Who else admits to having a Lazy Girl Job?

[isolabella]

Read this interesting article and realised I finally have what I've always wanted: a lazy girl job that leaves me lots of time for family, exercise, pursuing my interests, life admin etc. Zero guilt.

In my case this is made possible by having put in the effort early on in my job so I've earned trust and I'm efficient so do all my tasks and deal with emails quickly so I can chill out again and do what I want: walk in the woods, go for a run, cook, have a coffee and chat with family. Always take my phone with me so can pick up any calls. Only go to the office once a week max (often not even that) since Covid, thank the lord.

Also made possible because people in my organisation aren't exactly highly performing or skilled, so being efficient when it counts stands out and makes you look like you do an amazing job.

Anyone else?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/09/gen-z-lazy-girl-jobs-tiktok-work

@EthicalNonMahogany thank you and agree with your perspective. I think we have a moral imperative to try our best, if that's not work, then maybe it could be enjoying a particular hobby to the max or bringing up a family. I struggle to consider life as just floating along not really doing anything at all.

I tend to think that every job has a purpose (or one should try and find it) even if it's a very small contribution to a bigger aim. Which is why I'd never say that any job is 'unskilled' or unimportant. Lots of low paid jobs are critical to a particular purpose and should be recognised/rewarded as such.

It’s a very sexist concept isn’t it? Where is the headline about the “lazy boy” jobs? All those driving jobs that pay the same as health care assistants in the NHS, or the same as teaching assistants driving education for those same boys? What about the train drivers, on more than teachers, nurses and many doctors? What about the trades, equivalent to nursing but far more accessible for lazy boys in school? IT is a relatively easy sector in some ways, depending on exactly what, and is male dominated. And last but by no means least, all those London finance jobs that are almost exclusively male and make thousands just for pressing a few keyboard keys which fuck up other peoples’ lives?

But so much easier to target women and tell them they need to be heroes on low wages isn’t it. Why do the unthinking middle classes spread this shite? Do you not see where women’s rights are going? Do you not remember Bernays and the invention of marketing, the open propaganda of the Blair years or the interest in nudge philosophy?

@isolabella

What a horrible snidey post. I hope you speak to your colleagues in a nicer way.

No I'm not a dog. The word treats can mean anything you want to treat yourself with.

You know literally nothing about me and I don't have a sad consumer-based life. I just work harder than you and reap the rewards in many ways.

Pot, kettle....If you dish it out you gotta take it! And you know nothing about me either. I started this thread in a light-hearted way but got increasingly sick of the prickly and patronising tone of posters like you.

Nobody's dished anything out to you. A few of us challenging your thinking / assumptions about the nature of work.

I'm in exactly the same position. My current job makes my last job look so easy. I also moved from a happy functioning team to a team that goes off sick and leaves me to pick up their mess.

Ps: those of us in those mind-numbing corporate careers that you speak of, have a bigger social circle, amazing contacts, get to travel, more income to spend on holidays and hobbies, nicer houses, more treats and generally get more out of life. Plus when we are looking to retire younger than average you'll still be a PA doing jogs round the park with your phone!

wow I hope I never come across you trying to ‘develop me’. You sound really nasty

I think we have a moral imperative to try our best, if that's not work, then maybe it could be enjoying a particular hobby to the max or bringing up a family. I struggle to consider life as just floating along not really doing anything at all

but just because YOU think this it doesn’t make it true does it? I don’t feel a moral imperative to be the best at anything. I work in a senior job, mostly coasting along, earning £80k, the day to day is fine but I couldn’t give a shit about it on a fundamental level and certainly don’t try and develop myself. I’m happing working the least I can and enjoying my life outside of work.

it strikes me that you’re struggling to find a purpose in life - when there really is none. We live, we die, we get forgotten. And that doesn’t change however hard you work your middle management job. Once you accept that life is a lot more enjoyable!

What nasty for pointing out that there are clear benefits to having a career and earning more, therefore not working to 70? How is that nasty.

you'll still be a PA doing jogs round the park with your phone

this sneery and superior bit. H2h

I read that article and I am in the same position OP. I love my work/life balance now, it’s taken a long time to get and I am not going back!

My choices were sneered at by the OP to the point one of their recent posts got deleted because it was blatantly insulting. I wouldn't speak to anyone like that at work, because the people who I work with are totally different. I said I got job satisfaction out of developing people (as an illustration of why I do what I do).

She's openly said she's happy being a PA and exercising during the day rather than working hard, so it's not really an insult, it's playing back what was said. My point being, that's what she has to look forward to if she does bare minimum. And no, I wouldn't want to be doing that sort of stuff forever but maybe she does, so fair play to her.

This is a board for opinions - so no, not everything I said is true. That stands for every post here.

I do have a purpose in life that includes my career and I'm lucky enough to think of it as a vocation. Im not middle management but I don't want to share details about what role I do have.

If you want to phone it in nobody will stop you but it's 40 hours a week that you're not really getting a great deal out of other than a few grand a month in your bank account. I personally couldn't approach work that way.

@Windercar it's because life has no purpose that humans give it purpose. When we are dying we want to leave as much love as we can. Purpose is delaying entropy. And you misread, it isn't trying to BE the best, it's trying to DO our best.

And good nuance @Yorkshirelass04 you're right it's not about paid work it's about trying our best with the 4k weeks we have on the planet. It's about being sure in ourselves that when we work, we work towards an end that is worth it.

@RosaGallica very thoughtful and useful perspective - we absolutely must resist the marketing philosophy that subtly conflates the doing our best with rising higher in someone else's corporate hierarchy and just reinforces all the bad systems we know about already. Sexist patriarchal capitalist institutions seek to perpetuate themselves.

Bottom line is - if you drink the kool aid and kill yourself for an employer just because of the reward system they offer, you're a trained dog. If you cheat the system and get something for nothing (least effort most ££) you're still propping up the system, you're still agreeing with it on some level. So you "quiet quit". You're a bad dog, but still a dog. You're not examining what the employer is doing in the world. So long as you get your kibbles.

Why not be a human, take 100% responsibility for your effort and feel proud? Why not work out for yourself if your job benefits the world, plan your life, choose jobs that matter? Then you are totally congruent with the ends to which you put your precious time and energy. Your mental health will thank you.

I’m a teacher and it’s feast or famine. Flat out in term time but 16 weeks holiday a year. I also don’t generally work in the evenings.

@EthicalNonMahogany I love your point about doing the jobs that matter (where we can) and that matter to you. And not propping up the bad ones that could be done better or differently.

I have one of these and I’m bored!! I am a relatively efficient worker so I am recognised by my bosses for my work and seem to complete things faster than my colleagues, whilst not having to put in that much effort. I feel like any monkey could do what I do, and I miss feeling like I am contributing something in a unique way.

It’s had its perks (reaaaally phoned it in some days in early pregnancy when I was sick as a dog) but I couldn’t stay here forever. I’m moving on to a more complex role with more development opportunities and I can’t wait. My husband thinks I’m mad and would love a “lazy boy” job though.

Yorkshirelass04 I think you're somewhat lacking in self-awareness to pop up on this thread with your 'moral imperatives' and wanting to 'develop people' while referring to my lifestyle (of which, after all, you know very little ) as 'stagnant' and when it is YOU who makes snide and condescending remarks of me jogging with my phone in retirement in comparison with you in your nicer house, wider circle of friends and expensive holidays and treats (!) and then act offended when similarly snide comments are levelled at you and all wide eyed when accused of unpleasantness.

For the others, I'm very content in my job and life, which was the point of the thread. Long may it continue.

Long may it continue. My lifestyle, not necessarily the thread! 😂

I work Mon- Wed 8am-12.30 in an office. Very low stress if I'm honest. We do have a few rental properties which we've worked hard in the past to build up and so I do feel blessed that DH and I can relax a bit at weekends now rather than running around desperately trying to get housework and shopping done as in the past! 🤯

Now there’s a lazy ‘job’.

those of us in those mind-numbing corporate careers that you speak of, have a bigger social circle, amazing contacts, get to travel, more income to spend on holidays and hobbies, nicer houses, more treats and generally get more out of life. Plus when we are looking to retire younger than average you'll still be a PA doing jogs round the park with your phone!

Sorry, that just made me laugh out loud !!! I love these sorts of sweeping statements, where people are deluded to think unless you are on the "corporate ladder" you do not have any of these things 🤣🤣🤣

Sorry, what do you mean?

Honestly are we as women really accepting and embracing the whoke "lazy girl role" title