AIBU to not give a shit about my job?

[Stringme]

I have always been a high achiever and work in a professional career with security, good pay, high responsibility and endless scope for progression. I get lots of opportunities to develop myself as a leader etc etc.

It’s a job most people consider to be worthwhile and important BUT I just don’t care. I want to do the bare minimum and then log off. I feel like I’m constantly pretending to care about my personal goals, what I want to achieve etc. Everyone else is so keen and thinks the work is so important.

Am I the only one pretending or do other people do this?

@Dis626

''I find this thread so depressing! We spend too much of our time at work to not care about it and enjoy it.''

But there is more to this thread than just this.

Often people do care about their job and wish they could enjoy it, but the environment itself slowly just drains out all the motivation out of us: poor management, endless meetings, unrealistic targets, bullying, lack of flexibility.

Often it is not the job in itself (the tasks you are suppose to perform) which is the issue but rather the wider environment.

The reality is that many organisations have poor practices.

You only have to see how employers are starting to claw back on WFH arrangements, something that definitely gives the employee a better work-life balance and huge heath benefits, purely because they cannot accept that their staff are perfectly capable of working efficiently while not chained to their desk.

So yes you can change jobs but there is no guarantee that you will be treated any better.

You read about teachers or nurses all the time who are incredibly dedicated and talented but end up demoralised and leaving the professions because of the way they are treated at work.

I would love to enjoy and be passionate about my job but this stopped a long time ago when I got tired of being taken advantage of and endlessly burdened by admin and pointless meetings. Not to mentioned criticised for any little imperfection but never praised for achievements.

There might be good employers out there but I am in my early 50s now and I have seen the same issues in most of the organisations I have worked in.

So I now work part-time as I have had major health issues. I do a good job but I stick to my hours, never agree to do anything outside my contracted days and I don't feel the need to pretend I am ''passionate'' about what I do and I certainly don't think about work once my day is over.

One of the best things about WFH is you much of the office politics, pointless meetings, presentism and bullying that comes with modern day office life.

Yes I really agree with this. I really like my WFH colleagues. I've never met them IRL. I'm sure if we we were all in the same room our differences would become much more obvious.

Is this accountancy?

I feel you - I just quit teaching for the civil service. Ten days in and I cannot believe I ever did that job.

I want to care about my job, but I find it incredibly boring at the moment.
I am one of life's 'can do it, but I have to have a reason to' so self progression outside of work for the 'fun' of it will not be happening.
I have always prioritised my DC so could have earned at least double if I hadnt, but I still don't earn a bad salary for what I actually do.
Where I work goes through lulls where the work is very samey, until a new project rolls round and then sometimes it can get interesting, but because I have low motivation because I'm bored, I keep getting put on the teams with less interesting work which doesn't exactly inspire me to do any better. My role used to be more diverse as well and now is much less so as the company seems to want to pigeonhole people and I think that is adding to the boredom. Part of me would like redundancy as a kick up the bum, but then I keep trying to find something else in the company that might be more interesting, but then again not looking too hard as I might actually have to put some effort in.

This thread is so depressing. If the majority are doing the bare minimum, our productivity and wages will stay stagnate even further. Our economy depends on workers developing skills and knowledge for growth.

By 2030, our living standards will be surpassed by Poland. Individuals contribute to the greater good and all you “free riders” - an economics term - are condemning the next generation to a lifetime of low wages.

If you find your job that easy, that’s a sign you’ve outgrown it and need to move on. Stagnating in a job is not good for the employee, employer or economy.

I'm not doing bare minimum im doing what is assigned to me but hey if the same work is given to me and colleague and I complete it quicker than them thats bot mg problem. I decided to work smart leave how to use features in many applications to speed up my work

So why should I pick up even more work when I get paid the same as them?

Id be a mug to do more work for the same pay.

@DrManhattan
@HereComesMaleficent

what do you both do for work?? Sounds a piece of piss

I don’t understand why I need to do a different job, just because I find the one I do really easy, and can do it in a fraction of the time allotted.

I don’t want more responsibilities at work. I am quite happy where I am. You can call it stagnating @Heyjoewhatsup but it doesn’t feel like that to me. It feels like a well deserved rest after years of trying to push myself too hard and finally realising, in my fifties, that none of it really matters.

There is a danger of physical presenteeism being replaced by virtual presenteeism.

@Heyjoewhatsup

''This thread is so depressing. If the majority are doing the bare minimum, our productivity and wages will stay stagnate even further. Our economy depends on workers developing skills and knowledge for growth.

By 2030, our living standards will be surpassed by Poland. Individuals contribute to the greater good and all you “free riders” - an economics term - are condemning the next generation to a lifetime of low wages.

If you find your job that easy, that’s a sign you’ve outgrown it and need to move on. Stagnating in a job is not good for the employee, employer or economy.''

And I think you are very naive.

People commenting here are not doing the 'bare minimum''. They are doing the job they were hired to do.

Many of us have simply realised that a job is just a job and not something you should dedicate your entire life to.

That means you don't necessarily need to get caught in all that nonsense about ''going the extra mile'' being ''passionate'' or working extra hours for no pay or exhausting yourself for little reward for an employer who in reality sees you as a commodity.

Wages are low because employers can't be arsed to pay people decently and put maximising profits over having a decent work environment. Nothing to do with people simply turning up to do their job, but not more than that.

@LuckySantangelo35 IT it's not easy work but I have worked in the industry a long time and have it down. I am efficient too that helps.

I agree.

I work 50 hrs plus still and I am very experienced so I would say efficient in what I do. I certainly have learned that working weekends, never switching off and burning out is a fools.game. I see it frequently happening to colleagues of all ages. Nobody is immune.

I have had a Global role for the past 10 years I can say from my own personal experience, that the US, the UK as well as Japan, tend to have an unhealthy work culture which is based on presenteism, hero values and work hard play hard. This culture hasn't made these countries more profitable but has plagued them with a sick workforce and lower efficiency.

I have to push back all the time with people putting calls in my diary at weekends, 6am and 8pm. I can do this as I am senior and to an extent I have earned this privilege. But I am pretty tired of the pressure and the stress of it all. Most of my colleagues feel the same way. It's the culture that needs to change.

I do the job I’m hired for in the allocated hours and I do a really good job while I’m there. I go above and beyond for my clients but I won’t generally work out of my allocated hours unless absolutely necessary.

I don’t have the bandwidth to do more than this given my family responsibilities. That’s life and I don’t really care if my productivity isn’t up to par.

That’s my experience 100%. Instead of simply using Teams as a communication tool it’s now being used as a surveillance device. Not being trusted is so demoralising. Plus it doesn’t seem to occur that one can appear’green and be reading Mumsnet! Managing by output is a foreign country!!

I like my job. My effort is variable.
I respect that it pays my bills and feeds my kids but my out of work life is far more important

Same. In a professional job which required me to get a masters degree. Pre pandemic I loved it, now I couldn’t care less. Fake enthusiasm with my boss and a few people I supervise. But really hanging on because the pay and pension are good. Can’t think of anything else I could do that would give me the same salary. My dream is redundancy! Why are so many of us feeling this way??

The COL crisis has made me feel like this tbh. DH and I and millions of others have jobs and make lots of money for other people, yet we cannot afford a good standard of living. So why should I work myself harder. It maybe idealistic, but I firmly believe that wages and benefits for those who need them should be sufficient to house, clothe, feed, heat yourself and some pleasure, otherwise what is the point?

I have 2 laptops open, my work and personal one
I can surf to my hearts content on my personal lappy with the odd keystroke on the work one to keep me green

@heyjoewhatsup I totally agree.
I find the negative attitudes here totally depressing.
Whenever I've reached that point in a job, and that's happened twice, I've moved on to another that I've enjoyed and felt motivated again.
Life is too short, and our economy needs motivated people.

This is what the attitude of managers has reduced us to...

As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but not make it drink!

After a period of stagnation as a PP referred to it, I changed job 5 years ago, and went from the frying pan into the fire. I recently (separately) asked 2 more recent colleagues how they were getting on. One instantly replied, "I fucking hate it"; the other who had a huge and varied work history, that she'd never been treated the way were in any other organisation she'd worked for.

It's unreasonable to treat people like crap, and then expect them to knock their pans in.

*we are!!

Yes definitely this. Been trying to get a pay rise for over a year as long hours and poor pay, I like my job but I have just stopped caring as I don't feel they care for me sadly!

Easier said than done - lots of reasons -

• Being of an age where, 12 years ago, you'd have been put out to grass;
• Having had your confidence so severely eroded that you don't feel able to engage in recruitment exercises;
• Feeling worthless and lacking in self-esteem having been treated like crap for years;
• You just CBA any more.

What is depressing is the way some employers treat their staff - all stick and no carrot.

@Meadowlands why though? Why would I kill myself to make someone else even richer? There is so much money yet people are being paid rubbish wages in so many industries. I'm paying my tax and contributing to society so not a chance that I'm working any more than I have to.