I earn £50k and barely do any work - AIBU?

[lexjoey]

I competed my MSc in 2020, managed to get onto a very good grad scheme and landed a role where my current line manager and his "right hand" woman barely have time to share work with me. TBF I would not have accepted this scenario if it had not been for Covid, I was just grateful to have a job but honestly I do about 15 hours worth of work per week and just waste time for the rest. I will say I complete one ouptut which the team hates.

It makes me feel like a great big lump of useless space and I plan to move jobs in the near-ish future. I've witnessed my sister go from being a wet blanket to the ultimate professional which has only highlighted the fact I have reached a dead end with this corp/team.

I'm really not gloating, just curious if anyone has found themselves in this position. On the one hand, I am lucky but it's only a ST solution and I really DO want to develop and I'm just stagnating.

The 2 people above me are very possessive with their work and don't have the time to upskill me.

AIBU?

I sympathise as it's soul destroying. I once had a job paying £60k, senior role but they had me doing menial admin tasks. I tried to address it with no luck so did the sensible thing and left. The day I got the call saying I had a new job I literally cried I was so relieved. However, it took me ages to get a new job as I think my desperation to leave shone through and I had no recent examples of work to talk about so the longer you stay, the harder it might be to leave.

15 years ago now DIL qualified as a solicitor got a job locally pay not great. Her friend went to London mega money but they had cots in the offices to nap on the hours were crazy.

@TheOrigRights I was employed as a contractor (£50ph) on a minimum - but likely to be extended indefinitely - term of 12 months. Role was explained at interview as co-ordinating activities between global and local in-market teams (sounded vapid from the offset but the money was on point so thought what the heck). Worst part is they already had a team of about 8 contractors doing this same job - it absolutely beggared belief that 8 people, and their manager, who were doing nothing were able to spin a need for additional resource!

@Namenic Role was in medical affairs - the database contained safety information and records of submissions/changes for the company's products. I was supposed to check to see if global team had made any updates, and then communicate to local teams... however local teams already had their own access and knew anyway! Pointless!!!

@TheOrigRights @Namenic Argh - not my account on this pc! I'm discofizz in case it wasn't obvious!

@LittleMissTwix - thanks so much. I have a bio background and now work in databases. I’m asking because I’m looking for a job that combines both. My kids are young and while I’m more interested in technical IT/software jobs, treading water for a bit might be an option.

Hi OP - at your stage in your career and with your level of capability/ambition it’s clear you should move on!

One thing to consider is if you actually want to do a PhD in your field you potentially could do it while working FT (or if you need to attend some classes/lectures on person on a 0.7 or 0.8 contact)… this would actually be a worthwhile use if your time as you could do it while being paid and use your salary to pay the fees

Otherwise get moving applying for something new. I’m in a similar boat: 5 months into a job that has turned out to be much less challenging than expected. I’m planning to do a year but am keeping my eye open for other opportunities (I am also 20 years into my career so 1 underwhelming year won’t make a difference, plus I plan to talk up what I’m doing next time)

I plan to do a 2-3 month course part time while working too

@Namenic I have a molecular biology background and now work as a data editor for a scientific journal.
That's something you could consider.

Also, look for the International Society for BioCuration - lots of biocurator jobs there.

Thanks so much @LittleMissTwix - great ideas. Didn’t think these jobs existed!

Sorry - the 2nd thank you was meant for @TheOrigRights ! There online training material for the society for bio curation looks interesting!

There's no way OP can do a PhD in her field if she has a full time job where she needs to be present on the laptop 9-5!

It isn't like doing a BSc- you'd be expected to be on campus & treat it like a job, go to conferences, publish etc. Her bosses sound useless, but not so useless they wouldn't notice this

I would personally try doing some relevant courses & see how that works out, and spend time working on applications.

I'm in a similar position but earning half what you do.

My role is due to become 50% busier next month so I will be "earning my crust", so to speak.

But for now, I spend most of my time reading the news online and scouring mumsnet for juicy threads 😂

It's not my fault the role isn't busy though, and I never have work that is unfinished (I probably work too quickly and complete tasks that I should eke out) so I'm not stressing about it.

This is such an annoying thread to read. I appreciate it's not your fault but the concept of there being WHOLE SECTORS with little to no work to do and vast numbers of people being paid to do nothing really stings. I'm a single parent working 3 jobs and still worrying about heating in October.

@pinkred : I would not be so sure, it’s more fitting the job round the PhD than the other way round

Speaking from my own experience (post grad, studied while working), working accelerated my time management skills considerably

If I were OP I’d look into it, can always take the laptop to campus

@SavoirFlair it’s well known that being underworked can cause similar poor wellbeing as being overworked.

salary is a small part of job satisfaction and that actually purpose and contribution is a big factor in being fulfilled and happy and work

You say you're a postgrad but do you mean an MSc/MRes? That's entirely different.

I have a PhD in an area related to data science - it's like a job. There's no way you could do it whilst having to be available 9-5 on a laptop. Your collegaues/peers/supervisors at Uni would think you were mad.

Added to the fact that it's not just university fees you need to think about - you would have bench fees and other costs (e.g., to access data resources, publish articles, attend conferences, computing software and storage) - I had 40K funds purely for research in my studenship and needed it all.

AND a PhD is ~ 4 years in the UK - if the OP was self funding by doing this job, she would need guranteed employment from them for this time, which seems unlikely.

To put it into perspective - many of my friends were funded by Wellcome. They're quite generous, and anyone funded by them was required to agree that they wouldn't take on any part time work throughout the four years.

My funder stipulated I could work <10 hours per week, which was a slog and my supervisor wasn't too happy with.

I’ve been in your situation and it was awful and left me feeling bored, fraudulent and depressed.

I’d be looking for a new position.

@pinkred : ESRC funded & did year 1 of a PhD - left to go into consulting because I was bored …

Putting the idea out there for OP

@pinkred you seem v invested in saying it’s not possible, but I know several colleagues who have got their PhDs while working

I'm just pointing out as someone who has done a data science PhD that

1. that costs involved would be huge - I gave some examples and pointed out we're given £40,000-80,000 funding for research costs for a reason
2. OP would need guranteed employment from this job for four years which doesn't seem likely
3. that it would literally be impossible to do a data science PhD whilst needing to be available for another job 9-5

What you're suggesting isn't the same thing as "getting a PhD whilst working". I worked during my PhD! But I didn't do this whilst having a 9-5 job and I don't know anyone else who did either.

@lexjoey hasn't given any indication they want to do a PhD, but if they did it sounds like they've got great qualifications to either to go for a funded studentship (sadly would mean a significant pay cut), or find a company who routinely fund their employees through PhD as part of the job

You’ve been “banned”
Surely on £125k you have a fairly high degree of seniority and control over your work?

You seem to have hated quite a large part of your adult life OP.

Have you established why everything has ground to a standstill?

Trust me when I say that it is highly unlikely anyone will be peeved at someone taking ownership of this!

Definitely look for a new job.

Years ago I was in a similar position - had to beg for work and just felt like I was being paid to do nothing. It was so demeaning.

On top of this, the person who was supposed to be training me, started to exclude me - she started to go around the cubicles and ask people if they wanted her to hand in their time sheets. She ignored me.

She would go around asking everyone if they wanted to go to the canteen for morning tea, and ignore me - fortunately there was a nice young lady who would then ask me to come along.

I kept asking her for work, and she said that it would be too hard for me (it was basic financial data in excel! Plus I have a double degree!)

About 4 weeks in, she told me she had previously resigned from her role, and they specifically brought her back in to train me, but she decided I couldn't follow it (she knew nothing about my skills!) and told me it was just easier for her to do the work herself.

When I was given work, I suggested a very simple improvement on one of her processes - she said it wouldn't work and I didn't know anything. Fortunately she was away the next week, so I had to do the task on my own and I changed how it was done to my suggestion. When she returned, she gave me the task and I followed my new process and was finished fairly quickly - I had turned a 3 hour daily job that took 2 people, into a 15 minute job for one person. She didn't believe I had done it correctly and she spent the next few hours checking the paper work with someone else.

Happened again the next 2 days. I was able more efficient and had reduced the pile of paperwork significantly, and saving over 5.5hours of paid work. She then asked me about my process and she started using it but she never gave me credit for it.

I left not long after because I'd had enough of twiddling my thumbs and feeling excluded.