Is everyone else pretending they’re drowning in work?

[Shareadog]

I’ve worked in office jobs for about 25 years, and I’ve always wondered: do people in self-directed, knowledge-based roles actually spend 37-40 hours a week actively working?

I almost never have, the only exceptions have been during major pitches. However, I’ve consistently received strong reviews and positive feedback. I was promoted last year.

In my current, fairly senior role, I’m regularly praised for both the quality and speed of my work and I definitely don’t avoid taking on extra work or projects. Maybe I’ve just been unusually lucky with manageable workloads, but after this many years that seems unlikely.

I’m not off doing anything exciting—I’m available and responsive—but there are decent stretches when I just don’t have much to do.

Everyone else around me constantly complains they’re drowning, overworked etc.

Am I the weird one, or is everyone else stretching the truth about how busy they are in these type of senior roles?

Indeed. And 'low paid' is in the eye of the beholder - I'm at the top of band 4 (so you can look up how much I earn) and it's enough. I'm 58, my house is paid off, my kids are grown up and independent and I have the apparently rare ability to be content. My job gives me great satisfaction; I make a difference. I work with wonderful people. I get massive amounts of paid leave and paid sick leave and an excellent pension. And I also get flexibility in terms of when I do my work, as long as it gets done. That kind of work-life balance is priceless. Like I said, you can't have my job.

I love my job, but there are many wants to do it which ensures work-life balance, passion, investment, perks, etc. I used to get sick of people moaning around me, so I found a way of prioritising certain parts so I always look busy. But like you, OP, the reality is different. I do attend pointless meetings but I just give very little of myself. I used to be the kind of person who was so invested, I used to take my work problems home, would ruminate, get upset over missed promotions, etc. Over time I just changed how I think: do the big boss managers lie in their beds worrying about ME? No! So don’t let it take over your life.

Why do we work?

I cut working hours when I was a COO, because I could see how we were overdoing lots of tasks.

I was very pleased to wipe out the bullshit at an organisational level. Harder to knock it on the head at an individual level, but some people just busy themselves with "essential" work that you can 100% cut without affecting final quality.

My mat leave cover caused me a right headache by setting a ridiculous standard for some compliance work - he'd do ridiculous 5-10k word risk assessments, and apply no meaningful threshold for doing them. When I came back, I had to strip the process right back to tick boxes, criteria, and actually meaningful outcomes. But people have a sort of anchoring bias to the essay-style assessments.

Every job I’ve had in the past I have worked every second of the day at full pelt. Exhausting, badly paid too. I never had an empty to do list. One of the reasons I’ve left the industry. Currently covering for someone in an admin position and I spend half the day reading my book or doing personal admin… it’s bizarre. And the lady I’m covering is paid more than I was in the other jobs.

I haven't got enough work to do in my current employment either. I've raised this a couple of times and been told to slow down my work pace 🤷‍♀️ and reminded that my role is supposed to be 'reactive' not 'proactive'. Radically different to my previous employment.

No not really, there are people more junior than me but I don’t have any direct reports.

I doubt you are unusually efficient and special, just lucky!

Why do you keep insisting other people want your job? It’s a really weird flex on a thread it’s got nothing to do with!

(btw I get 34 days holiday, total flex as to WFH/ Office and hours, obviously paid sick and also comprehensive private health insurance, pension is average with work paying double what I put in % wise. I earn over 3 times what you do and have lots of spare time. So no, I don’t want your job, but I’m happy you enjoy it!)

It's about efficiency.

“I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” Bill Gates

Yeah I’m like you and also praised for the same qualities - I mostly work from home but have zillions of meetings which often prevent me getting on with my other work - but still meet deadlines. I am really busy always. However I’ve noticed that others don’t seem to do much and yet still say they “don’t have capacity to look at that until week commencing XX” by which time someone like me will have done it of course. Are we the stupid ones? 🤣

I recommend following wankernomics on social media or see their live show. It will seem very familiar!

I work in a customer service type role. It’s above nmw but not highly paid. I find it easy infact if it was full time id be bored. I do my work at at steady pace and take plenty of breaks. My colleague constantly complains we are so busy. (We share the work load and i would say I do 50/60% of it)
I have a stressful home life though so in comparison work is a breeze!!

I work in an office job Charity sector and it fluctuates depending on your role some weeks there’s just not enough hours other weeks you may find yourself with a little bit of time to catch up on things but you are never without work to do a colleague of mine would often say she had nothing to do which didn’t make sense given her role it turned out she wasn’t actually doing 40% of the work she was meant to do she actually went to the CEO one day and asked if she could go home early as she had nothing to do soon after that it was discovered that she wasn’t doing her job properly she was spoken to and it’s still an ongoing issue with her.

I have a colleague who is the same level as me, he comes in earlier, leaves later, is always far too busy to take on any more work, and yet he never meets a deadline.

I have no idea why he is so busy. I’m running more projects than he is, I’m doing more of the management stuff than he is, I don’t start til 10, WFH a lot and often finish my weekly workload in less than 37.5 hours. I will always say I’m busy because I refuse to do all of his work as well as mine. I’ve been working 60 hr weeks for the last month as I had a massive deadline. He should have been taking on the load but of course he was “too busy”

I am that person. I will always find the most efficient way to do a task, because I usually don’t want to do it. I actually find the process of finding the efficient way, far more rewarding.

I tried to get others to do it my way but they decide not to “we’ve done it this way for 40 years”. What’s brilliant is, my boss thinks I am absolutely bloody amazing because I do stuff so well and so quickly! What he doesn’t know is, I’ve actually done it MUCH quicker than he thinks, I wait before handing it over. Otherwise I’d end up doing way more of other people’s work than I already do!

That makes a huge difference, I work extremely efficiently but although I head up a team of 6 I only have 1 direct report who is also extremely efficient but line manages the other 4. The staff management is what takes up his time and when I managed people it was what took up mine.

I also work with several performatively busy people who have half my workload, no budget to manage and no team but still somehow make their tasks stretch out over 5 days while endlessly telling everyone hie busy they are

Does it have to be one or the other?

I have quiet days, I have insane days. What I have most is unsociable hours, so I can have a lazy day but very busy evening, and a lazy week but very busy weekend. It has nothing to do with how I manage my own workload, it's about dealing with things when I have to. We are not all in the same time zone, that doesn't help.

So from the outside, it could look like I am taking a 3 hours lunch break to get my hair done, have a couple of meetings and a work lunch somewhere. Because I have all that.
But I might also spend next weekend spending 10 hours at my desk instead of taking my kids to the beach.

I am not pretending anything, I just get on with things. My bosses look at my results, not my timekeeping. In some jobs, they wouldn't be able to do that.

Flexibility is what I enjoy the most. I couldn't be in a work place where I have to clock in at 8am on the dot, and leave at 5pm on the dot.

Everyone at my work including people on my level, (professional but 'normal' role)managers, those above AND those below me (admin level) goes on constantly about how 'manic' things are. I had a 121 the other day and was told I was 'smashing it' (hate that sort of speak but okay) and that soon we'd have more people on my team so things 'should be a bit more manageable'.

I don't get it. I feel like I do very little. There is the odd day when things are a bit busier or something is complicated and requires me to meet with others or spend more time but overall, 90% of the time at least, It's the least demanding role I've ever worked in.

I get a workload in the morning and little bits throughout the day but nothing is every urgent or takes more than a few minutes to sort out. I answer the phone sometimes, conduct clinical assessments with people a couple of times a day-that's the most demanding part, takes sometimes 30-60 mins but that's that. I will admit to MN that I often have my Mum over for cups of tea, I have had naps, baths, I've cooked, dealt with other life admin etc etc.
And I still manage to get all my work done. I don't know if I am exceptionally fast (doubtful) or everyone else is blatantly talking a load of crap.

I work for local government. In my last role if I worked really quickly for my two office days, I could take it easier on the three days at home.

In my current role, which I've been in for three years in different department, we are drowning in work. It peaks at the beginning of the financial year but then is a bit more steady, though always busy. This year that peak from April still hasn't reduced any.

I think it also depends on how much of your work is self generating. I work in development so my work is all about growing new things or changing existing things. I have broad outcomes but beyond that it's my job to find funding, test new ways of operating and expand the work of the organisation. It's a proactive type of role which is what i like

I sometimes give the impression I'm busier than I am. Because if you are in any way good at your job, most places will give you so much to do that you soon won't be good at your job, because you have too much to do.

Mine definitely has peaks and troughs. I'm public service and at my last one to one my boss basically said he was very impressed with my efforts and I should expect a pay rise at the next round. I don't understand what I do that others don't?!

I’ve worked in offices where the office was well run, the targets and workload were manageable, and if you were on holiday or off sick someone else picked up your work, these roles were never particularly well paid. Now I work in a badly managed office with unachievable targets and you’re expected to just get on with it, if you go on holiday you come back to a weeks worth of work to catch up on and no help from colleagues, consequently I have never taken more than a week off at one time, however it is better paid and the pension is better. I don’t really care if I do a good job, and the company doesn’t seem to either as long as the job gets done, as I just care about getting paid it’s fine for now but I can see why so many people find it stressful.

When I worked in an office I was often bored and didn't have enough to do. I hated it so became a teacher. Never had that problem again 😅

Civil service- ready to be flamed!!! ..... I manage my own caseload and have a weekly target. I consistently beat my target by 1 or 2 a week - this earns me a 6 monthly sustained performance award. We don't get performance related pay so this is the only mini bonus I can get. However, I could do more if I put 100% in, but there's no incentive to do so because my pay will stay the same as those who are doing not a lot!