I’ve really messed up at work

If this inefficiency and skiving are true it gives me the rage. I'm in the public sector and all the staff in the area I work in are run off their feet and use their own money for office essentials because there's no budget to buy any for us.

I am from Australia so don’t have direct experience that is relevant, but I would say based on what you have shared, the replies giving context of public service conditions/culture and your fairly defensive responses that there is some cultural element here that you are missing.
So, my suggestion would be to take your supportive manager for coffee or similar and have a chat about it, somewhat ‘off record’ and be open to hearing what they say/suggest.
Are there big picture parts of the job that you may not actually be across yet? Sure, you may be managing the spreadsheet and responding to emails etc, but are there staff management/improvement planning/broader tasks that you aren’t yet seeing or being assigned as you are new?
Why do they think this has gone over so badly with the upper manager?
Have you stepped on toes without realizing?
could you have approached it differently eg timing, waiting a bit, softer language, maybe just approaching the other teams you are helping on a Friday afternoon and getting them to bring you in earlier to help? Maybe you could do that without involving management.
or you may hear that you are totally right, the manager is unreasonable and/or this is the long term culture, like it or lump it and look out for the next opportunity to jump to a
new position that might suit you better!

Move to the private sector, you’re too good for public sector.

@ohbuggera - I would go into that meeting with my head held high. You've done nothing wrong, in fact, quite the opposite. You e shown initiative and simply said, I can do more. As a manager, I would love this!

I suspect your manager (well, the one who is cross, not your direct manager), likes the status quo - which sounds like the easy life. If everyone worked like you and showed this initiative, the public sector would be better off. Remember that when you have this meeting with them.

Public sector 101

1. Do what you're told
2. Never complain/raise an issue/raise an ethical concern
3. No good deed/initiative/great idea goes unpunished
4. Do not miss out on someone's birthday cake at morning tea
5. Pretend you are doing a lot more work than you are

If you can't do these things, I would move to the private sector.

Keep your mouth shut, download candy crush and enjoy working in a stress free, guaranteed pension job.

When you're older, you'll understand.

They’ll be more to this.

OP you were hired to jump from “multiple departments” picking up spare work?

What bandings are you all - it will help us to understand what power your ‘big boss’ actually has in all this or whether she is just being odd (or worn down by the system perhaps?)

Probably because you'll expose her lack of work to do too.

Horribly accurate.

You are your team/dept head, why wouldn't you take the initiative and do this? Or change the way your team works yourself, why would you need to escalate that?

You did however state you’d messed up at work.

Can you explain in what way you think you’ve are fault?

I’ve recently been given what is essentially control of the smallest department.

I'm currently in a similar situation. I'm on the techy side, moved jobs recently from a private company to a consultancy who have a contract with the civil service, so I'm effectively working for the civil service at the moment. My last job was fast-paced, and really fun because of it, I love being busy and feeling needed. The consultancy offered me a lot more money though, hence the move. OMG, the work is so slow and dull, and so basic! I have all these coding skills etc. - completely under-utilised. And the government is spending a fortune on contractors to do this work.

The thing that gives me the rage, is that I used to be a teacher working 60 hours a week, and always under pressure to do more. It's all government money, so why is there money in the civil service for people to sit around doing nothing, and no money for extra teachers, admin staff etc in schools? If only these under-worked people could pop into a school for a day a week and do some admin, or even train them to do some teaching if they have the qualifications - problem solved! 😀

@ohbuggera You've said you head up a department. I've asked already, as have others, what sort of grade you're at & the size/scope of this "department", as the majority of departments have a team which would make you a team head?

Meet with the manager.

Noone else but they know why they're upset. It's possible they've budgeted the role, that the plan is to expand the role, etc. You won't know. Until they share in an open conversation what they're willing to share.

You've done the right thing and told your manager. They've told theirs. Now it's time to do the 121. Hopefully, the manager is a true leader (first impressions don't support this...) and will discuss, and work with.

I'd have loved to have you on my team.

Can you elaborate on you apparently being a floating employee who goes from department to department picking up work?

What does “essentially control” mean?

I think that’s the mix up.

So your job role is to float across multiple departments picking up work

right

So when is this meeting with the boss, @ohbuggera ?

You're not, but this applies to a lot of PS jobs.

I've learned in my job that my team want me to be THERE and available so I can respond to an email or message instantly but they don't actually have enough work to fill my days.

Mostly because no-one else responds to my emails so my job is mostly sending daily chasers.

They really don't want to hear that I'm not getting enough work because then they'd need to share me with someone else or not have me, and that would mean doing lots of small, annoying jobs themselves.

My manager (who I don't actually work alongside, her job is "manager" of people across several teams) is therefore finding lots of busy work to try to occupy us but none of it is rewarding.

At some point I'll be getting another staff member under me and in the short term that will actually give me something to do as I'll be training her.

After that, I will be able to find more interesting things to do and actually contribute more as currently I can't get stuck in to deeper work as I won't get so many regular interruptions with admin tasks.

I still doubt I'll have anything approaching full time hours and everyone knows it but no-one says it- that's the rule. Instead, everyone talks a lot about how busy they are.

If that’s how you communicate at work, I’m not surprised people are not appreciative of your efforts.

I am 100% sure you delivered your observations not in a way that’s helpful but in way that’s critical of your colleagues who are not as efficient and / or of your management chain, or both.

so far you are a person who spent a year floating across the departments. You are not a manager or lead of a particular department or sub-department either. So it’s likely not any strategic contributions to how things are run, because you don’t have visibility of any of that and haven’t spent much time in any of the teams.

You also don’t seem capable to understand that proposing changes needs “selling” to your manager and your stakeholders.