If you want an easy Friday and get paid doing nothing work at a university!

[Whitesoftunderbelly]

Just had a conversation with a lady at the gym. She works at our local university in an admin position.
I said ‘thank god it’s Friday tomorrow’…

She laughed and said, ‘ah I won’t be doing much tomorrow - we aren’t allowed to book meetings on Fridays, we cannot make outgoing phone calls and are expected to only answer to any emails that pop up’. Friday is accepted in her department as an ‘admin day’ where you just finish up your tasks. She works from home every Friday and basically said that Fridays are ‘do fuck all’ day.

She gets most of her housework done, just waggling her mouse and checking her emails every now and again.

So it appears that’s what your kids student loans and our taxes are paying for folks!

Well that may be that one persons experience of their specific department.

I work at a Uni. This evening I have been working (just finished). Tomorrow I have four back to back meetings and I'm reading / commenting on someone's PhD. I also have a number of unread emails requiring tasks to be done tomorrow.

So yeh 'doing nothing'.

....my sister is a senior academic at a top university and she's been on research leave for a year, she does fuck all and goes on random holidays to be a 'visiting professor' mainly gets pissed with colleagues or goes on massive walks whilst getting paid 90k a year.

Ok, I'll bite.

I work in a university. We are understaffed, overworked. I'm meant to work 4 days a week, but often switch on at some point in my day off. I turned my laptop off at around 8pm tonight.

Not my experience at all, and not the experience of anyone I work with.

Yeah but I bet it was effort to get there.

Thats 1 person in 1 department in 1 University. Do you always make such sweeping generalisations?

I worked recently at a company that had what done referred to as "fuck it Friday" which sounds v. similar tbh. The amount of meetings we had during the week meant Friday was a welcome relief and a chance to breathe though. We were encouraged to use the day for admin/online learning, but no meetings.

i'm a professor. I do wfh on Fridays because that is my only day to do research and write the papers and grants that are the reason I got into research in the first place. the rest of the time, I'm in my office meeting students and dealing with emails etc (8am-6pm) then back at my home desk 9-11pm for more academic work.

so some people may have an easy time but certainly not all of us.

I worked all day Saturday and Sunday on open days. Can I claim those days back any time soon? Probably not.

It's just a good thing I love my job!

This is obviously going to descend into saying how dreadful uni staff are.

Great, fine. Don't attend one. Don't financially support your children to attend one if you feel that strongly. Write to the uni they attend and ask them about the workload capacity of their staff, and how much deficit they are in.

All the research and scientific studies which inform pretty much all aspects of modern life are undertaken by or with universities or academics who trained at unis.

It's interesting that you have extrapolated an anecdote from one person and applied it to all university staff.

Can you see any flaws in your research?

In all industries and workplaces you have some who are good at navigating sweet deals for themselves, and other more conscientious types who end up picking up the slack.

Extreme end you have people who basically move around boards (Paula Vennells social scene) of universities, companies, media, politicians, and they end up just passing money and highly paid vanity gigs to each other.

Personally I do think a good life lesson is not to be the overly hardworking conscientious type....workhorses often get stuck in the same position as organisations don't want you to progress or move on as you're too valuable.

(Unless it's for something specific like your own business or building up knowledge of investing).

Your post is so uninformed and opinionated that it is infuriating. I work at a University and never have I or any of my colleagues ever done less work on a Friday. In fact, I teach, have supervision meetings, and try to finish as much as possible on a Friday. I would never say this but keep your stupid judgements to yourself and stop making sweeping generalisations.

Yesterday two Tesco cashiers were chatting to each other as there was noone at the tills. Those cheeky fuckers, as if it wasn't easy enough to be sat down on a cushy chair. If you want to do fuck all, you know where to get a job. You'll be living the life of Riley.

Yeah there was this one time I bumped into a random in the street.

She said she works in a shop or something, or might've been a vets or a coffee shop, to be honest I can't remember.

Anyway, she said Fridays are quiet for her and she doesn't do much, so that'll mean no-one in any work place ever does much on a Friday 👍

In an old job of mine (in the private sector) we had similar. Fridays were kept meeting free, and people were strongly encouraged to not make new requests unless it was critical, but wait until the following Monday. We all did a few hours of emails and went home at lunchtime.

And no, this isn't a failing SME, but a global, multinational company with over 40,000 employees.

Some companies have been doing a 4 day week experiment and seem to have found increased productivity compared to a 5 day one. I certainly used to work flat out for 4 days, whereas I can't sustain that pace for 5 with only 2 days between to recover

This^

I'm retired now but honestly I've seen hard workers and slackers in every job I've had .. you will get skivers in universities and skivers in retail and - shock horror - even in our sacred NHS ... just keep your head down, do your job to the best of your ability and retire with a clear conscience.

@JoanThursday oh yeh! I forgot. I recently freely (literally free unpaid) gave up Saturday and Sunday for open days. We're expected to do them as part of our 'contribution to the uni'.

She probably only tells you the fun bits.

I work at a university and this is definitely not my experience at all. Friday is usually the day that all of us who are part-time (3 or 4 days a week) have to work for no pay because our departments can’t afford to pay us FT but our workloads are FT. 95% of my colleagues work evenings and weekends in addition to our contracted hours too. This lady just sounds plain lazy. There’s one of those at every workplace.

Given that she said she has to “waggle her mouse” it’s likely she’s the only one skiving and it’s not the accepted rule at the uni

I worked at two Universities and there was never down time, I loved my jobs but never had a day like this.

Haha. She's clearly not a member of staff dealing with three graduation ceremonies tomorrow.

There was a thread the other day about unsackable colleagues who take the piss. I suspect you've found your local university's example.

The view of 'just finish other tasks ' is a bit unfair. Dealing with emails would only be a small part of many admin jobs from payroll to registry.

She's an admin?

Presumably the teaching staff use Friday for their own admin and research rather than teaching, so prefer not to be interrupted by meetings etc. Greying out that day of the week on their calendars would make sense, but means the admins don't have a lot to do.

I also work in an admin role at a university. I’m underpaid for the work I do, work beyond my contracted hours most weeks and always put the needs of the students I work with first.

If this particular university has blocked Fridays out as a meeting-free day, that’s great and I don’t see a problem with that. I would love a day where I can just focus on responding to emails and finishing off tasks from earlier in the week without being distracted by meetings or other “fire-fighting”.

I’m working unpaid this weekend, like I did last weekend, for our open days - happy for you to join to see what it’s really like to work at a university!