What nonsense do you have to do/fake enthusiasm for in your job?

[Whatapalavaa]

I'll go first. Performance manage based on utter nonsense criteria that I don't really care about but have to pretend to be oh so serious about. Pretend to care about our mission statement and our organisational culture. Yawn. I sit in meetings wondering if anyone else is seriously buying this crap or rather putting on a good act like me. Anyone else?

[quote SummerHouse]From the "not another mug" teacher gift thread I have literally just ordered this mug. You guys will love it. I actually sprained something in my stomach laughing at it.

worrylines.bigcartel.com/product/regards-mug[/quote]
🤣🤣

Everything in your op.

Especially the very high level business overview emails from the Execs and the gushing about the organisations new values and mission statement. So very far beyond what 99% of staff give a shit about.

• Any pay rises coming?
• How's this years bonus pot looking?
• What overtime is available?

Pretty much the only things I'm going to be interested in in an 'update' email.

@TheYearOfSmallThings

Every time I have a new director I have to fake enthusiasm for whatever New Broom nonsense they are planning - usually just introducing the system they had in their previous organisation and are therefore more comfortable with, but we must pretend is fresh and progressive.

Even if we are looking at a painful cycle of change that literally brings us back to where we were 2 directors ago, I just bite my tongue and put my brain in neutral.

@TheYearOfSmallThings

Yes this!
What makes it even worse is the fact that these new hotshot directors get paid three times as much as me and I have to spend hours of unpaid overtime changing systems back to those we were using 6 years ago.

Oh thank goodness it's not just me. We have a new bullshit initiative every few years, usually with accompanying terrible software, which you can't ignore because it forms part of our objectives. They then ditch that initiative after a while and introduce another one.

Also, being 'visible' within the business. I do not want to be visible. I want to be invisible, while doing my job well and getting paid. I don't want to join groups, give presentations or get noticed by the senior management, thanks.

I remember a University meeting where management was banging on about how 'partnerships' with 'professional stakeholders' would be a good way to attract students.

My suggestion that prospective students might be more appreciative of lockers and places to plug in their laptops and phones went down like the proverbial lead balloon.

Currently WFH with many many so so many meetings on diversity.
Now I support diversity but especially inclusion wholeheartedly, but having to sit through Teams meetings with 'experts' presenting guff such as 'well we can't say Ladies and Gentlemen anymore', 'we can't say guys to include everyone', and other tosh had me reaching for chocolate to distract myself and prevent my fingers twitching over the microphone button

I have to work out how many under 5 year olds we have in a primary school with an attached preschool. I have a spreadsheet and have to knock each child off on their 5th birthday. I then fill in the number for each day in order for my council to claim back the cost of 183ml of milk for them if they are with us for 3 hours. This takes a lot of skill and time and spreadsheets

we've got two new people in the team who both think they're going to be managing and actually doing fuck all.
One kicked off with organising weekly 1:1s, and talking about longer term 1:1s for objective setting; my two colleagues are contractors and counting down the days for their final 8 weeks, I start a new role v soon.
We don't think they've worked it out yet there'll be no one to manage

I have a science PhD. You have to have a science PhD for my job. I spend my days filling in forms for people and making them lists of jobs that they have to do in a certain piece of software. This software has a task list function but that would be too easy.

Today I googled someone’s photo for a client to put on a slide. I had to rewrite my email so it didn’t sound sarcastic.

I was just given a 'workload model" to tell me how much time I should spend on different aspects of my job.

I read the list of my jobs and realised I hate ALL OF THEM and management has no idea what each entails.

Can I have a new career in my late 40s? One that pays the comfortable salary to which I have grown accustomed?

Apparently this is a common feeling post-pandemic. Many of us are thinking "what the fuck am I doing with my life?" about our dumb ass jobs.

I work with children. I genuinely enjoy their company and don't have to fake much. But I don't really have any enthusiasm for either Minecraft or Star Wars despite appearances to the contrary!

I once spent over an hour on conference call (pre Zoom) discussing how often we should have a meeting, how long it should last and what we should use for our documents. Weekly, one hour and Word if I remember correctly ... I think that was the moment I decided to leave..

@LEMtheoriginal

KPIs and targets, selling loyalty schemes and havomg our performance assessed on how much money we generate.

I. COULD. NOT. GIVE. LESS. FUCKS

FEWER.

This thread is comforting, funny and depressing in equal amounts.

I think I'll re-read it at work when I'm resisting the urge to smash my face into the laptop repeatedly.

I adore the job I'm in now and the people I work with but in my previous job the staff meeting was absolutely toxic. Just people ripping chunks out of each other. The CEO was a twat of the highest order and a nasty piece of work. She hated that I was quiet and kept myself to myself. Nasty, nasty woman.

@HaveringWavering I'm seriously rolling my eyes at you!

Pretending that I like children

I run my own shop and every day someone comes in, spends a long time looking round then leaves saying, 'I'm not buying, I'm being good!'.

You may be 'being good' for yourself but I am wishing a paving slab will trip you up.

@TupilaLilium In my last job we had those too! WTF! Done by bosses who obviously didn't trust us.

SMART goals
Thankfully my manager is the type who I will happily say "this is bullshit" to

[quote RainbowBriteUk]@HaveringWavering I'm seriously rolling my eyes at you![/quote]
Oh come on, it was a missed opportunity for alliteration!

I have to be able to bullshit convincingly about Pokemon, Minecraft, Roblox, Disney Princesses, Paw Patrol, Dinosaurs, whether Gandalf would be able to beat Darth Vader in a fight. Oh yeah and a side order of WW2 military history.

Yep I'm currently placed working with autistic kids - bloody love the randomness of the conversations.

@coffeewithcheese what an amazing job you have! I'd love that!

Doing mandatory appraisals with people who don't give a shit and surprise surprise neither do I , not interested in prising out what people think about their job, what they can bring to the role etc etc. they just turn up for the money and let's not pretend otherwise eh?

Being non judgemental - in my opinion it’s not possible
I will judge away - but it won’t make a tad of difference to how I treat people - and they will never know if I judge them, pity them, envy them etc