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!

So many people on MN seems to have these jobs. What are they and how can I get one?

Look, my employer wanted someone to do xyz job and was willing to pay xyz for that.
I am doing that job and getting paid for it.
I have experience and paid for education that makes it possible to do it quickly.

I quite sure that if you were in my shoes you would not walk to the head office and demand a pay cut as you in reality work 15-25% of time ;)

Similar here. I'm paid to work 28hrs a week but I can easily get most of my work done in 20 hours max

I've negotiated Hybrid working so I work 20 hrs in the office and the rest from home.
Invariably I don't work the additional 8 hrs but I keep an eye on emails/phone and if I'm needed then I'm available to sort things out.
I felt guilty but then my employer is deliberately keeping the workload low and there isn't enough work.
Equally I think they know if they attempt to cut my hours then I'll be looking for another job.
Pretty bored but gives me time to do the housework 😁

If I was in your role I'd advise the charity that they needed to restructure/modernise and embrace tech and automation, then oversee that change process before becoming redundant and move on to the next role at a different business or charity.

@LondonFox phrase it however you like to justify it to yourself, but the reality is you are stealing from a charity.

You are taking advantage of their lack of technical know-how to lie to them by omission.

It’s so funny how as a woman we often think this. Genuinely men I have spoken to (including my husband do not think this). He’s a Managing Partner in a company and yesterday he day consisted of two morning meetings, a big run and a nap. And he didn’t feel guilty in the slightest as he has put the work in and knows his worth. He’s the one who has to put fires out when they happen (which does involve long days on occasion) but day to day he does so little!!

This absolutely petrifies me. I am someone who I think is well regarded and respected, very experienced, risen through the ranks and been with the company a long time. I worked my butt off.

However, in the last few years I've become a team leader, a mum, had so many set backs personally (parent dying, sleep deprivation, my own back to back illnesses) and ultimately I've been slacking, most if the time not logging on until 10-11am and logging off 5pm.

I'm still performing well output wise but my input is dire. I have this fear of them checking on my activity and letting me go. How common is this?! Do personal circumstances come into it? So many people must not work full days.

Omg. This. Executive presence and communication with influence is everything. If people like your presence, you speak sense, you don't waste their time, you are efficient and add value then you're an asset.

More of an asset than the person working 40+ hours a week who once they open their mouths, you know it's 5+ minutes before anyone can get a word in. They say so much, yet nothing at all.

In the day and age of conference calls, people who can communicate can do more with less... more impact with less time that is.

Bet no 2 secretly even more pleased. You’re making yourself easy to replace whilst simultaneously training her to do it. 🤔. Hmmmm?

Er, no we’re not.

Same. My job is fully wfh and I get my tasks done in about 2/3 of the time I’m paid for. Unfortunately the pay is utter shite. Stops me feeling guilty though.

Delegation is key! My managers manipulated every opportunity to dish out work to the rest of us while they pretended to be far too busy with other things. How many times we caught them leaving early or hiding in their office seemingly not doing much. In my case it was pure naivety in letting them get away with it, but they did and it still boils my blood that I never spoke out.

This is me at the moment. I'm earning £75k (package in total is 6 figures though) and do very little, I don't even manage anyone at the moment. They're paying me for my expertise but they could get a lot more out of me if they wanted but the organisation I'm in just isn't wanting to stretch in this area at the moment.

I am bored and it's demoralising, it's not me at all, I like being busy and feeling important! I'm just a bit trapped at the moment because it pays well, it's flexible and I WFH which has been harder to come by since the U turn on home working in the last year. My youngest goes to secondary school next year so I will be freed of the school run and should have more flexibility to apply for something more hybrid and hopefully challenging, though I do worry I'm getting a little too used to doing less!

@ThatTealViewer

Here are just a few publicly available papers:

www.aauw.org/app/uploads/2021/07/SimpleTruth_4.0-1.pdf

www.kansascityfed.org/Economic%20Review/documents/9276/EconomicReviewV108N1GloverMustredelRioPollard.pdf

Last one is a Springer link, not sure if accessible for non members: link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11162-023-09766-3.pdf

But as with all statistics, anomalies are an exception to the rule. The anomalies do not make a rule.

@ThatTealViewer

The last one is called : Wage Disparities in Academia for Engineering Women of Colour (2023, McGee, Cox, Main, Miles, Hailu)

Thank you. I was actually asking about U.K. data. My apologies for not specifying.

But as with all statistics, anomalies are an exception to the rule. The anomalies do not make a rule.

As nothing I’ve said indicates I’m unaware of this, not quite sure why you’ve said it to me.

Oh please.
There is nothing special of being dumb and killing yourself at work when you can find a role where you can do bare minimum and get paid well.

@LondonFox good luck when you go to a new company that is more clued up and they ask what you did with all your time.

And I seriously doubt you're a big cheese making 'difficult decisions'. You wouldn't have been able to automate 90% of your role in that position, an assistant would have been doing the routine work.

I think it’s interesting what the word ‘charity’ evokes for some people.

The National Trust is a charity. The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award is a charity. The Royal College of Surgeons is a charity. The Historic Royal Palaces = charity. Almost every museum and national gallery has charitable status. Ditto, membership organisations and associations.

The idea that all charities are shoestring affairs, staffed by selfless do-gooders and funded by the public isn’t even outdated - I’m not sure it’s ever been accurate. They are organisations - often large ones - with the same requirements (IT, HR, Finance, for example) as any other organisations. Some of these people work harder than others. However, ‘is a digital product manager g door the Tate Modern who doesn’t work very hard’ doesn’t have quite the same ring as ‘is stealing from a charity’. (This isn’t specifically about you @LondonFox ).

Ditto. People say they've worked their way up. How? What type of roles? I'd love to advise my kids better.

And I in awe of "logging on around 11 and switching off at 5"

Iid love to be paid full time hours for part time work. I'm happy to work to get there. I just don't see how.

good luck when you go to a new company that is more clued up and they ask what you did with all your time.
I have never been asked what I do all day. I have been asked to show what benefit I brought to the company, what savings, what improvements, what change-management, etc, etc.
Companies care about outcomes, not how you got there (as long as it doesn't get them in hot water).

Besides, I am sure that she could waffle her way out of "what did you actually do all day?"

I think this depends what role you are in. Genuinely I’ve found the way to get ahead is to emulate what the person above you does. I mean subtlety don’t steal their clothes or anything. Sign off your emails the same way, mimic their posture when in teams meetings, be a sympathetic person ear. I am the keeper of secrets. Don’t massively take the piss but if you get your job done and are demonstrably trustworthy you can mooch along up the ladder behind them.

Asistant doing what?
I am paid to provide guidance based on data. You cannot employ an assistant to do that lol.

People say they've worked their way up. How? What type of roles? I'd love to advise my kids better.
It's not the role, it's the person. Here's an article on the STAR interview technique. If you can demonstrate suitability then you are in with a chance. If all you can say is, "I turned up 9-5; I did as I was told" then not so much.

Should say is a digital product manager for the Tate Modern who doesn’t work very hard’. 🤦🏾‍♀️