah, it exists OP, but this is a culture within Local Government ( or your bit of the public sector) that I have experienced a lot. This mentality, the lack of management of managers to make sure they are actually using their staff productively (let alone develop them to their maximum potential) is, imo, on the biggest areas of public sector inefficiency.

There are LG teams working to capacity but there are others with vanishingly little to do.

I think the issue is that you've effectively talked yourself, or someone else, out of a job, unless you know there is excess work to do?

Absolutely agree. Do not draw attention to the fact that you don't have enough to do. Just look busy. Re-arrange your paper clips or something. People ard fearful of staff cuts and reshuffles so as you are new you should keep quiet.

Often in all jobs, but particularly in the public sector, your importance is signalled not by your results but by the number of people in your team. I've never seen a manager going to their manager and saying "we can do this job with fewer people" unless they are directly tasked with doing so.

Seems a very odd thing for them to be mad about unless they were the one doing it previously

Yikes - it’s always dangerous saying essentially you’re not doing much ….and it depends how you phrased this.
Yes they should restructure and give you more responsibility on the other hand they could make you redundant and let someone else take over your tiny job.

I guess she might have spent hours in meetings defending against job cuts and then saying this undermines her. Only reason I can think of

Contact Acas, immediatly.
Or get your self into a union, you were well within your rights to be updated about your job security and it is looking like they are using this against you.

You have not messed up OP, your employer has.

Great, no wonder nothing useful ever gets done in this country. The DVLA, for example, is hopeless if you have any sort of issue.

Welcome to the public sector @ohbuggera . I now work in a role where I am much busier than I was before. It is a more meaningful, enjoyable role that pushes me, but only after about 8 years of me writing business cases and trying to show upper management how us as staff can benefit the public sector more using our skills and experiences.

It can be very frustrating at times trying to push against the "this is the way we've always done it" type of people who seem to make up a huge number of public sector workers. Thankfully now I've moved to a more efficient and professional team (within the same public sector company) I can see how much of a difference being on the same page as your manager and wider team can be. See if you can get your manager to have a meeting with her manager with you there to reassure her you aren't trying to rock the boat, just make efficiencies.

Ouch. Id have kept my mouth shut for a bit longer I think and then pitched it in a different way 😬 in some roles Id expect to not be too busy for the first couple of months while I get my head around things and suss out what I could review/improve/suggest/implement etc. A few weeks is nothing.

Well the OP would welcome the extra work to fill her time and justify her pay. My guess would be that you are one of the public sector workers stretching their work to fill their hours from your comment. Because otherwise why do you have a problem with her pointing out the lack if work to fill her time?

What is she unhappy about exactly?

None of this makes much sense but it may be that you haven't understood the role fully yet- you say you have only been there a few weeks. When you say departments (as in working in different departments or being in charge of a department), can you say a bit more about what you mean? What grade are you?

Trying to imagine a scenario where I’d be unhappy if someone in my structure said “I’d like more work please” and struggling.

I don't think anyone has suggested she embarrassed the big boss.

The big boss might feel embarrassed but thats not the same thing.

Seems very strange. Looking forward to hearing what happens.

And mine.

Unless you're approrpaitely deferent and/or your face fits well.

As pp said, you have embarassed your boss by pointing this out.

Are you quite young? It is all well and good to point out people not doing much, but when they get made redundant and you get all their work on top of your own for no extra pay, do come back and update the thread..