Things you do at work that make you question your existence

[2024horizons]

I've just spent an inordinate amount of time to enter data into a form, only to find out the data didn't need to be entered at all.

Technically it's my fault and I was tired so I didn't see the wording was different to what I am used to.

Anyone else?

@ThirtyThrillionThreeTrees Wow she sounds delightful!

Being told to do one thing but not forget to do another, when the second depends on the first and no one knows when the first is actually happening.

The horror of realising my manager is making it up as she goes along, will happily change tactic at the last minute, but expect me to immediately adapt and change course and complete what she wants straight away with no respect for my schedule. While also realising that the people below me do this to me too, but any attempt to change that is met frostily as they are the next generation who want freedom to pursue what they enjoy. Getting them to do anything is like herding cats and requires constant checking.

Sitting through PowerPoint presentations when they read out slowly the one or two lines on the screen as if you are in reception class at primary school and can't read. Hours/days/weeks/months of my time wasted and so patronising.

Moving pixels around on a screen.

Away Days and other HR nonsense. They literally make me lose the will to live.

In previous job I knew it was time to start looking when at one meeting we spent 45 minutes discussing the font documents should be in for a particular accreditation. Turned out, if the project manager in charge had actually looked at the software platform we uploaded the documents to, they got changed to a default font anyway. That meeting cost the organisation around a thousand pounds in staff attendance alone, quite apart from the lost productivity. One day I will write a book about it all.

Yeah, this kind of thing basically. Things change, they change back, etc.

Meanwhile I’m expected to be impressed by the new manager’s ambition and excitement about their ‘innovative’ ideas, which amount to changing things back to how they were five years ago.

And then the manager moves on to as they’ve been promoted for their ability to bullshit, and it’s the rest of us who have to implement their unnecessary changes.

When we can't save a baby/child. It makes me question everything. Is there a god? Is there a point to existence? How can life be so unfair? What is the point of us being there if we couldn't save them? Would someone different/better have been able to make a difference? Can I still face coming to work? For how long will I see the face of that dead child every time I close my eyes? How will the poor parents ever survive? Could we have done something, anything, different?

Or were you after funny answers?

What on earth do you do??

SarahAndQuack Dairy farmer? Pig farmer?

Same as op

Formatted 500 questions

Quote will probably be a decline

Squat on the bobbly. Staffroom incident. No one saw but got the squash out. Strawberry extra strength, not my cuppa. Two swings to the left - knocked him out.

My boss throws a fit if he sees you at the printer, because he wants you to use the admin staff to print anything. I spend time writing detailed instructions to the admin staff, telling them exactly what I want, when I could have done it myself in half the time it took me to explain to them.

@nocoolnamesleft, that's so terribly sad. Thank you for the work you do.

@DoubleScreens - work in an indie plant nursery.

Though, on reflection, it probably has a fair bit of overlap with pig farming in some respects.

Most of the bits about being a teacher that aren't actual teaching or helping kids.

@MySonCyrilBaconSniffer
Am I missing something or are you just
"very.....very.....drunk". ?

@nocoolnamesleft There is nothing more important than what you do. I hope you get support . Thank you for sharing.

Aaargh, when I was a sub-editor we got a new editor who’d do this with proofs: mark it up and, instead of handing it back and letting us get on with inputting the changes, make us sit with her while she talked us through them: “Now, here I’ve crossed out this word, so delete that. I think the headline is better like this, so you’ll see I’ve written the new one here. Add a comma here, where I’ve added one…” Just the most pointless waste of time and the most zoned-out I’ve ever felt, like taking a strong antihistamine with a lunchtime drink, only not so fun.

This so much!

Meetings. So many pointless, tedious meetings. A career change meant no more meetings, and the one brief one that took place was on a day and time I didn't work, so just received the minutes. So glad I'm retired though.

I was thinking about this on Friday when I went into one of the bedrooms at work and found the place strewn with clothes. Clothes that I'd ironed and filed and put away the day before.

And no, the culprit isn't a six year old, she's a 60 year old who demanded I iron it all again. Gotta admit I did a few bits to go on top and then just out everything back.

No doubt it'll be the same on Monday 😣😬

This just sums up a lot of people’s whole working lives. If you stay in one job/industry long enough things come back into fashion. Usually by the enthusiastic younger employees who’ve made it into management. You get your Sheilas and your Mikes who have been in the same role for years and have seen all the managers come and to bringing their new brooms with them. Problem is they just sweep the same old shit round the floor till it’s back where it was in the first place.

the Sheilas and Mikes of the workplace look at each other and roll their eyes at each “exciting new development”.

Education is particular bad for this.

When I fall off my chair, I sometimes think I’m a ghost and I’ve fallen through my chair. That makes me question my existence.

Searching for appropriate emojis to use on the corporate social media posts. I remember trawling through thinking “I’m being paid for this!”

more recently, sitting on a teams call of quite senior colleagues reviewing a sentence in a document and agreeing the change. It was something an individual at our level could easily have done (no legal ramifications) yet 2 colleagues met and agreed suggested wording then brought it to the group for sign off. While they discussed it I was calculating the amount of money being spent on such an unimportant decision.

And yes to restructuring- centralise it all/decentralise it all in a 7 year cycle. Usually with a different title but it’s the same thing. If they stopped changing stuff then maybe we’d actually become efficient but as soon as things settle and have a chance we change it all again. Our latest merger has resulted in panic 10 month on because it’s not delivered the savings they hoped for… no shit Sherlock. They sacked half the execs but added many many more directors that add up to more than the execs were on. Who could have predicted this outcome?! Oh wait, most of us on the tier below that! Eye rolls aren’t welcome so we all smile politely and look appropriately concerned.

Any time I have to write or enforce a ridiculous policy, just on the off chance someone might decide to do something batshit mental and we don't have it in writing to prove that we've said they shouldn't have.

Or send an all staff email about something inane. Car parking dramas, the mess in the kitchen/toilets. That unidentifiable thing in Tupperware in the staff fridge.

Deal with any kind of gripe about what someone is wearing. With very few exceptions, I totally don't care what anyone wears to work.

Deal with complicated flexible working requests where people want to do a 4.25 hour working day, but have every Tuesday off in summer hols and every Monday the rest of the time and we have to calculate where the hell that leaves their holiday entitlement on a shit system that doesn't work.

Deal with adults who should be professionals behaving like tantrumming toddlers.

Deal with managers who should have dealt with the above but didn't.