Pointless office jobs

Anthropologist David Graeber came to the same conclusion and after an essay on it went viral he wrote the book 'Bullshit Jobs'. Very illuminating and highly readable! https://davidgraeber.org/books/bullshit-jobs

My part time job is like this.

I work 3 hours a day.

I do fuck all in reality. I basically forward emails that could just be sent directly. I honestly don’t know why the fuck I am there.

I keep my mouth shut though, I sit in an office alone and I think eveyone has forgotten me or my job exists still. I keep my head down as the hours are great, and while it’s not well paid, I need the money.

I just read it pootle about on the Internet 😳

ETA - I was really sick last year. I forgot to call in. I didn’t go in for three days and no one noticed. No one called. I just went back when I was better and carried on. No one said a word.

Lol this is hilarious. Its literally the same in my company. I always wonder how they find the time for the women's network and such nonsense. The ones who write long LinkedIn posts about some silly insight they had. Some strange new initiative so they can get budget for a free breakfast, or invite some motivation guru to give a talk about what not.

I think this is quite common, and it’s frustrating as often these jobs are extremely well paid, and those who study and work hard for certain promotions and qualifications don’t get these salaries as easily.

It’s prominent at my place and you can always tell who these people are as they throw themselves into the nonsense that’s all over the intranet. Usually they head up the Pride Network, or spend all their time yapping on about the menopause or hidden disabilities. They also are the ones who “like” all the posts by senior leaders.

We also have people who seem to do nothing. There’s a man who walks around with an iPad all day, taking pictures of communal areas for some reason. There’s are people who walk around putting stickers and posters up. There’s a woman who wanders around aimlessly. They all work for the office’s maintenance company but there are still never any teaspoons and overflowing bins.

Then there’s HR who seem to spend every other day celebrating a birthday/retirement/wedding/birth/pregnancy/engagement etc.

Well if your job is as useless as you say, odds are the organisation will cotton on at some point and you'll get made redundant. Particularly at that salary level. I know so many friends/family who have been laid off recently form white collar jobs.

I'd be banking as much cash as I could until the inevitable happens.

I think you should probably save while you can and keep your costs low OP, I suspect all these type jobs won't be around for long.

It has to be a public sector middle management position. Even though OP has said it's private sector to hide the fact. Pen pusher.

Plenty of teachers make a move to public sector office-based roles, why not make the move!

I think once AI is in use that a lot of the skiving will come to light - DS is in the Met and Palantir dug out lots of people taking more than annual leave entitlement/ fiddling annual leave entitlement etc - but if you are in Scotland you will probably keep your pay - apparently we spend £27 millions on unemployed but paid civil servants. And now they are going to pay huge payouts to get them to leave their jobs. Couldn't make it up.

Intelligence is not correlated with pay. There are plenty of senior managers who are not at all bright.

You clearly aren’t slt

Blimey - which profession??

Brilliant and so true

hi @Probablygreen i haven’t read all
the pages of replies so sorry if I’m repeating other comments.

I feel the same. I earn good money but my role and my whole teams existence is pointless. We are there to “give guidance” to teams that don’t want our help. I have good experience and am smart and if people wanted me to contribute I could. But the organisation structure makes it impossible to do anything useful. I am constantly trying to come up with proactive ideas to stay relevant.

I know my role will be replaced by AI in the next few years. Most corporate jobs that write “strategy” aren’t really needed. I’m grateful for the money I earn now. But my gosh it’s dull. I can’t imagine doing this for another 20 years. But I think the world is changing faster than we know and who knows what will come.

I try every week to learn something new - either work related or external. And I try to be kind and nice to all my colleagues so at least I contribute a good human interaction. The work itself - I figure if the company don’t want me to input or add value it’s not my fault?

Exactly. Most people don't have a clue about the variety of jobs done by civil servants. Or that 80% are outside London and many are neither office based or work office hours.

troll post

You mean prison officers, driving instructors, job centre work coaches? Not sure any would agree they are overpaid or have an easy job.

Yes and the rest of the civil service would probably agree.

I don't earn anywhere near as much as you OP, but I kind of get what you mean. My job can be really boring, but I keep going as it is flexible and I can do the school runs, go to sports day etc. without taking annual leave. Money is OK and I get to work from home so no costs for work clothes or fuel, so I am grateful for that but get so bored at times.

Oh god, the same. I dreamt of becoming a psychologist, but studied 'business' instead as I wanted out of poverty. I thanked myself for the past 20 years that I did that, as I would not be so well off being a psychologist. But now I am comfortable and think of going back to what was a bit of an interest when I was a teenager. Mostly because I have put myself through years of therapy to deal with my childhood and I see how it transforms lives. I am now looking into ways to rack in the money in my current job and maybe 'retire' a bit early and live off being a coach of some sort. I have a good salary, shares and investments I need to grow for another 10 years or so. But I need training and I am not miserable enough to do this in the evenings and weekends. As an overhang of my childhood, I am also kind of tight with money and haven't been able to justify to myself to spend 3k or so on some sort of basic training I have no idea I will ever apply in real life.

You sound massively overpaid. I didn't know such jobs existed. Poor you.

So I’m an ex teacher in half a teachers salary now working full time with children with additional needs. I needed out of teaching and I love what I do but I do wish it paid more. I’m a single parent and get a small amount of UC. But I’m stuck in a house that was meant to be a stepping stone before my ex and I separated and it’s not the forever home but has not become that.

I genuinely would like a mind numbing job that paid your salary so I could get moved and not worry about money. I also have a disabled child and am classed as carer but can’t afford not to work.

I guess your job must be important to someone somewhere as no one would be paying you that much money if it wasn’t.

one suggestion is volunteering. I also volunteer with one well recognised youth organisation but am at the stage where I’m now running it with another person and it’s become a lot of work and we deal with things we aren’t trained or paid to deal with (I’m trained from my job but wouldn’t really be able to out in into practise in my volunteer role). I used to volunteer for a couple of other things too but cut back when I went from part time teacher to full time new job.

i do struggle with people who complain they get paid a lot for not much and aren’t happy. Maybe if I was in your shoes I might understand more. But then again, I took the pay cut to do something I enjoy despite struggling money wise. I tried applying for better paid jobs but ex teachers find it hard to get into other places.

I feel this too. So hard to battle the guilt at knowing you have an ideal balance that many working mums would love, but at the same time finding your job soul-destroyingly dull. I haven't found the answer yet - just wanted to let you know you're not alone!

But if your job is truly soul-destroying and every day you wake up with a sense of absolute despair having to go into the office and face another day of it (like I felt before I left my job) the tradeoff of a decent salary comes at a price of your mental health and general well-being. We spend most our lives at work. It's not worth it when you hate every day of it.