Does anyone not feel overworked?

[Metalguruisityou]

I'm in the Civil Service at AO grade (entry level) and I'm hearing often that the lower grades work the hardest, not saying higher grades don't, but some people keep saying that the work we do should definitely be EO level.

Plus we earn less than 25k a year. Pay rise, if we get the 5% will take us to 26k a year but it's still pretty low.

I also feel like we're cheated like children sometimes. Granted a lot of my team are very young, under 25, but they are still adults who should be treated as so.

For instance a visitor came and we were sent an email about how we should be showing our best behaviour for the visitor. It's the kind of thing you'd say to pupils. Just stuff like that.

They keep taking EO level decisions and asking us to do them. Our work is constantly being sampled, and a lot of colleagues are saying they can't meet their targets.

Is this just how it is at work, I mean do most people feel overworked and underpaid?

Treated like children *

I’ve worked in Local Government most of my life and in my posts have been frequently underworked. I suspect this is why LG employees have been so resistant to going back into the office.

To answer your question, no - I am busy and and have a lot on but I don’t feel overworked and I feel like I’m paid fairly for what I do.

But it sounds like you should seek different employment?

The only time I’ve ever felt really resentful at work has been when nobody seemed to care what I did.

I don’t work in LG or CS, I am private sector and am very underworked.

This is because I am rather old and very experienced, and can do the work required to the level required in much less time than most colleagues.

Which leaves me time for dog walking, afternoon naps and other hobbies. Not feeling remotely guilty.

I lasted 8 months in LG - I was so bored and completely stopped from using my initiative or common sense. Utterly awful.

I do regret working in LG. I won't be recommending my children to work in it.

I work in LG and the slow pace very much suits me, but I have friends/family members that I know would turn insane with the lack of work. I once took a full week off and came back to 12 emails.

I do 2 days in office to cover any photocopying or paperwork I need, 3 days at home. I expect this will change in the years to come and we’ll be back in office full time.

I do think it’s department dependent in LG, some officers at same grade as me in different departments work a lot harder and have more responsibility on their shoulders. I got lucky with where I was posted to in that nobody had worked the role before, so any reports I do I’ve built myself and could run them in my sleep.

I am a Civil service AO grade. Wouldn’t surprise me if you are in the same team 🤔🤣. I have been receiving work recently that is way above AO grade, I just recject it. The targets are just about manageable, no feet up time, don’t mind though as I would hate not to have enough work.

It's awful if you're treated like children because of your grade - I've experienced the same thing myself. However I have had to issue "general" reminders to staff about behaviour which are actually targeted at one or two individuals who don't act their age!

Yes. My work fluctuates which has been helpful during the school hols as I've taken time out for my kids
I can flex my hours and just ask to be paid accordingly so if I want to work less to spend time doing something else I get paid less. However, if I'm available for work but I'm waiting on other people & that's slowing me down I ask to be paid for that as I'm officially available. Sometimes I'll get paid my normal working hours, take a bit of time to do something knowing that I'll make the hours up at a later date. I just keep a log of all my hours worked.

I was so disappointed - I love the public sector as an idea and think the work done there is extremely important and valuable but I just came across horrific bloating and inefficiency and I felt so disappointed by the whole experience.