Pointless office jobs

I tried raising things in meetings 8 months ago, the culture in our business is so f**ked that they didn’t like it. Lo and behold, here we are 8 months later in a worse position because people refuse to listen. Now it’s everyone except the exec leadership’s fault and the pressure on everyone to fix it all. Luckily for my c.£90k package I’m doing 2 roles and saving them the £60k of the person that used to work for me, so I guess there’s that.

I get it OP. I earn £50k a year in a full time job that can be done in 1 day a week. It’s actually quite stressful having to look busy and I dread my fortnightly 1-1 meeting with my line manager where I have to tell her what I’ve been up to nothing

I’ve told her (and my previous line manager) that I’ve got spare capacity but no extra work ever comes my way. It leads me to think that there’s lots of other people don’t have much to do.

I feel the same, a lot of jobs seem to have been created to create work for people, which is fine, but is also what AI is now exposing. There's nothing wrong with quitting and doing something you find personally meaningful if you are able to

I completely sympathise with how depressing these things can be and how you find yourself wondering how to plough on.

One thing I think about that might not be helpful but maybe it will…is that for most of human history, all of it except for the negligible blink of an eye that is recent times, people were not able to and never dreamed of having a job that was fulfilling or interesting. It was about subsistence and survival, and mostly brutal. Even when industrialised societies started moving large numbers of people beyond subsistence, even larger numbers of others were queuing for any labour that could feed their family, work that broke your spirit and broke your body, did not pay enough to keep you family safe, and often killed you at a young age. So while I understand asking how civilization got here, it’s been in some worse places.

Maybe ironically the very safety, ease and tameness of your job contribute to it feeling so pointless, but are actually also reasons why it’s a huge blessing. I hope that you find a way to make it feel more purposeful, does your company have any corporate social responsibility schemes or would they be open to you doing something like that as part of your role? For example do you have skills that could help a local charity or school. In my brother’s company everyone does something like that. Or could you find a role that uses your current skills in a way that supports causes that matter to you.

So I guess I’m saying, hopefully you will find something you prefer, but if you don’t…remember that for most of time you’d have been euphoric to be able to support your family in a job that was safe. It may feel boring when you’re far from that adrenaline of trying to survive, but it’s still important and a huge luxury, one could easily be desperately wishing to get back if things changed.

I don’t know what job you do. But… one thing I have noticed is that jobs where it’s life or death (excluding surgeons) generally are the worst paid of all jobs. Which doesn’t make sense at all. I wish I’d known this when I left school.
I’m guessing you work for the government or similar.

Totally get you, my job is utterly pointless also, and I think that 90% of the office jobs are. We are pushing paper around, and it's all about internal politics : 99% of our energies are diverted inwards.
I also think it's so sad that it's come to this. We are wishing our lives away and ruining our health being sedentary and sitting for ours a day under artificial lights for absolutely no purpose, just being busy fools.
I look at my children, with all their spark and potential, and it makes me feel sad that this is what they will also come to - best case, as I do agree that our pointless but well paid jobs will be much more difficult to come by for the next generation!

So I used to be a teacher and now I work in an office - I can’t believe there are people who have worked in an office their whole career.

It is so easy in comparison.
No. It’s just so easy.

At the moment I am paid to get AI to summerise some notes of meetings. And sometimes I colour in some folders.

Also to get my job I had to have a post-grad and a specific professional qualification- so make that make sense.

Yep I work in a bullshit job. Some days I can't cope I have 12 years left, having done 25. It does get a bit easier having less time left. There are people like you and I who look for bigger meanings and others who are absolutely nailing meaning in the 10 bullet points they wrote today. Nobody is right or wrong, but we all get paid and can eat and sleep in a bed. I have hobbies, I read a lot, I write a blog.

I hear you OP. Also paid a lot to do something meaningless that doesn’t contribute to a better society in any way. The only (possible) difference is I find it stressful and have a lot of work, so I can’t bask in not being busy. I feel I am now too old and too well paid to move to something more meaningful. I do also wonder as a society how we have gotten to this point where capable people re contributing so little to society.

I basically try and squeeze it into as little time as possible - which isn't easy as the meetings are back to back for hours on end.
So basically try and do things like exercise before/after, to at least be moving. I think if I had a dog and I had to walk it when I get home, rather than collapsing on the sofa mentally drained, that would help (but I don't).
I am also ruthless about doing as little as possible outside my direct remit. I don't volunteer for random things, run the Xmas party, etc. I am very transactional and do only what will get me better regarded and better paid.
And as concerns the pointlessness - I find the WFH days actually the worst as the pointlessness of the meetings is even more obvious. I literally sit there for hours, with BBC news and mumsnet open on parallel tabs, just occasionally dipping back in to make a point to keep up appearances. My kids just can't believe how ridiculous the whole thing is.

My eldest son works for a university. They built a multimillion pound building. It had toilets ( obviously) and there were multiple meetings to decide what to put on the doors. They are entirely self contained unisex units you enter from the corridor. After hours of debate They decided on the word 'toilet' to be put on the door. Then there were hours of meetings as to whether the Welsh for toilet should be above the English word for toilet . Then it was sent to the translation department to add their knowledge before it went to the signage department. Weeks and weeks of meetings. The lowest paid member of that committee was on £60,000. There were 7 members, some on far more than that. Utterly laughable.

Let me guess

• transformation
• change management
• procurement
• strategy

Life is indeed pointless really. But that doesn't have to be depressing. It is such an insane miracle to be a human being on this one spinning ball of rock in this universe that has the exact perfect conditions to be teeming with life. How unbelievably cool just to exist!

Of course this is a framing I have to proactively maintain - I have definitely slipped into existential dread about the futility of it all a lot (despite having a wellpaid and meaningful job, and two amazing kids). I think being in nature, literally touching the soil and hugging trees, is one of the best things you can do for this.

A friend of mine also said this to me recently. There are many people that wish/ed they could live but died too soon/are dying. There are many people who are alive who wish they were not. To want to be alive, and be alive, is actually an incredible thing. Even if nothing else happens!

I felt exactly the same about my office job. I coped by having a lot of hobbies which the job funded, and going part time in my early 30s. Then quit as soon as I had a baby.

I arranged my life to be content with less money. Could you possibly go down to four days?

I haven’t read the full thread OP but there’s light at the end of the monotony tunnel…AI and robotics will no doubt bring about UBI for you and those like you. I’d say 3 years and you’ll be able to automate your role.

I've always thought this from the outside looking in, as I have never had what anyone would call a 'proper job'... which is not to say I have not or do not work, I do, as a freelancer in various capacities...

But soooooo much of it seems like busy-work, making work for the sake of it, to justify, fuck knows what, with people hurtling around, assigning huge importance to utterly pointless fuckery...

Sometimes, meh, if thats what they want to do - others, like the NHS being sunk under this pointless fuckery that costs a fortune and sucks resources dry, its a huge issue.

And I sit here and paint pictures and talk about dogs and live comfortably, ish, enjoying what I do for the most part, albeit without the security a permanent role might have... and think it all seems a pretty miserable way to live life.

Anyone remember the episode of Black Books where Fran gets a job in an office, and hasn't a CLUE what the job actually is... thats how I view most office jobs in most large organisations!

You sound awful.

Universities are full of people doing the background jobs who are actually doing absolutely nothing day after day and getting paid large amounts for it. People who are supposedly at work in the uni but are in fact at their second home in France ,sitting by a pool and sending the odd email so it looks like they're doing something. None of their colleagues are doing anything meaningful either so no one picks anyone up on their lack of work ( dont rock the boat) because theyre all enjoying being paid to be on holiday/ have side hussles.

The issue with these office jobs is that if you do actually do some work everyone gets upset because you are "showing people up". I luckily don't have to be in a 9-5 these days but it was soul destroying, knowing how many things were just never looked at again, managers who would do nothing at all and still get promotions, people who came in with energy generally being run into the ground with the tedium of it all. It is like being a battery chicken at times, bodies being deformed with the desks and lack of movement. Anxiety and mental health problems because you know your life is about keeping the pretence you are busy. Being afraid of actually completing the work because you'd have to do some other lazy sod's for no thanks. Horrid.

Because you’re dismissing the jobs a lot of people rely on. And crying “But I’m unfulfilled!” when you’re on £80k a year.