My new public sector job is horribly slow :(

[Flatwhitewhiner]

I'm aware that I might be under fire from posters who would kill for a boring job like mine, especially in view of lockdown, but bear with me.

I started a new job in Oct around the same time I bought my first property so I now have a mortgage to pay. I say this because it will impact my next move.

The job is (and will be) home-based and from the JD was directly in line with my skills and experience. It's a newly-created role which presented itself as a massive challenge and the opportunity to WFH. But less than 3 months in and I'm starting to really struggle with the sheer amount of downtime. I'm missing the fast and busy pace that my previous role gave me, not to mention the bonds I had with my colleagues. Albeit my last job was a much smaller organization and had its own set of problems- as do all jobs. A few issues:

1. I seem to only rarely receive responses to my email queries. This is consistent across the org. I also have trouble getting hold of people on Zoom and in turn don't have the resources I need to do my role. Over the past 10 weeks I've struggled to get access to files, policies, handover notes etc. I've relayed this to my line manager and the response is acknowledging how busy everyone is followed by a suggestion to ask someone else who is involved. I can't decide whether this is down to my colleagues not 'knowing' me having not met and worked with me face to face, or whether this is what it has always been like.

2. I don't have a 'team' therefore my main interaction is with my very senior line manager and during weekly meetings where I feel obligated to give an update- however small! It means that I feel isolated but I'm aware this is the case for the vast majority of people working from home. I make an appearance during virtual Zoom catch ups and try to be as present as I can be

3. Given this is a public sector job (I don't want to out myself or them!) I feel guilty that I'm using company time to complete an online course to quell the boredom- even though the course is free and relevant to my job

I had a similar experience in a public sector role a couple of years ago and left after 6 months, much to their surprise. Sadly I'm getting the same vibes from this place except it's made more uncertain by the world we're living in at the moment. I know myself well enough to know that whilst I'm in a fortunate position, I cannot deal with being this bored and isolated on a long-term basis.

I know that I need to address this downtime with my boss and give them the opportunity to address these points but my gut feel is that things won't change. I also need to pick my timing wisely as there are meetings relating to furlough/new lockdown measures which no doubt will be taking up their energies.

So, wise workers of Mumsnet. What would you do? Thanks for reading.

Are there opportunities to work with other members of the department on different projects? I would encourage you to raise this with your manager and they might be able to connect you to other people or other things to busy yourself with

I moved from fast pace constant consultancy work to public sector and it took me a while to adjust. I was used to having to work at break neck speeds and argue for months to do one training course!

But training is important and no they don't see it as using company time your supposed to do it.

As for policies and hand over notes - hand over notes are unlikely and policies well you're lucky if they do exist! But you do need access to files and sharing platforms so go direct to It usually it needs your managers sign off.

Stick with it is my suggestion I'm now completely swamped in my role and the public sector is one of the few safer areas at the moment!

Speak to your boss see if you can do some other projects. Policys are all based on legislation anyway so I wouldn't worry until you need an answer to a specific problem (which you can usually Google). If people are not answering you questions why is this? Are the questions impossible to answer? Are they too busy? Is there something else going on?

I’ve worked in 3 civil service jobs with nothing to do most of the day. I’m now WFH with nothing to do - despite asking for work. Counting down the days to my maternity leave and not planning on going back after!

I would have a conversation with your LM to say you have x amount of spare capacity in your week right now, you know y and z teams are under pressure, and what is his/her priority for you to get involved with given you are under utilised.

I sympathise as I've been in jobs with not enough to do. Hopefully things will pick up and opportunities become available as you are there longer.

Some suggestions:

Volunteer for roles such as taking minutes

Volunteer for any organisation-level training opportunities / roles e.g. First Aider, Fire Warden, Green Champion

Join an organisation-level committee of interest e.g. Equality & Diversity, Sustainability

Brush up / learn new IT skills e.g. Excel, touch typing. Your IT department may support this with training materials or the opportunity to work towards specific qualifications.

Read the intranet thoroughly - it can't hurt to know more about other departments. You also may stumble across information relevant to your department e.g. I once found a file of survey comments buried away which was mostly related to other departments but which included some comments about our department.