to ask if anyone else is half-arsing their job?

[Spacemannn]

I work full time with two pre-schoolers (due to my part-time working request being declined). I get paid well (although not mumsnet well) for a mid-senior job, with no line management, but the bulk of my salary goes on childcare.

Since having my second child, I just cba anymore. I used to be such a perfectionist and always go above and beyond, but I just don't care as much anymore. I work hybrid, and on my WFH days I'm trying to squeeze in as many chores/life admin as poss in between tasks.

Is anyone else like this? Does it matter? I switch between feeling guilty, and then feeling like as long as I'm getting the work done and doing an ok job, that's fine? I still get paid the same whether I put in 70% effort or 100% effort. There are no promotion opportunities on the horizon, and I don't think I'd want the extra responsibility at the moment anyway.

Any tips for working smarter not harder? I'm organised, responsive and quick, so I don't think it's a case of me not adding value to the company...

Bette Midler, in working girl ? I think you’ll find that was Melanie Griffiths, but if you want to discuss transformation road mapping and the advantages of operation models, p.m. me dear, I charge £1500 a day. And spend half of it, chewing the Fat with you losers.

'Doesn't seem to be so'.

How can you possibly think you're qualified to assess that claim when it comes from people in such a wide variety of roles and sectors? It's a completely pointless generalisation.

As for more and more people wanted back in the office, the evidence for that isn't there either. The most recent ONS figures show the numbers bouncing around with no clear upward or downward trend once restrictions ended.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/characteristicsofhomeworkersgreatbritain/september2022tojanuary2023

I got some great advice from a senior manager (female) once. She said to accept that I may have a few years of having a ‘satisfactory’ appraisal rather than ‘excellent’ once I had kids. Be aware that your previous experience enables you to work more efficiently, and you can get more done in 3 hours than someone with less experience would get done in 5.

You can pick up the pace again in a few years. Many of us do!

My view is if you're getting the job done then that's what's important.

A job is not a sprint, or a marathon it's literally years sustaining the same performance. People are not machines, we have all kinds of issues that effect how we are day to day and also how we cope mentally.

If you think you're doing a decent job and output at your role youre fine.

Its probably impossible to go full energy every day and keep that up. Just keep energy in the bank incase something crops up that's urgent or stressful. :)
I don't think it's reasonable to be fully stretched every single day at work.

Main thing is you take care of your health and wellbeing so you are able to do your job to a reasonable if not good level.

Isn't this quiet quitting?

That's great advice! Maybe that's how i should have framed my first post. Does it matter if you're satisfactory rather than excellent? We still get paid the same, right.

I find these threads really depressing. People sciving / half arseing jobs. Have some pride in yourself. And you're ruining it for everyone. That's why people have to return to the office.

My current team leader WFH on Fridays - and my previous team leader WFH one day per week.
The previous one worked her socks off at home answered phone calls messages emails etc and I could see from various logs that she was pushing lots of work through so she could be finished in time for nursery collection. The current one maintains electronic silence apart from a couple of calls to check up on us. She did let slip that her DC was only at nursery four days a week as by Thursday was exhausted. So really taking the piss.

I do my job very well but I do not do extra. I have the same work load as a FT colleague. I also wfh and I manage to fit in some light housework / house admin

I wfh about one day month. The week leading up to that I fill my in box with draft emails to "release" periodically during the day. I'm available, but I'm not working. I have worked hard in the days beforehand to enable that to happen though.

Imagine being a business owner reading this ? Poured your life savings into a company to try and better your position. I know lots of small to medium size businesses who could grow exponentially, they would payabove market rates but they won’t because of pisstakers. The only people I would employ would be my family.

Aww because children employed in family businesses never skive? 😆

But thanks for the laugh.

I’m proud that I’m only working 10 days in July and earning nearly 5 grand for my efforts so I’ll keep doing the least, thanks!

But @3BSHKATS, OP and others are doing the work they are paid for. They are meeting targets and passing appraisals.

If isn't an employees job to go above and beyond for someone else's business. As long as they are doing the work required to a good standard, does it matter that they are doing it with plenty of breaks? M

If you want more than the job description, then add more to the job description!

@3BSHKATS "Bette Midler, in working girl ? I think you’ll find that was Melanie Griffiths, but if you want to discuss transformation road mapping and the advantages of operation models, p.m. me dear, I charge £1500 a day. And spend half of it, chewing the Fat with you losers."

Although you directed that comment and others to another poster its a bit odd. I haven't heard someone call people losers for a while 😂Bizarre

And the money...

70% from time to time when stuff is happening fair enough, nobody gives 100% all of the time.
However, don’t think it isn’t noticed. And for me, my attitude was always if I’m away from my kids for a minute of any day then It had better be worth it. And the only way it was ever worth It was if we were improving our situation. Not coasting. Appreciate not Everybody has that mentality and at the end of the day I’m glad they don’t. Less competition for me.

This is absolutely me. Exact same circumstances of returning to work after second mat leave.

The effort I put in to go above and beyond didn't get noticed for years, so I'm 'slacking off' and just doing the necessities and no one has noticed either.

Was great for a while but to be honest now 6m in, it is actually quite disheartening and I just think what's the point.

I guess the fact that I’ve raise children who aren’t thieves is an advantage. Whether they work for me or not

I'm definitely not coasting, I get my work done and my line manager is very happy with my productivity and performance, but, I take breaks WFH.

It's the time I would have spent making a round of drinks or listening to a colleague talking about their holiday or whatever. I even take the occasional afternoon nap if I need one or pop out to run a quick errand.

I had a nap today (health issues not just lazy) and I guarantee I still produced more work today than 99% of my colleagues.

Another day I'll be in back to back meetings or on-site and won't get time to have any kind of break so it's swings and roundabouts.

I find these threads really depressing. People sciving / half arseing jobs. Have some pride in yourself. And you're ruining it for everyone. That's why people have to return to the office.

Agree with this. Does no one have a sense of job satisfaction any more? I worked like this once in my early twenties and I would leave work feeling really useless and frankly a bit glum. I used to dread going to work as it was a few more hours of trying to look / fake being busy. We spend so much time at work, why wouldn't you try to make a good job of it? There's great intrinsic satisfaction in doing a job well.

I don't kill myself but I work all the hours I should at a good pace in a collegiate way with my team and have had two promotions since the WFH era. I have doubled my salary in that time. Thanks to all of you skivers, you are making me look great!

You're all probably the same ones moaning on the COL threads, bashing the "higher earners" with your politics of envy.

Can I recommend Bullshit Jobs, by David Graeber? Fascinating book.

I think we've got to be clear what we actually mean by half arseing.

It's the reason I hate the phrase "quiet quitting" when "quiet quitting" seems to usually be used to refer to people who work their job to an appropriate standard but are no longer being pushed or pressured into working additional hours and duties that's beyond their job description or pay. Calling it quiet quitting makes it sound like the workers are somehow slacking, rather than just doing the job they are paid for.

Same for some of the posts here. A lot of them don't sound like half-arsing a job. They sound like people who have decided to behave in line with their pay and job role, have opted out of doing all the endless extras that get put on people for no renumeration, and have embraced taking breaks in different ways when their work patterns have become more flexible.

i dont care about how many hours my staff are clocking up tbh - once they get the job done - i dont keeps track it! because the amount of hours is totally irrelevant - sometimes i leave for the afternoon cus i fancied picking my daughter up early and take her to the park cus its a nice day -ortake a 2 hours break in the middle of the day to prep dinner and go for a run

sometimes i log back on at 8pm when daughters in bed or sometimes i get up and start work at 7 etc etc

i never count the hours i do or others do as really i don't see the point - if someone's behind on work or stuffs not getting done / being missed then theres a problem.