To do almost nothing at work

[TooInvested]

I finished uni a couple of years ago and am going back in September to do a further course relevant to the industry I want to work in. I have done an admin temp job for a year and a bit and just started a new one. In both, but especially the one I’ve just started, there seems to be almost nothing for me to do-the first role was office based so I helped other colleagues and managed to find just about enough stuff to do to fill the time, but I did spend quite a lot of time pretending to look busy. I told my boss regularly I could do with more work and he would give me a task that would take maybe 30 mins. I didn’t want to mention I wasn’t busy too much though so I didn’t lose the job. When I started wfh due to covid I did less and less and spent a lot of time watching tv with my laptop.
The job I’ve just started is a mix of office and home work and I honestly don’t know why they’ve hired me. I was in the office for the last 2 weeks and was fairly busy but I’m fairly sure I completed the task they hired me to do which was supposed to take at least 3 months. It seems my job now is just to email 3 people occasionally to remind them to do part of their job/fill in some forms that I can’t fill in. I’ve been working from home this week and have done embarrassingly little-but there seems to be almost nothing for me to do. I’ve messaged my manager and another colleague saying “I’m doing this at the moment and nearly done is there anything else you’d like me to do” and they either haven’t replied or have told me to do something that they must know takes about 10 mins. I have to go into the office for the rest of the week and I have no clue what I’ll do-I’m saving a small task I could do today so I can do it there slowly and look busy. I’m sat in my garden in the lovely sun now and feel quite guilty-but also isn’t it my manager’s responsibility to give me work to do (especially if I specifically ask for more work) and to check I’m being productive? I’m not interested in this industry and I doubt I’ll need a reference from them and am leaving in August-I wouldn’t mind that much if the contract was cut short as I’m just here for some extra money. So is it unreasonable to avoid mentioning to them how little I have to do and coast along till August? I would actually prefer to be busier but I’m worried if I keep pointing out that there’s not much to do they’ll just get rid of me.
Since I’ve found both temp office jobs I’ve done to have a very light workload-I was wondering-is it normal for office juniors/admin people to have very little to do and is there actually tons of people in offices everywhere all pretending to be busy? (Genuine question and no offence meant to any people who do work in admin and have busy roles). At my last company, there seemed to be far too many admin people all not doing a great deal.

Think yourself lucky. I’m a carer I have got time to fart.

I'm almost relieved to hear this. I go through periods in work where I am hugely busy and also periods where I don't have a lot to do.
After having had a busy first half of year, it's all quietened down now and should be fairly quiet until the end of the summer.
I am also a top rate tax payer (in the private sector) and do feel bad that I earn a lot of money for not doing a whole lot.
At the moment, I do everything I need to do and more but I could easily do my entire job in about 2.5 days at the moment.

"Since I’ve found both temp office jobs I’ve done to have a very light workload-I was wondering-is it normal for office juniors/admin people to have very little to do and is there actually tons of people in offices everywhere all pretending to be busy? (Genuine question and no offence meant to any people who do work in admin and have busy roles). At my last company, there seemed to be far too many admin people all not doing a great deal."

Yes, it's common.
I've done a few jobs like this and also quite busy admin jobs as well as some in between or with widely ranging workloads.
To an extent, an admin support person's job is to BE there when required. That's why it's full time and not part time. You're paid for your time being there, whether that's physically at the office or just behind your computer.

"I remember my only task one day was to complete a spreadsheet. I closed it without saving it on purpose so that I could do it again exactly the same and fill a bit more time grin"

I remember having a word file full of gobbledegook that I would open and type into sometimes.

"Not your fault but that’s disgusting. Wages paid through our taxes for people who do nothing."

If you're not paying their wages, you're paying their benefits and enduring all the problems that you have in an area with more unemployment.

"It would be great if companies said we need someone with x experience so we’ll pay them a good salary but the role will only take a couple of hours a day. Instead of having people still only working a couple of hours a day but hanging around/pretending to look busy."

Well, but in reality you'd then only get paid for the hours you work. At the moment you're in reality being paid to be on standby in quiet times and to work hard in busy times. It's similar to a shop assistant on a day with very few customers.

Sounds like the dream OP!

Ugh, the frustration of being underworked is so tedious! My second job was like this - it was a new role and there turned out to be only about one week of work per month and I really had to ask around to find odds and sods of little tasks to do. I really should have suggested on leaving they just hire a freelancer once a month, but didn't have the confidence at the time.

"It’s weird how not having work can end up tiring you out more if you have to pretend to look busy."

Boredom is tiring and when it's really bad (eg the example above of the person who couldn't go online or anything during quiet time) can lead to depression after a while. I'm sure you'll be OK though OP.

"I am not a manager, but in my experience line managers/middle managers generally just want a quiet life. They don't want to rock the boat and call attention to underperformance by their team, as it reflects badly on them and could threaten their own position. If someone is doing the job they are being paid to do and not skiving/taking the piss, why make a fuss? I actually know a management consultant-type guy who kept suggesting efficiences and cutbacks in his workplace, and ended up being laid off himself, how we laughed grin"

Also, for some people it's important to be able to say they manage x number of people or to keep up with other managers at similar level.

Completely know how you feel. I was a medical professional and took a career break a year to the day before we were locked down. I enjoyed the job (private sector) more because of the people I worked with and the experience I managed to get from the role. The actual job itself was definitely not for someone working 37.5hrs a week and was previously done by a part timer.

I would ask repeatedly for more work and would try and make myself busy but with the best will in the world there's only so many times you can almost 'admit' to your manager that you're bored!!

In the end, I went back to my medical clinical role where I am coooonnstantly busy, and the experience I gained in the private sector has opened up more doors for me.

On the plus side, my dog loved lockdown and me working from home, and my house was always clean!

For people like us who need to be kept busy it can be so boring and upsetting to be sat all day doing nothing and it actually had quite a detrimental effect on my mental health.

Use this time in the sun to look for something else that stimulates your brain again-good luck!

I was a PA for many years and have had a fair few jobs like this. One job in particular all I had to do was schedule in a couple of lunch appointments each week for my boss, make the restaurant reservations and arrange his taxi. It was bloody tedious, I was relieved when they finally sacked me - for spending too much time surfing the internet!

Its a deam job for about a week, but having been through this in last lockdown. I am classed as a key worker and they wanted me in, and to be fair - there was about an hour's worth of work to do that they needed me in the building for. But my shifts were 4.5 hours - and that hour's worth of work was spread out in drips and drabs of 10 minutes at a time.

I was so unbelievably bored. I asked everyone else if they needed help with anything. All the other admin staff were terribly busy, but had nothing they needed help with...

I would suggest you sit down with your boss and be honest- they are paying you for x number of hours work but your work only takes y number of hours. Are there any projects you could take on? New responsibilities?

"Many colleagues made noise about how "busy" they were. I frequently offered to help but everyone was protective of their workloads. I came to the conclusion that either a) they were hugely inefficient or b) they had very little to do either but were afraid of making themselves look dispensible in light of looming redundancies."

Or they already knew what shitty jobs might be given to people with nothing to do.

Although be careful....... I'm sure a couple of weeks ago posted that they had a really easy job with nothing to do when suddenly they found a whole spreadsheet of things to do!!

Just chill
I had a temp job covering reception. Most of it was administering their convoluted overtime payment and clocking system.
Within 2 weeks I had reduced the whole pantomime to about 3 hours work a month and written a little guide as to how to do it. I also established that we weren't still in the 1990s and there was no need to fax timesheets!
My name was mud with my opposite number. When I left they asked her to do the mornings I had done and scrapped the afternoon shift.
This was a company at the cutting edge of tech. No one looked at the admin though.

Quite a lot of companies deliberately build in a little slack because they almost need you available just in case, and they know that the potential loss of not having extra capacity when they need it is worse than the relatively small cost of paying you to be underutilised at other times. Enjoy it but also get what you can out of the time, is there any extra training you could do that the employer might appreciate?

I do also find in lots of jobs that older or less tech savvy staff have not realised how much more quickly some tasks can be done when they are automated or if you use technology more effectively.

@Douchebaggette

I'll just leave this here...

www.thelocal.de/20120411/41879/

At least that guy went to work. As far as I'm concerned, if you turn up to work ready to work it's not your fault (assuming you're dependent on others giving you work and don't have work you can create yourself).

This person stopped going completely:
www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35557725

I did three days temping for the BBC, once. On the first day, someone took pity on me after a couple of hours with nothing to do, and she brought me a magazine. Days two and three I bought a book in.

I was there, and available, and willing. You can't do work as a temp if there isn't any work to do!

Before working doing what I do now, I had 3 NHS admin jobs that were non-jobs, basically paid to do sweet FA. But places like the NHS have loads of hidden workers like that. I remember I used to be bored to tears, its soul destroying wasting your time looking busy, you have my sympathy.

@ArcheryAnnie

I did three days temping for the BBC, once. On the first day, someone took pity on me after a couple of hours with nothing to do, and she brought me a magazine. Days two and three I bought a book in.

I was there, and available, and willing. You can't do work as a temp if there isn't any work to do!

More of our taxes license fees being wasted.

"I do also find in lots of jobs that older or less tech savvy staff have not realised how much more quickly some tasks can be done when they are automated or if you use technology more effectively."

Or they're doing it the slow way on purpose

It's not just junior jobs. I'm 9 years into my career, I run an entire branch of a business and I have about 2 hours of actual stuff to do a day. I've spent my entire career wondering what the hell everyone else is doing all day, had colleagues with smaller workloads than mine working overtime, complaining that they couldn't manage work that I could complete in an hour with better KPIs.

Corrine Maier wrote a book Bonjour Paresse/ Hello Laziness about having nothing to do at work, which caused quite a stir. It was lucky it made some money because she lost her job. There's a lot of info online if you want to have a look.