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...

I work in a school and it would be entirely unacceptable to be 'half arsing' my job!

It would be letting down a generation who have already suffered enough through covid.

My local council still appears to believe it's in full lockdown, with staff absolutely taking the piss.

You realise for many corporate jobs you are only really viewed giving 100% if you do excessive amounts of (unpaid) overtime and often pick up lots of tasks that are not part of your job description. So lots of people do that for 10/15/20 years and at some point think bugger this it’s not benefiting me to do all this extra I’m going to “half arse” it and only do what is in my actual job description. I say that only as vs a few years ago I feel like I do a lot less but that’s me now averaging maybe 45 hours a week with peaks and troughs vs 60 hours a week. I used to feel like I had to keep working at the peak all the time but the peak isn’t 100% it’s 150% or sometimes even 200% so doing 50-70% when it’s quieter evens out closer to 100% on average. It may well not apply to everyone on the thread but it will be what many people need. I do expect nursery staff will be paying attention to kids in their care but I don’t expect they will also babysit them through till the evening or that they will spend their weekend in the nursery building setting up activities or that they will change shifts with a few weeks notice and work 6am-4pm then 10pm-8am then 2pm-11pm over less than 48 hours or that they will shorten their holiday with 24 hours notice to come into work for an hour (these are all recent examples of the sort of things my corporate job asks. I used to always say yes and do “100%” where now I sometimes say no and do “70%” 🤷🏼‍♀️)

There's this theory that most WFH people are taking the piss, or if you are hybrid working you certainly do more in the office than at home.

I believe most WFH/hybrid people think like this, as at home you are doing very non work stuff like putting washes on and taking it out, watching TV, picking kids up from school, taking the dog for a walk. I certainly fall into that category and I was feeling guilty and beating myself up about it.

Then I really thought it through..basically did I really do more work in the office? No. I just procrastinated in different ways. Chats with colleagues, wandering about, getting involved in stuff that wasn't really my remit or responsibility.

Presenteeism as a concept took a huge hit in my sector as a result of Covid-19. People wondered why the hell we ever came in on a strict 9-5. Literally every employee is happier top down. If it wasn't working it would gave stopped by now; it's been 3.5 years.

I think there is also a huge difference between roles that were hybrid/wfh pre covid. 'Before times' people that wfh had home offices, were sales consultants paid bonuses so if they slacked it was themselves they were affecting.

Now everyones at it, working from kitchen tables, sat in armchairs with a laptop..health and safety has taken a hammering!.

I can tell a I am dealing with half arser when I am speaking to people on the phone. Some of them sound like they are in bed or half asleep and my call to their company has disrupted their snooze. It has become noticeably worse in the last few years and is actually quite astonishing that they are paid to work like this.

The H& S comment is so true.

My friend is an osteopath and her business has soared since WFH become the norm. And most of her new clients aches and pains are posture driven. She said she can spot the WFH slumped over a laptop ones a mile off.

Think of it as a C, rather than an A or B.

You still pass. You still meet the criteria. You just don’t excel, or exceed. It’s hard to excel at work and parenting simultaneously with little kids. Take it day to day. Some days you might pull an A star 🤷‍♀️ , but generally, you sit at a C so you have something in the tank left for the other parts of your life that are higher on your priority list. There’s a reason why it’s easier for men with kids to be super successful. Their wives. You don’t have one.

Yes, some mums can kick goals all day long at work and home year after year and remain super motivated. Not me.

I’m old now 😂. Mid 50s. I had my kids in my mid 30s, coasted for about 7 years, and then naturally picked up the pace again. Though these days I work when I want. I can, because I put the hard yards in before kids.

Yep, it's so obvious isn't it? Not just the dozy manner, they don't even listen to you, so pretty clear they're doing something else like watching tv or playing with the child/dog, you have to keep saying the same thing until they finally take it on board, just like they're in a trance.

Surely employers are going to start noticing increasing complaints/reducing productivity and start to manage it better?

@user1497207191 That's it exactly, it is almost like they are half listening or preoccupied with something else and can't wait to get you off the phone. These are supposedly big organisations dealing with important matters where getting it wrong has implications but they couldn't give a hoot. It is no wonder the country is lacking in productivity.

I don’t wfh, I work partly in an office and partly “in the field” and I’m definitely quiet quitting. I don’t know why some posters are so focused in the wfh angle. Jealousy perhaps?

I work in a role beneath my capabilities, qualifications and experience, so can easily coast along working for about 20 hours a week in full time pay. I choose to do this as I enjoy having more time for my family, pets, friends and hobbies. I don’t want to have to sacrifice my lifestyle for more money.

Someone upthread said that people in my position who are coasting should just put in more hours and outperform peers for the same money.

Why on earth would anyone do that?

😆

I am an employer. I founded a business and now employ six people. They are all much younger than me. Most in their mid-20s. Two are senior team members who asked to wfh one day a week each. I immediately said yes. I love it and they love it. They are autonomous and trusted to run their own workload. They get more done. I get more done as there are fewer interruptions. I can also have one-to-ones with the senior colleague who is in which gives me a greater understanding of what they are doing. If they have a good attitude (and they all do) I am really happy to be flexible. I don’t care if they are doing the laundry in break time. Employees need to have a life and a work/ life balance. They recently asked if they could go home at lunchtime on Fridays and work a 4.5 day week. I am keen to facilitate this too. I’ve asked them to come up with suggestions for productivity wins which would offset the lost hours. Any ideas for this would be gratefully received.

I think small firms can manage things better as the owner is a lot closer to the workers and can manage/monitor performance and results much better. It's the larger organisations who probably had poor management in the first place, where the managers simply can't manage, and WFH makes that infinitely worse. At least when you're on the premises, your manager can keep an eye on what you're doing, as can your colleagues, but at home there's a lot more reliance on the employee not taking the piss, and lots of managers aren't capable of monitoring and stopping them doing that.

I don’t wfh, I work partly in an office and partly “in the field” and I’m definitely quiet quitting. I don’t know why some posters are so focused in the wfh angle. Jealousy perhaps?

That, and double standards.

For me, it's not jealousy as I partly WFH myself, it's the crap customer service, the disinterested workers who don't do what they say they'll do, kids and dogs barking in the background - all very unprofessional and just results in repeated call backs to get them to do the most basic of things.

It’s absolutely about working smarter, not harder.

I wfh 2 days per week. I make a list at the beginning of the week of what I need to get done that week. I try to blitz around 70% of it on my office days. Then on my wfh days, I can take my foot off the gas a bit, catch up on some laundry, enjoy the peace and have a long lunchtime walk. I have emails and MS teams on my phone so I am always contactable if I’m away from my laptop, and I respond to messages promptly. Everything I need to do always gets done, and if a non-urgent task gets rolled over to the next week, then that’s fine. I’ve just learnt to work efficiently and I am absolutely taking advantage of that.

Pre-covid when I was in the office FT, I probably spent somewhere between 5-20 hours per week (depending on the business workload and peak/quiet times) pretending to work, or chatting to colleagues about love island. Presenteeism is so exhausting and demoralising. If I can use that time for myself, my home and my mental health, then I will absolutely take it.

I could not be happy with myself if I did my job below by best. I always try to perform well and do the best I can. However at the times when I am fully up to date I will do various jobs around the house rather than asking the boss for more work. It is their responsibility to try and work out what sort of capacity I am at. Some weeks I am able to get a lot done around the house and garden🤐

There are also managers out there (I used to work for one) who are hideous bullies, and if you WFH there is less opportunity for them to bully you without leaving a trace. An ex manager of mine would drag staff into a 121 to carry out the worst of her bullying, which she could only do in person. Managers like this feel that they don't have control over you unless you're physically in their presence as much as possible.

Yes to all of this!

I would love to know what jobs/ industries those that can get away with half arsed work and WFH days spent doing as you please. How is this not noticeable, do others have to compensate for your lack of productivity?

In many jobs you can't 'ask for more work'. It can't be 'created' if you see what I mean so having quiet/down times or being underemployed is totally normal for lots of people. In the office, people spend that time pretending to work or working very slowly on purpose. I remember being instructed to work slowly in one place.

Sometimes public sector such as local government (I also recognise that many public sector jobs like NHS are extremely busy). It can also happen in the private sector though - look at shops and restaurants at quiet times.
Also someone's place in the hierarchy - they may have to wait for work to come down to them and have little scope to be proactive.
As for being productive, not all jobs 'produce' anything and one person doing nothing doesn't mean someone else has to work more.

It absolutely is noticed and yes other people do pick up the slack.

Quiet times in restaurants are spent cleaning, or prepping to get a head for busy periods. I knew this is an 18-year-old working as a waitress. If it needs spelling out it’s a really poor reflection on the individual and is noted.
Same in retail, how do we think the stock gets on the shelves? The displays are folded stuff remains, fold it etc etc

I think you’re missing the point.

I, like many other posters, meet all my targets and am at least as productive as all my colleagues.

Nobody is picking up the slack for me I assure you. I’m working way beyond capacity to achieve this. I probably work 20 - 25 hours a week for full time pay. I just cba to work harder to exceed productivity when there’s no financial benefit to me.

Sorry, way below capacity