Back at work with nothing to do!

[Gizmo100]

I have went bk 2 work today after 11 months of mat leave and basically my job has just died a death! It was going this way before I had my baby because my boss has another base 300 miles from the office I work from but I got by by going on the internet emails etc occassionally re baby things. Well I am now part time 3 days a week 8am - 5.30pm and there is hardly any work for me to do. The lady who replaced me left after 4 months left because she wasnt given enough work to do. I asked them for redudnacy but my boss said he wanted to keep me on and there was still a job. They have banned all internet and email usuage so I cant even go it at lunchtime. My job was very busy a few years ago and I worked 7 days a week but the organisation has really changed. I know I am really lucky to have part time hours but I dont see it getting any easier. Has anyone else been in this situation - Moaning Gizmo100

Are you sat in a office on your own, gizmo? Can you take in something to do to while away the time (book, knitting etc?). I once temped on a job that involved a lot of sitting around waiting for the phone to ring and it was soul-destroying (and I only did it for a week!) - so you have my sympathy!

Could you write a best selling novel? Or surely there's somethign they can do even if it's just emptying goods off delivery vans or tidying up - surely anything is better than nothing.

Got turfed out of my own ofice and into the main office with a privacy screen so not so easy to hide personal stuff i was doing. I was asking my colleagues if they needed any help and they said they were ok. There is talk of a take over and I think we are all just hanging onto our jobs. Its funny but the book idea had crossed my mind after seeing it on the tv yesterday morning. Only problem is I have no imagination!!! I think its because I know how much I could be doing in the house whilst im not doing anything at work that winds me up!!!! Many thanks. Actually another thing that crossed my mind is updating my pc skills etc in case im made redundant - think i will call training 2moro!

oh good idea - yes get some training out of them, especially if there's a chance of takeover and job losses.
it sounds good to have no work to do but in reality it is soul destroying. I spend months whilst I was pregnant with nothing to do as they knew I was leaving and most people were being made redundant or sent abroad. It was awful and I could use the internet, so many sympathies. And do think of that book...

This happened to me once when I started a new job, turned out there was a merger in the pipeline which they couldn't tell me about until later so for the first couple of months I had nothing to do, it was horrible particularly as I was new so I felt I should be adding value and contributing so I really empathise.

I did a spreadsheet of my finances on excel and used the time to monitor all my costs and see if I could reduce any, should keep you busy for at least an hour a day.

I also decided to go on a weight loss campaign and devised nifty spreadsheets on excel to track my weight.

Would it be worth checking that things like disaster recovery, fire emergency, health and safety desk checking are up to date. These are things that no one really wants to look after but can be quite time consuming and also make you invaluable to the company as they are always terrified of falling foul of any legislation.

Definately get your CV up to date sounds like you might need it.

God, poor you! This is what I have to look forward to in my job. I go in for 3.5 hrs a day. There is photocopying work for the first 20 minutes, an hour if I'm really lucky. I have no computer so have to go round the offices begging for shredding or envelope labelling etc. It's humiliating. I'm leaving asap!!! Also recently did a temp job where the people refused to give me any work as "I hadn't been there long enough to be allowed to do it" - filling in names and dates in a book and turning a computer on fgs! Anyway, I was given magazines to read all morning, with switchboard going probably once every 10 mins. Nice to know it isn't just me that gets the crap jobs!! Best job I ever had though was in marketing - we'd get the days work done then have tournaments of games in the afternoon against each other eg who got the highest score on Diamond Mine etc. Boss knew what we did, and didn't care, as he knew when we did have work it would be done - our morale was great - we loved going to work!!

Do you think you would feel better if you could all do this in the office?
Have you got Solitaire on the computer, or something you can load from a CD to play /do?? You could try writing short stories for children, or poems - think about what you know and imagine what you would like your kids to read about etc. SIL wrote a kids book in her first job, she was so bored waiting for the phone - she did it in 6 weeks.
Hope you get something else soon, or you can do something about it!!

Well 2day was worse than yesterday!! Even less 2 do. Went to training department and person has been off sick for 2 months!!! Asked a few people for work but said they were okay. Ithink people are just watching their jobs now so not keen to give out their duties. I think the worst thing is people will start to notice while they are rushing about busy busy I dont do that!!! It hards getting on wth my own things because my back faces my bosses door so when he comes out he looks straight into the screen with my very guilty looking face!! - no other way round this. I am going to try and write a book although have been warned IT have software to look into peoples hardrives!!! I am going to take the risk. Thanks for all your comments and sorry for moaning - i know i am lucky to have a job and its that thought that will keep me going!! Gizmo100

Don't apologise for moaning!! You've every right to be upset. It's not moaning - it's stating what's making you unhappy. I know exactly how you feel. If you're doing something on the PC, then try and keep a window of "real work" open to click on quick. I will never forget one of my old bosses sweeping in unexpectedly as I was sat playing solitaire and she saw it!! Wasn't supposed to be doing it in that job, so I madly started designing a flyer in Powerpoint that strangely resembled the colours and layout of Solitaire, so that when she came back in, the game had gone and I was innocently "trying colours out for X leaflet"...