to be surprised at how slowly people work?

[seoid]

I work 24 hours a month, so essentially three working days. In that time I produce almost an entire 24-page magazine from scratch, including sourcing, editing and laying up articles and writing about 3,000 words. Within that time I also MN a bit and go on facebook. I can be a bit stressed coming up to deadline but mostly it's fine, easy to do.

I've always been quite hard on myself, but actually I'm realising that many of the people I've worked with have been incredibly slow in comparison to me. Does anyone else find this? I've always thought I'm a fairly average worker but actually as time goes on I'm finding that simply getting the job done actually puts me a fair bit ahead of the people I work with, who seem to faff and miss deadlines and be totally unreliable. I had a meeting with our new CEO yesterday and he was full of praise for me, which was nice. Once I would have been surprised at his praise and felt a bit of a fraud but actually now I think there is quite a high level of incompetence out there, such that if you actually know what you're doing and get it done then you're already ahead of the game.

AIBU?

I think you are quite speedy, and you get a lot done in 24 hours. 3000 words and editing is impressive. If i were you id be negotiating a pay rise.

I've already had a pay rise of a third red! The CEO was offering me more work yesterday "at consultant rate" - which I took to mean loadsamoney.

I have a talent for the job, so I find it easy anyway, but even other jobs I had that I had no particular talent for I found I worked far more quickly than the people I worked with, even though I thought I was slacking off.

It is because every hour you work is used to the full. You don't have to fill empty hours pretending to work. I work in a similar situation and able to put 110% into my work each week (copy writing and SEO) because I know I can spend the rest of the time resting my brain. If I had to work full time the standard of my work would probably be rubbish and lose its focus. by the time I get to the end of my working week I feel tired and wonder why but it is because I have been concentrating so hard and putting everything into the work I do. I have just finished my working week - hence the inability to write anything that makes any sense what so ever!

That's a good point Tooclose. I'm a contractor so I essentially get paid by the hour (although it's a very good rate) and I have a limit on my hours so there's no point in faffing. I noticed when I worked fulltime that people stood around chatting for hours then stayed late and complained about their "long working day." I very rarely stayed after 5. Some of it is posturing and image then?

There is no point you faffing because it will work out that you get paid less per hour you work if you take your time. The others have to look busy and make jobs last longer.

you are just not as tired as someone working full time

I used to pride myself on my speed, accuracy and good copy-writing. My clients seemed to love me. I probably charged more than the market average, but I could turn things round very quickly, which meant they paid no more, often, than they would with someone cheaper, but had the comfort of my 20-year relationship with the client's business and all the knowledge I had accumulated.

But that didn't stop them turning off the tap when they listed the company and made a few other changes in the way they worked. They had to be much more 'accountable' and couldn't call me in with no notice at all, as they often did, to get me to produce some work or tidy up after a job had been half-started.

Sadly, nobody is irreplaceable. And client loyalty doesn't always continue. I keep hoping I'll get some business back but as time goes by (eight months now) I have lost some of my contacts.

YANBU.

I've been feeling like a fraud recently as I felt swamped but people kept saying really positive things to me from the higher levels. I've just had to do a piece of work around some restructuring and seeing some of the ongoing issues not make me realise now why I've been getting praised for doing what I think is a rubbish job - it's because so many other people are either lazy or rubbish!

True Tooclose, although like I said I've found a similar situation in salaried, fulltime jobs. When I was a researcher my colleague sat directly across from me and was always tapping away on her computer, yet ran into massive trouble with the boss due to work not getting done. I, on the other hand was on wedding websites most of the day (was planning a wedding at the time, obviously!) and the boss was delighted with me. I can't understand how she got so little done.

Some people are more productive and efficient than others.

This is a fascinating thread. I work full time in a crummy office job, have done several similar in the past, and while I've never been considered less then fully competent, I'll fully admit here that I spend a good chunk of each day twatting about. I've long wondered whether I'm some sort of special superworkerbee, or whether other people are also secretly spending a lot of time doing not very much. When I am doing work, I think I go pretty quickly because it's a fairly easy job and simply doesn't take that much time to crack through - but it's tedious in the extreme, so it's hard to keep that up for long. Short bursts, and then lots of time wastage. Not sure what everyone else is up to, but I suspect I'm not the only one. Just maybe one of the few who's honest to myself about it.

That's tough Abra1d, and I agree that things can turn around at a moments' notice. I definitely don't take it for granted. IMO companies don't put enough value on solid, reliable working.

Hope things start looking up for you very soon

Tiredness is definitely part of it, although with a totally non-sleeping baby I can't say I've been on top form the last year or so!

I work with a guy who seems infuriatingly slow to me. It's only this week I've realised that he's in a state of panic all the time, won't move a mouse unless he has run it by our manager and deeply distrusts anything women say. Sucks to be him, I guess, but he's making me look good!

I also work with an infuriatingly slow guy who hates women Apocalypse. He's supposed to produce about 500 words for the magazine monthly. He's done it once in the last three months. He simply doesn't do the work, something I would never contemplate. I'd at least give it a good shot.

This is not a joke. It took me 25 solid minutes to get him to uncheck a checkbox. He contemplated, argued, sulked, ran it by a man and then, finally, did it.

I think that freelancers and consultants generally work hard because we know that if we don't it's pretty easy to get to of us!!
Also, we don't just get paid for turning up unlike people on PAYE. Not saying PAYE people don't work hard but in many cases it doesn't matter too much if they don't. When I was PAYE I sometimes strung work out so I didn't get anymore!!

I spend an enormous part of the day arsing about on the internet. I am, however a very quick worker so I always get my work done early or on time. I am actually quite unhappy at the amount of slack in my day and am seriously considering doing a bit of freelancing on the side, just so I feel a bit more satisfied in what I do.

People work differently. Myself and one colleaugue are speedy gonvales when we get going. Two of our colleagues are to us frustratingly slow.

I used to write 10 page essays in exams when some people were writing 4 pages.
My DH is infuriatingly slow and thorough.
I seem to speed read and write and I sort of enjoy it when I get into my stride.
The only time I get myself in a mess is when I go at things like flat pack furniture like a bull in a china shop. DH does much better with that sort of thing.
People are surprized because I am quite introverted and quiet so they somehow expect me to be cautious and work slowly.

It also gets on my nerves when people get bogged down in unnecessary detail-like working things out to eleven decimal points-okay if you are trying to build a bridge or something but not needed when someone wants a rough estimate.

We used to write reports for GPs schools etc who just basically wanted to know our opinion , a bit of background-if we could help, what we would be doing and what we suggested they do next.

Some people sent them 10 pages with loads of statistics etc in them.
FFS these people don't want to know this and don't have time to read it.
I need to work on my patience-it frustrates me even to read the text on the TV at the same time as my DH.

But some people don't think ahead at all. For example DD works part time in a cafe with a lad who is always going on about how intelligent he is. He does the food, DD waitresses.

If someone orders a sandwich and chips he will make the sandwich and then switch on the chip maker.

DD is in a constant froth of frustration at him.

I can see what you mean seod, but a lot of work nowadays is difficult to measure and compare like for like, even as a 'PAYE'.

Probably it seems like I'm very slow, I have to spend large chunks of time pulling material together to get projects through approval stage-gates (asking for money, people and so on). It can take me hours to produce the materials, because it is complex to write succinctly ("I would have made it shorter but I didn't have the time!"). When I have done my presentation to the approval board it's all over in a matter of 10 mins. I am admittedly a slow writer, but what I produce doesn't have spelling or factual errors in.

So I do scratch my head wondering what I've achieved, where has the day gone etc - it has taken me x hours to do .... what? probably not very much in real terms, compared with what other people produce in their job.

Some people do spend a lot of time chatting, smoozing, etc I would love to know how they get their actual work done!

sorry seoid

I'm a lazy arse, I have the best of intentions, but I always find doing little SO attractive.

Some how I have managed to drag myself into a position that pays reasonably, without anyone else suffering for my inactivity.

It's not something I am proud of, but I am guessing I am not alone.

hoppinggreen it depends on the role PAYE's work in. I'm evaluated against Annual objectives, so OK I can string work out, but I'm still measured against what I have agreed to do, so if I don't deliver on those agreements at the end of the year, it will eventually catch up on me if I consistently 'under achieve' - or if each time my manager asks for my progress I can't show what I've done since the last time he asked!

I often feel the same, someone recently got the sack for poor performance and in their absence I was doing my own job and theirs for several weeks, I loved it, no time to faff about on the internet, the day went by in a blur. My manager however thought that she was overworking me and employed a replacement for the sacked employee. I'm back to my normal job in which the day seems to go as slow as possible. I told her I was happy to keep all of the tasks but no such luck. It doesn't help that the other admin worker thinks he is under a lot of pressure doing very little so the manager seems to think we should only be handling a small workload.