I get paid a lot of money for doing very little

[Thrilley]

I'm not proud at all, I'm a bit bored, but also recognise I have it pretty good.

I lead a small operations team, 3 people including me. I took the job mostly because it paid the same as my old job, but for only 3 days pw, whereas before I was FT.

Partly, I have little to do becuase my no2 is very good and very keen to take on new work. I'm enjoying developing her and there's no doubt she's doing some work that should be mine. She seems happy with this/glad of the training though. Regardless, I think our team of 2.6 people is probably 1 too many, the others aren't over worked either.

However, no one outside the team seems to have noticed, no one seems to care about cost, everyone is very happy with the service we deliver and none of us is likely to easily find similar work for similar money

So, I keep quiet....? It doesn't seem quite ethical, but neither does volunteering one of our jobs!

Is that 70k for 3 days or 70k full time equivalent?

70k for 3 days is pretty good. You must be well respected in your job and very experienced. Good for you!

I need to find the time and energy to pivot. I slog my guts out for 40k. I know this is a lot compared to many jobs and this is MN but a step up salary wise is within reach. I've been putting it off for a long time but it does need addressing.

I’m a consultant. I’m currently on maternity leave but, when I’m not, I get paid a minimum day rate of £450 a day to do almost nothing. At the beginning of my career, I worked MUCH harder, for a fraction of that.

‘Tis the nature of capitalism. Don’t sweat it.

Agree. There's a difference between being given development opportunities and regularly working above your pay grade.

I guess the thing you're being compensated for is responsibility. If your no2 messes up then ultimately it's on you, surely? Especially if it's a job you should be doing. Is it a high risk area you work in?

Where I work we have a lot of people seemingly doing v.little except passing work to the lower orders and reinventing the wheel. They have meetings and teams calls. Discuss strategy etc and vanish to whf where they become unavailable esp on a Friday. Their salaries start at 50k and go to prob 150k. You will all have people like that.

I suggest if you are over staffed sooner or later someone will realise the business is not sustainable and you will bear the brunt of not acting?

can you not use this time to either streamline the business to reduce staff or work at increasing or extending the business.

She only works to her mid thighs

I won't tell you what I do or have done, but someone smirking on mumsnet about enjoying developing me and having me do work that they admit they should be doing wouldn't sit well with me

I’m in a similar position, I came from a role where I was absolutely run ragged and now spend an awful lot of time entertaining myself. I have raised it with my manager when I was relatively new and he was of the opinion that im there for my knowledge and experience rather than actually doing the work and its actually a good thing to have time available to pick up if/when im needed.

im not anywhere near retirement age and am starting to get bored but its very difficult to leave such an easy role when ive got young children at home to focus on!

Who's smirking? I'm proud of the staff I've developed and love to see them doing well, whether it's for me or whether it turns out I trained them for a job elsewhere.

I'm enjoying developing her and there's no doubt she's doing some work that should be mine

I bet PP meant this. It does jump out.

Do you believe that you provide value for money to the organisations who engage your services? There's a lot of money to be made in consultancy work from what I've seen over the years, and sometimes it's been obvious that it's been money for old rope. I guess it depends what sector it is. If you have a specific skillset eg engineering etc you're probably offering very different value for money to a generic management consultant who is honed their skills at talking the talk and bigging up their ideas, but I've seen so many who swan in and out of organisations in certain sectors and you wonder what they've actually been paid for because they've made no real discernible difference.

I get paid very little for doing a lot.

😩

Lucky! Well I'd just enjoy it. I did. I wasn't pushed out by someone else but our department slashed by an ambitious resume-adding director. I knew it would happen, though.

I could have taken a different role but the redundancy was far too attractive & the working environment went to crap.

I did just enjoy it while it lasted & used the time to improve my skills. It really was a unicorn role!

I've always noticed wherever I've worked that the higher up people go in the organisation, the less work they actually do themselves. They spend most of their time sitting around in meetings deciding who's going to be doing their work for them this time, and then getting someone else to tell them to do it.

The more senior I got, the more they started letting me in on their little secret (when they weren't asking me to do their work for them that is).

It made me think she might out-interview you if a restructure ever takes place, OP! 😂

Very similar to where I work. Some of the managers work compressed hours so they can have Fridays off. I never see meetings in their diaries before 9am or after 5pm on the other days and they are always offline.
The work does itself really and they are paid a lot for not doing much.

I'm reminded of a thread a while back by a woman who was working 3 or 4 full time wfh roles simultaneously- without the knowledge of anyone in the companies. Apparently it's a thing, she was somewhat flamed but I couldnt help thinking 'nice work if you can get it!'

Agree. I used to be her, don't think she doesn't realise this and don't think she'll always feel happy about it, eventually the resentful sets in

The people talking of being bored in their job because they don't have enough to fill the hours. Surely there is plenty of skills development you could be doing? No-one knows everything there is to know about a subject. There is always more to know. You've got a whole world out there on the internet, so much shared knowledge, free resources etc. At the point you are struggling to find something new to learn about your own job or sector, have a look at similar roles, or the roles of stakeholders, or have an indepth look at how your role is done in other countries to see if you could implement similar here. Become an expert in a piece of software that you usually only use for certain things. If the only thing you do with your organisation's website is read what's on there, start having a look at what works well and what doesn't work well, offer suggestions (properly useful) improvements especially if it's to do with your team. If you know little about website editing or design teach yourself how to do that. Read more books on managing people, or even more general stuff (but still relevant human psychology books.) If you deal with a particular geographical area, gain more indepth knowledge than what you have already, do research on future local developments and collaboration possibilities, learn a language which may be useful. Could you do some outreach work for the education and skills sector? More networking...etc etc. It can go on and on.

Basically be proactive and FIND something useful to do/learn rather than sit back with your ticked-off list of tasks for the week/month/year and think "ah well, I've done them all now, finished them early, I can kick back now." The gifted and talented pupils in any school aren't allowed to coast just because they finish all the work before anyone else. They're given additional tasks to stretch themselves.

If you really and truly do know everything and you've read everything there is to know out there then maybe it's time for YOU to write a book, more professional journal articles etc.

I tend to raise an eyebrow inwardly at people in senior roles who complain of being bored.

Yes definitely!
My first job was working in a bank aged 16. The bank manager did very little and would sit in his office every day reading the broadsheets till lunchtime. He would then have a long lunch, before dictating a few letters to his secretary and then home at 5pm on the dot while the slaves ran around like blue arsed flies.

My first job was in a bank too!

Congratulations. Use the time to do something that interests you, write your best-seller, or whatever.

I recently quit a job where I had the workload of at least two people, and was underpaid and underappreciated despite years of going above and beyond because I cared and wanted to make a difference etc (with great financial results for the company.) I feel like my experience is common.

Keep quiet and enjoy what you have. Your post gives me hope that I might find something similar one day!