To be thinking f*k this sh*t re work?

YANBU and I’m glad to find a work thread that has confirmed I’m not imagining any of the BS I’ve seen at work in the last year. Whizzy people are the worst.

meh
we have appraisals - what can i improve on from last time you asked? aside from my mood!
but there is nowhere to go in my role, unless it is management, which is boooring and ridiculous,
they are trying to add in things which are totally inappropriate to the role.

the "managers"
are very good are calming the waters, no bad feelings, all meetings, no decisions without everyone's opinion - i guess i should be grateful

I’ve only been in public sector 4 weeks following a 10 year career break.

it’s like stepping back to the 90s and I hate it.

the work I’m doing is “worthy”, but the structure makes my soul shrivel.

I think what I find so de-motivating, other than the incompetence, the stupid Teams meetings, the feeling of not doing anything worthwhile, etc. is the fact that we are all still working five days a week when even JM Keynes thought that by now we would be doing two days (or 15 hours to be more precise).

The benefits of the improvements in productivity and efficiency have all been hoovered up by the people who own the businesses and the money, and the rest of society have seen hardly any of it, particularly when it comes to time spent working.

Instead of thinking that a new way of working means they can treat Jim and Jane better or reduce their hours a bit, they just decide they can do away with one and make the other work just as long and hard as always.

It's bullshit. Work and companies should exist to benefit everyone in society and far more equally than they currently do. There should always be incentives and rewards for those who work harder, have useful ideas or are simply better at the job but not with the kind of massive disparities we currently have. Disparities that are getting worse over time and not better.

It's no wonder so many people are pissed off and de-motivated when they start off working hard, but sooner or later realise that it's only other people (usually those that have inherited their money or position) that benefit from it.

This was me and teaching.

Sooper dooper 20 year olds telling me how to do my job🤨

Lets reinvent the wheel as much as possible with shiny new words.

Fuck that. I left at 57

Was about to say this sounds like teaching with 27-year-old Assistant Heads looking for another promotion.

The public sector didn't 'decide' to run as businesses, it was forced to by central government policy. The same has happened more recently in the university sector (I've spent my career so far working in both), and all I've seen it do is run morale into the ground.

I'm now back in local government working after 15 years away, and it's even worse than it was then. I can totally understand the feeling of being fed up with it all. I've unfortunately got another 25+ years before I can retire so god knows what the working landscape will be like then!

I don't think it's good for anyone to stay in the same job for 20 years. Not for the staff member, the employer or their colleagues.

People who've been there forever can be a really negative influence. Much of it may well be rooted in the experience of having seen all these initiatives before and knowing what happened last time, some is hankering back to how things used to be and some is just plain boredom and jadedness, but if you're felling like that, it's time to move on for everyone's sake.

FWIW I'm currently 10 years into a public sector career after 23 years in the private sector, with one large company (lots of different jobs in that time) I left my old business for much the same reasons as you're giving for being fed up in the public sector.

It will happen in any job when you've been there so long.

OH loved his job, highly specialised, near home, good for child care. He turned down a number of promotions as it would stop him ding what he enjoyed and was good at. They did promote him in post to give him more money (referred to as individual merit). The role has gone now so he had to move on, it was outsourced and he helped monitor it on the plus side they got a lot more money for the research but it isn't progressing as well but the new team has nice offices, new kit and lots of managers in suits.

I went through the same thing after 18 years in the public sector. Loved my job but couldn’t take another 18 of the politics and low grade bullying so I made a sideways move.

Long story short - big mistake. I now hate my job and my new organisation. They are even worse than the last shower. I’m at the stage where I now have to request a transfer to another section after less than two years. I don’t like doing it because it doesn’t make me look particularly good but I’m likely to get it because of the lack of structure in my current section. Having said that I’ll still have to work for the organisation. So at the moment I’ll have to see if I actually like my job after the transfer or else I’ll have to go to the private sector and I’ve never worked there.

TLDR: If you like the job then the grass isn’t always greener, particularly if you’ve only 5ish years to go. I wish I’d stayed where I was.

This article was spot on, thanks for sharing.