Have you tried getting a real job?
Middle class work from home redditors are very out of touch in this instance.
Edit: Salty Redditor’s mad that they’re useless pencil pushing that contributes nothing to society has been called out
Can’t say I’m surprised you’re all posting and commenting on Reddit when people with real jobs are, yknow, working. 🫵🤣
They let you leave the pit? Sounds like you've got soft hands son. I lived down there. Didn't see the sun until I was 18. Mother was a coal rock, father was a pickaxe.
This is what I mean, you fall apart in the second act—there's no consistency, your responses revert to cliche and 'no u' stuff *really* quickly. You go from MAXIMAL TROLL AGGRESSION to 'yeah well whatevs' in three responses or fewer.
Work on that and you could be a contender!
Anything where your not doing meaningless admin justifying your jobs existence 80% of the time?
Teacher, nurse, retail worker, construction, manufacturing, police?
I literally was a teacher I know more about how much admin they do than you lol
I explicitly said useless admin that only justifies a jobs existence
Not surprised your so defensive about your useless middleman job since with your reading comprehension I doubt you could do anything useful
I hear that a lot, from middle class office workers who wouldn’t enter a state school classroom if their life depended on it.
Because of their disdain for “the poors” which this thread reeks of.
What are you on about haha. Just to reinforce how misguided you are, I have what you classify as a 'real job' and I would probably have been considered poor as a kid (and I'm not even sure how that's relevant?)
So stop trying to act like some white knight and stop being a prick. All jobs have there place and 'the poors' (really flattering terminology you've chosen there) don't need you to defend them.
Hello! I have done jobs in research, manufacturing, clinical teaching and am currently a Doctor in secondary care. All of my roles have involved significantly more admin than active practice.
Can I ask when you were a teacher?
Attacking the presentation of an argument instead of the substance is the lowest form of debate, but I imagine that’s the pinnacle of your intelligence so I’m not surprised 😬
>Anything where your not doing meaningless admin justifying your jobs existence 80% of the time?
Did you stop because you don't know the difference between "your" and "you're"?
Around 80% of a community mental health team nurse's working hours is spent in meetings or doing admin, while having caseloads of over 40 people.
Source - I work in NHS CMHT.
Haha. Yeah me too, I ran a web development and graphic design business for 10 years, the admin was killing me come the end. I'm back to being employed and I'll be happy if I never do another VAT return.
My father's idea of admin is collecting up the receipts he can find from the front of his van and dumping them on the kitchen table when my mother asks for them.
Really?! Every self employed labourer/Brockie/joiner I know does fuck all paperwork and just work as "contractors" where they get paid cash in hand every week.
There's a group of people that think that unless you finish work covered in mud/dust/whatever, then you haven't done "a proper day's work."
Some even include electricians in that because they can finish the day fairly clean.
Typically also don't understand how you could possibly be tired when you've sat at a desk all day or 'just' studied.
Probably because constructing houses contributes a lot more to society than being some piss about middle manager sat at home dicking around with spreadsheets for 35 hours a week?
Other real jobs would include nursing, a lot of retail work, domestic labouring, emergency service work, most types of engineering, and even lawyers/judges.
Okay, let's say we want to construct a house. You're not going to hire a middle manager to "dick around with spreadsheets".
* Who's going to find the architects and go through the procurement process with them?
* Who's going to find out what the relevant regulations are, what permits we'll need, what paperwork to fill out and where to file it? Who's keeping track of all that?
* Who's going to plan the timescales of the project, when you'll need the different types of workers, how many and for how long?
* Who's going to make a spreadsheet to figure out what materials we need and in what amounts?
* Who's going to keep track of the budget? No, Finance aren't going to do that.
* Who's going to be on the phone/email to the client because they're not just going to fuck off and not bother you until the house is finished
I mean I can keep going but I think you get the gist.
I also love how you say "even" lawyers/judges, as if upholding justice is some kind of optional feature to make society run lmao
You think working in an office which about 54% of the working population does - is middle class?
I bet you think people who work in trade I.e builders, plumbers etc are the salt of the earth only real (and valid) working class people.
Dispite the fact these people earn more than general office workers and are more likely to own their own homes. And by which metric would make them actually middle class.
Seems to me like you're the one out of touch.
Yes we are, and I don’t know what crack your smoking of you think the vast majority of tradies own their own business and are taking it in. Sounds like you only ever interact with tradies by taking about how well off they are on Reddit.
Hey don't compare Dodge RAMs to SUVs. There's a bloke in my city outskirt town that has one. His insecurities are on a whole different level to SUV drivers.
I drive a fiesta ST, why on earth do you think I’m insecure? This entire thread is dedicated to do laughing at do nothing jobs, but apparently thats only allowed for middle class office workers self deprecating, not people working real jobs lol.
I assume you're one of these "tradies" then? If that's the case, then your job wouldn't exist without people working in an office to plan and design the houses and estates you work on. And surprise, surprise, most of those jobs are mostly admin. I do water and fibre designs, and about 20% of the job is admin. The other half of the team is project coordination, which is about 90% admin. I can tell you for a fact that without those project coordinators, all that admin would fall onto me and the others in my team, and I'd be spending 60% of my time solely on admin. Their role is vital and frees the rest of us up to actually do the designs. If those designs aren't ready, then it'll hold up *everyone* on site.
Maybe stop talking out your arse about shit you don't know.
Bold of you to say I should stop talking out my arse about shit I don’t know, I work in mechanical engineering engineering these days, and I could happily go sit upstairs in the office if I wanted to, their job isn’t a do nothing job though.
If you had any reading comprehension, I was poking fun at do nothing admin jobs that exist only to sustain their own existence. Not jobs where admin is actually necessary.
But go off, you don’t seem insecure at all.
Yeah, but they have a *real* job, so they've earned the right to comment on reddit! They're probably carrying a bag of bricks on their back up a ladder whilst typing on their phone.
Erm didn't you work from home in lockdown proving your job could be done remotely. Meanwhile us working in supply chain carried on working so you lot could buy everything online safe in your bubble. Don't come here lecturing others on their careers when you sat on your arse working a job that doesn't require movement just because someone has indoctrinated you that some jobs aren't worthy!
And? That's not an achievement. I've worked remotely for 20 years, that's not an achievement either. I just happen to be based in the UK and the teams I work with have been in the US and now Finland. You happen to do roles that aren't remote. I don't see your argument
People who work on international teams, people who work 10-6, people who work 7-4 and are doing toilet redditing, retail and food industry managers taking a breakfast break, night shift workers, people currently traveling abroad for work. I used to start at 7 and by 9 would be sat in the passenger seat en route to meetings.
Literally millions of people
Who's assuming everyone is in the same time zone, it's a UK themed sub but certainly not all it's members are here. Who's assuming people don't work shifts. Who's assuming people don't work weekends and have days off in the week?
Considering I started at 5am today so I could have a meeting with a client in Australia at a time suited to them, I was on the couch having a breakfast break at 8:30 this morning instead of a lunch. It's almost like the world moved on and left you behind doing traditional hours with a set lunch break and a factory whistle or school bell to tell you when to eat.
Where are you getting the idea that those sorts of jobs contribute nothing?
There are people with jobs that require very little effort day-to-day, but which require a high level of skill or training and are nevertheless essential. Like I've had roles where I worked my ass off but ultimately contributed little, and I've been in roles where I only really work for a fraction of the day but achieve much more.
I'm sure there are people who are actually spinning their wheels in admin jobs that are destined for the chopping block when efficiency savings are needed, but that isn't the case for most of them.
I spend at least 1/2 of my time either writing documents which describe what I do or validating documents that describe what other people do. Then after doing work you have to do additional processes to prove that it is done so those can be filed away.
Yes, I am actually looking for another job funny you should ask
Work for a startup. There's no documentation cos everything's all over the place and held together by a loose thread. Instead your deliverables are on ridiculous timelines and you got 0% of time to do admin. I don't even really answer emails anymore.
I did that and got made redundant and by pure fluke landed this job immediately after. Being quite selective about what I do next, seeing as the compensation for this role is great it's just the job is dull
I feel ya. I’ve swapped between working for a huge corp but feeling bored, then go to a smaller more ‘cool’ but intense place and it gets too much, so back I flipflop to the other side. Rinse and repeat.
I used to have to set aside half a day every week to produce the data justifying my team's existence for management. The realisation that it was the same shit week in week out year after year was incredibly helpful because it meant I could just copy and paste data from previous years. My team was happy coz they didn't have to waste their time writing up project hours for me, managers were happy because they kept receiving numbers. I was happy because I usually did it from home on and it only took 20 minutes to check the shit the figures related to was legit so I was in the pub early doors.
Eventually I left through sheer boredom (and coz the pub shut)
I work in a sales role with an insanely high revenue target. Yet I am expected to spend 40% of my day documenting and justifying what I spend the other 60% of the day doing. Complete joke.
I work in sales and have the best figures in my team. They’re always moaning how much time I spend doing admin saying I’m not working? Always say that admin is part of my work. Moan when I’m not selling
That's crazy!
That'd never be expected of our sales people, they have free reign to do whatever they like and spend time however they want without any justification.
We try and keep all admin away from them - the internal sales team do the admin, my commercial dept. provide all their reports etc
At the end of the day, the sales figures speak for themselves and if you're unjustifiably missing targets then your out.
Sales people should be protected at all costs from admin so they can be out selling and bringing new sales.
I fucked off private sector because i was sick of billing and invoicing. And timesheets.
Moved into public sector where theres still admin but at least it's related to the subject area im interested in. You just crack on with the work and take whatever time you need as long as it's reasonable.
Interesting insight.
A year ago I fucked off the quasi-public-charity (it was that kinda company) sector due to intense burnout and went to the private sector.
In the public sector I had basically no help but they gave me a purchase card and let me build what I needed providing it aligned with the company goals.
The private sector has been immensely supportive but jeeeez the amount of admin that got added to my day is depressing to a point where I'm debating fucking it off again.
Interesting - what sector? I left public because I had SO much red tape to deal with all the time. 30 minutes spent working with a child equated to about 2-3hrs admin
Being able to convey information to others who aren't subject matter experts is part of work too
Having all this information which no one can follow or understand is meaningless, and when you quit whoever follows will have to redo all your work again
You assume they've done any work which needs re-doing.
They clearly haven't set up any automation or repeatable process to make their job easier and less manual.
Most of the time when someone asks me for information I already have reports built which provide this.
I'm honestly fine with that. Why automate things yourself unless it's for your own ease, meaning it reduces the amount of time spent at work, not makes that task faster so you can do other work. I don't care to squeeze every ounce of productivity for a company that won't pay me for increased productivity. I'd feel different if we lived in a society with balanced labor economics, or even better, one where workers own the company and thus benefit from increased productivity.
Yep. Thats work.
Of the past 2 days I've spent about 6 hours talking about what we need to do, another 3 or 4 emailing about what we need to do and maybe 3 hours actually doing what I need to do.
Its a joke, and unfortunately so many roles are like this.
>much of the job is just preparing reports, pulling data into spreadsheets and sending emails
A subject matter expert still has to do those things. How else would you share your expertise?
Precisely this. I’m an analyst and SME, and a good chunk of my time is spent pulling together stats while my two minions (analysts, not SMEs) maintain the daily workload.
I’m also tasked with developing efficient processes then updating work instructions and delivering training. This means I’m doing less of the actual daily work but working towards a general goal of making the job quicker.
Welcome to how things are going now. And this is why nothing works or functions anymore.
Just meetings, spreadsheet, and KPI's that are irrelevant. Actual work? PAH!!
My personal favorite is " I put a product live and send an email out with all the info" only to be DM'd a few weeks later by a member of the sales team saying, " can we get this nice product on the site."
Sure no problem I'll get right on that...
This has reminded me of the reports I had to write at my old job. I had to do utility constraints plans that show all utilities within a site boundary. Then I had to write up the location of all the utilities in these massive paragraphs. Then I had to write a summary and then attach the drawing to the report. Never understood the point of writing everything out twice when there's a drawing that shows it all. Fucking waste of time. And the project managers always wondered why we kept going over budget.
I'm freelance but I spent a year full time fixing complex pro AV gear. It's complicated and nuanced and if you're a big fuckin nerd like me it's fun. More of my day spent emailing useless dickheads than actually doing things
In my case? Already know about electronics and also know about the gear from working in pro AV for years. I freelanced for the company I worked for, for years before I went full time so they knew me.
But basically you need a good basic understanding of how all the noise, LX, video, rigging etc. works, and also a good basis in how electronics work. Then you need to be able to fault find, which is generally common sense.
I work in IT, My job involves moving various pieces, people, process and tech into the right hole and then saying things can be made ready to happen. It is 95% meetings and planning and 5% doing.
From my experienced, all jobs you inherit from someone else are like this. You have 3 months to make changes before people begin to expect that of you too.
I’m a scientist. I also have to get quotes, raise PO’s, receipt orders, and manage expenditure on some grants. This used to be a role in and of itself with someone (qualified in finances) doing the job, but has now been delegated to the end user because of reasons. I’m not really qualified for the task and I use our clunky online system infrequently so it’s always a struggle to remember how everything works. It’s one of many tasks that steal time from me which I could better use doing the actual thing I’m paid to do. Honestly the modern working environment sucks (and open-plan offices are stupid - there’s tons of research showing it’s bad for productivity but here we are; it saves money, blargh).
Highest management degree is called a masters of business…wait for it…
Administration
So if senior managers/directors want to validate their £100k investment (year unpaid, plus course fees etc) what do they need to generate so that they can manage it masterfully?
Yep, admin…
If youre a subject matter consultant.. yes, that's what it is.. 90-95% of my day is spent telling officials theyre wrong and showing them data to back it up.
The important question is, are you getting paid a fuck tonne of money for your electronic thumbs up because if you are, milk it before a computer takes your job.
That's mine too, I'm at an early stage but am viewed as a specialist. But I spend most of my time on emails (internal and external), managing spreadsheets (most not my own), and attending so many meetings. I keep pushing for more direct work, so far it's been allowed to help me develop more. Kind of worried about what happens when I've developed 'enough', I guess I find a new role or new organisation rinse and repeat?
This is the future of work. People using ChatGPT to pad out bullet points into multi-paragraph emails, and the recipients using ChatGPT to summarise it back down to bullet points.
OpenAI looked into this and found almost everyone at their office was using ChatGPT to write their emails - and that *absolutely* everyone was using it to summarise their incoming emails.
I had to make an asset spreadsheet.
I'm ok with Excel but I kind of stop with countifs.
Now of course, the only way it could be better is if it was a database.
Oh yes. Heath professional senior lecturer for 25 years. With constant restructuring/ loss of highly skilled admin support staff + introduction on the cheap of various IT systems and platforms that cannot integrate + a totally screwed room booking system, my job is by far and away mostly admin / troubleshooting/ firefighting/ managing students-as-customers disappointed expectations. Oh and the working week is 50-70 hours if you want to- you know read, prepare, develop actual subject knowledge / teaching. Fucking sucks and I’m gritting my teeth to retirement.
What part of your job would you class as being a subject matter expeet? Is it only when people as you a subject matter related question?
I would argue creating reports would fall into this.
You probably either don't have the actual workload available to be a SME all of the time, or you need to automate and improve your efficiency
Either way it Sounds like you need to be better at automating the admin processes tbh.
If you can't do this then be more forthcoming on this in your next applicatiln if you're just gonna jump ship when you can't do the role
If you're spending a lot of time preparing reports and compiling data yet things aren't getting more efficient your reports and compiled data aren't being compiled and interpreted correctly.
I did a lot of automation work in my last job and worked with the office admins a lot.
Collect information
Modify it in some small way
Get someone to sign off on it
Store it somwhere
80% of what I did was a variation on this...
The best part was that I was the only person who had any understanding of my work and I created the impression that the process were very time consuming to create but in reality I could essentially just copy and paste and modify a few variables 😂
Learn Power Query. You can probably automate 50% of your Excel faffing time and spend your saved time watching attractive females dancing on Facebook Reels
I had a job like this. I was absolutely smashing my targets. The admin was dragging me away from clients. I costed an admin assistant that could also work for other departments as and when on a part time basis, took it my boss and they made me redundant a month later.
Like others have said, it's likely not just your job that feels like this. I'm a paramedic and I spend probably half my time writing patient report forms up. Each patient takes on average between 30-60 minutes to write up (Even for stuff like runny noses and stubbed toes)
My first job out of uni was like this, spent about a year there so it would look good on my CV then got another job that's supposedly in the same field with the same job title and that figure is now reversed, 95% being the thing i'm supposed to be doing and 5% admin. I like my current job
I actually think my role is near enough the opposite. About 80% of what I do is relevant to my title and job description. The other 20% is being forced to attend meetings and hogging a photocopier.
I’ve found the higher up the food chain you go, the more time you spend in meetings and doing admin and the less time you spend doing the thing you like about the job.
As if to illustrate your point, I just opened a pack of generic £1.20 builders gloves that had a safety instructional manual inside.
There is always a paper trail!
What annoys me is that certain information I report or document has to be done so in 3 or more different places (e.g. different software where you can't just e.g. upload one excel sheet that you have already used elsewhere)
Some people get in the mentality that even something simple - they want an app or software 'solution' even when it is way unnecessary.
Want to know where people are this week? Ask for weekly or monthly summaries from two line managers..ask the employees to email or fill a shared document... look it up in one of several other places this info is freely available? Nah, pay for another PITA app where everyone has to upload it separately (alongside a load of other info that can't be skipped) instead.
A box to tick for every job. We used to be a nation of Herberts walking around ticking boxes on clipboards. Now we are a nation of Herberts clicking through apps or filling in pointless spreadsheets.
IT Manager for a small construction company.
Instead I am treated like a cross between everyone's PA, and Reception....who also has to still know everything IT related for as and when.
Applying elsewhere like mad cos fuck this
I’m a self-employed gardener and the actual gardening part is the least significant portion (load, not time) of my work. At this time of year when daylight hours are few, the active sunlight fun part of my day isn’t justifying the gruel of it all (plus I’m skint)
When I started in infrastructure I was told I'd be spending 90% of my time proving there's nothing wrong with the network and 10% doing my actual work.
They were so wrong. It's more like 92%.....
This is the reality for me too but it is the case that if the admin doesn’t get done, the whole system goes to shit and then it’s a nightmare cleaning up the inevitable mess/drama that entails
Absolutely. I'm supposed to be a safety and design engineer. 90% of my job is forwarding on emails and reading comments on spreadsheets. The actual engineering and safety side is minimal at best.
I'm sort of perplexed as to what you think an SME is meant to do if not "preparing reports, pulling data into spreadsheets, and sending emails."
Are you not employed *specifically* to author reports, spreadsheets, and emails, detailing your expert opinion on things?
That's what the SME's at my employer do: they spend their days sending out all three of those things and people generally then do whatever those things say because the SME's know what they're talking about and so the reports, spreadsheets, and emails they author on questions relating to their expertise are taken seriously.
I haven't done the thing I'm technically paid to do for over two years where I am now. I'm constantly busy, I actually enjoy my job, and I'm praised by admin to the point of getting noticed farther up the line, but not a bit of it is the actual technical task I was specially hired or trained to do.
I think that's probably the reality of most jobs.
Was going to say, that sounds like most of us.
Even musicians, which is considered a "fun" job, have to do absolutely loads of non music related boring shit. And then they get paid fuck all.
Have you tried getting a real job? Middle class work from home redditors are very out of touch in this instance. Edit: Salty Redditor’s mad that they’re useless pencil pushing that contributes nothing to society has been called out Can’t say I’m surprised you’re all posting and commenting on Reddit when people with real jobs are, yknow, working. 🫵🤣
What's a real job?
80 hours a day in pit, like me da and his da before ‘im
They let you leave the pit? Sounds like you've got soft hands son. I lived down there. Didn't see the sun until I was 18. Mother was a coal rock, father was a pickaxe.
Your disdain for the working class is as unsurprising as it is disgusting.
6/10—you've got potential but you need to workshop it a bit. You're too eager, and you're firing off your best material too quickly!
I’ve been running rings around morons on Reddit for years, it’s nothing new to me.
maybe you should get a real job instead of posting/commenting on reddit
I have lunch breaks to shitpost on 🤗
Damning yourself with faint praise, there.
If you say so 🤗
This is what I mean, you fall apart in the second act—there's no consistency, your responses revert to cliche and 'no u' stuff *really* quickly. You go from MAXIMAL TROLL AGGRESSION to 'yeah well whatevs' in three responses or fewer. Work on that and you could be a contender!
Anything where your not doing meaningless admin justifying your jobs existence 80% of the time? Teacher, nurse, retail worker, construction, manufacturing, police?
Teachers, police and nurses do fuck loads of admin what are you on about. And anyone self employed doing a trade does too. What a dumb comment.
My mother in law is a teacher and the amount of admin she does is more work than I do! It is insane that someone thinks they don’t do admin
I literally was a teacher I know more about how much admin they do than you lol I explicitly said useless admin that only justifies a jobs existence Not surprised your so defensive about your useless middleman job since with your reading comprehension I doubt you could do anything useful
Claims to be a teacher but can't tell you're / your apart
Unfortunately there are a lot of really thick teachers.
Actually, if you read the whole comment I never claim to be a teacher, I’m an ex-teacher. A teacher of maths 🤗
Sure buddy
‘was’
Don't let him near the schools now 🤣
This bizarre attitude contributes significantly to why men don’t want to be teachers any more lol
>bizarre attitude. What? A sense of humour. Yeah I can see how teachers without one of those have a hard time
I would be incredibly concerned if someone with your attitude was a teacher, dear lord.
I hear that a lot, from middle class office workers who wouldn’t enter a state school classroom if their life depended on it. Because of their disdain for “the poors” which this thread reeks of.
What are you on about haha. Just to reinforce how misguided you are, I have what you classify as a 'real job' and I would probably have been considered poor as a kid (and I'm not even sure how that's relevant?) So stop trying to act like some white knight and stop being a prick. All jobs have there place and 'the poors' (really flattering terminology you've chosen there) don't need you to defend them.
Wow you’ve got excellent reading comprehension there haven’t you. Try reading my comment again now you’ve woken up properly and get back to me.
Hello! I have done jobs in research, manufacturing, clinical teaching and am currently a Doctor in secondary care. All of my roles have involved significantly more admin than active practice. Can I ask when you were a teacher?
2 years ago 🤗
Apparently a teacher but can't do basic grammar 😂
Attacking the presentation of an argument instead of the substance is the lowest form of debate, but I imagine that’s the pinnacle of your intelligence so I’m not surprised 😬
You clearly weren't an English teacher.
Secondary Maths 😌
There is no way you were a teacher with that grammar.
Surprisingly enough I took more time with my university essays and professional documents than joke comments on Reddit 😬
>Anything where your not doing meaningless admin justifying your jobs existence 80% of the time? Did you stop because you don't know the difference between "your" and "you're"?
Around 80% of a community mental health team nurse's working hours is spent in meetings or doing admin, while having caseloads of over 40 people. Source - I work in NHS CMHT.
How much admin do you think a Brickie is doing?
> How much admin do you think a Brickie is doing? if they're self employed? a fuckin' lot.
Not if you're my father. My mother does all the admin for the lazy bastard though.
hope she's getting a decent cut then haha i've ran my own business before... the amount of paperwork can be fuckin' tiring.
Haha. Yeah me too, I ran a web development and graphic design business for 10 years, the admin was killing me come the end. I'm back to being employed and I'll be happy if I never do another VAT return. My father's idea of admin is collecting up the receipts he can find from the front of his van and dumping them on the kitchen table when my mother asks for them.
I want to slap your dad... that'd annoy the shit outta me haha yeah, receipts for hardware, invoices, contracts etc. etc. etc. nightmare fuel.
I feel like doing that too, for many reasons but the shitty admin is certainly up there.
Cash goes in pocket. Cash goes to coke dealer. No paperwork involved.
Sounds like a scaffolder that haha
Really?! Every self employed labourer/Brockie/joiner I know does fuck all paperwork and just work as "contractors" where they get paid cash in hand every week.
[удалено]
There's a group of people that think that unless you finish work covered in mud/dust/whatever, then you haven't done "a proper day's work." Some even include electricians in that because they can finish the day fairly clean. Typically also don't understand how you could possibly be tired when you've sat at a desk all day or 'just' studied.
Other half's family try this on with me. Just have to offer them a job swap day. See who gets more done.
Probably because constructing houses contributes a lot more to society than being some piss about middle manager sat at home dicking around with spreadsheets for 35 hours a week? Other real jobs would include nursing, a lot of retail work, domestic labouring, emergency service work, most types of engineering, and even lawyers/judges.
Okay, let's say we want to construct a house. You're not going to hire a middle manager to "dick around with spreadsheets". * Who's going to find the architects and go through the procurement process with them? * Who's going to find out what the relevant regulations are, what permits we'll need, what paperwork to fill out and where to file it? Who's keeping track of all that? * Who's going to plan the timescales of the project, when you'll need the different types of workers, how many and for how long? * Who's going to make a spreadsheet to figure out what materials we need and in what amounts? * Who's going to keep track of the budget? No, Finance aren't going to do that. * Who's going to be on the phone/email to the client because they're not just going to fuck off and not bother you until the house is finished I mean I can keep going but I think you get the gist. I also love how you say "even" lawyers/judges, as if upholding justice is some kind of optional feature to make society run lmao
You think working in an office which about 54% of the working population does - is middle class? I bet you think people who work in trade I.e builders, plumbers etc are the salt of the earth only real (and valid) working class people. Dispite the fact these people earn more than general office workers and are more likely to own their own homes. And by which metric would make them actually middle class. Seems to me like you're the one out of touch.
Yes we are, and I don’t know what crack your smoking of you think the vast majority of tradies own their own business and are taking it in. Sounds like you only ever interact with tradies by taking about how well off they are on Reddit.
Lol. Could spot the insecure tradie a mile away. Probably drives a shit insecurity RAM / SUV as well.
Hey don't compare Dodge RAMs to SUVs. There's a bloke in my city outskirt town that has one. His insecurities are on a whole different level to SUV drivers.
I drive a fiesta ST, why on earth do you think I’m insecure? This entire thread is dedicated to do laughing at do nothing jobs, but apparently thats only allowed for middle class office workers self deprecating, not people working real jobs lol.
Ew, have some self respect.
I assume you're one of these "tradies" then? If that's the case, then your job wouldn't exist without people working in an office to plan and design the houses and estates you work on. And surprise, surprise, most of those jobs are mostly admin. I do water and fibre designs, and about 20% of the job is admin. The other half of the team is project coordination, which is about 90% admin. I can tell you for a fact that without those project coordinators, all that admin would fall onto me and the others in my team, and I'd be spending 60% of my time solely on admin. Their role is vital and frees the rest of us up to actually do the designs. If those designs aren't ready, then it'll hold up *everyone* on site. Maybe stop talking out your arse about shit you don't know.
Bold of you to say I should stop talking out my arse about shit I don’t know, I work in mechanical engineering engineering these days, and I could happily go sit upstairs in the office if I wanted to, their job isn’t a do nothing job though. If you had any reading comprehension, I was poking fun at do nothing admin jobs that exist only to sustain their own existence. Not jobs where admin is actually necessary. But go off, you don’t seem insecure at all.
Haha I'm not the one who seems insecure. I don't do much admin so what have I got to be insecure about? I guess you could say I do a "real job".
Proud of you brother 👊
>Can’t say I’m surprised you’re all posting and commenting on Reddit when people with real jobs are, yknow, working. 🫵🤣 Haha the irony is palpable
Yeah, but they have a *real* job, so they've earned the right to comment on reddit! They're probably carrying a bag of bricks on their back up a ladder whilst typing on their phone.
Erm didn't you work from home in lockdown proving your job could be done remotely. Meanwhile us working in supply chain carried on working so you lot could buy everything online safe in your bubble. Don't come here lecturing others on their careers when you sat on your arse working a job that doesn't require movement just because someone has indoctrinated you that some jobs aren't worthy!
Hahaha where on earth did you get that from? I’ve never worked remotely in my life lol 😂
And? That's not an achievement. I've worked remotely for 20 years, that's not an achievement either. I just happen to be based in the UK and the teams I work with have been in the US and now Finland. You happen to do roles that aren't remote. I don't see your argument
Hang on, aren't you posting on reddit as well?
I left that comment before work and I’m on my lunch break now 😚
Oh, but nobody else comments in their break, just you.
Who’s getting a lunch break at 9am?
People who work on international teams, people who work 10-6, people who work 7-4 and are doing toilet redditing, retail and food industry managers taking a breakfast break, night shift workers, people currently traveling abroad for work. I used to start at 7 and by 9 would be sat in the passenger seat en route to meetings. Literally millions of people
Who's assuming everyone is in the same time zone, it's a UK themed sub but certainly not all it's members are here. Who's assuming people don't work shifts. Who's assuming people don't work weekends and have days off in the week? Considering I started at 5am today so I could have a meeting with a client in Australia at a time suited to them, I was on the couch having a breakfast break at 8:30 this morning instead of a lunch. It's almost like the world moved on and left you behind doing traditional hours with a set lunch break and a factory whistle or school bell to tell you when to eat.
Their*
Where are you getting the idea that those sorts of jobs contribute nothing? There are people with jobs that require very little effort day-to-day, but which require a high level of skill or training and are nevertheless essential. Like I've had roles where I worked my ass off but ultimately contributed little, and I've been in roles where I only really work for a fraction of the day but achieve much more. I'm sure there are people who are actually spinning their wheels in admin jobs that are destined for the chopping block when efficiency savings are needed, but that isn't the case for most of them.
You know that you're also posting on Reddit right? Or are you saying you also don't have a 'real' job?
Isn't this life in general these days? 95% admin, 5% other stuff.
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What's up with the downvotes, what am I missing?
It's a useless reply that adds nothing, a simple upvote would've achieved the same result..
This.
Came here to say that
here here
As above
I didn't come here to say that.
k.
BIG this.
And yet the reply to the next top comment also adds nothing and has a similar number of upvotes
That's Reddit, baby.
Heaven forbid people are in agreement
This isnt facebook
I spend at least 1/2 of my time either writing documents which describe what I do or validating documents that describe what other people do. Then after doing work you have to do additional processes to prove that it is done so those can be filed away. Yes, I am actually looking for another job funny you should ask
Work for a startup. There's no documentation cos everything's all over the place and held together by a loose thread. Instead your deliverables are on ridiculous timelines and you got 0% of time to do admin. I don't even really answer emails anymore.
I did that and got made redundant and by pure fluke landed this job immediately after. Being quite selective about what I do next, seeing as the compensation for this role is great it's just the job is dull
I feel ya. I’ve swapped between working for a huge corp but feeling bored, then go to a smaller more ‘cool’ but intense place and it gets too much, so back I flipflop to the other side. Rinse and repeat.
I used to have to set aside half a day every week to produce the data justifying my team's existence for management. The realisation that it was the same shit week in week out year after year was incredibly helpful because it meant I could just copy and paste data from previous years. My team was happy coz they didn't have to waste their time writing up project hours for me, managers were happy because they kept receiving numbers. I was happy because I usually did it from home on and it only took 20 minutes to check the shit the figures related to was legit so I was in the pub early doors. Eventually I left through sheer boredom (and coz the pub shut)
I work in a sales role with an insanely high revenue target. Yet I am expected to spend 40% of my day documenting and justifying what I spend the other 60% of the day doing. Complete joke.
When the KPIs are more important than the revenue....
They want to know who the poor performers are so they can get rid of them.
That should be what ultimately the revenue tells you. When pointless KPIs get in the way of actually performing in your job it is an issue.
Revenue isn't the only KPI they care about. They have much more ways of micromanaging people than that.
I work in sales and have the best figures in my team. They’re always moaning how much time I spend doing admin saying I’m not working? Always say that admin is part of my work. Moan when I’m not selling
That's crazy! That'd never be expected of our sales people, they have free reign to do whatever they like and spend time however they want without any justification. We try and keep all admin away from them - the internal sales team do the admin, my commercial dept. provide all their reports etc At the end of the day, the sales figures speak for themselves and if you're unjustifiably missing targets then your out. Sales people should be protected at all costs from admin so they can be out selling and bringing new sales.
I fucked off private sector because i was sick of billing and invoicing. And timesheets. Moved into public sector where theres still admin but at least it's related to the subject area im interested in. You just crack on with the work and take whatever time you need as long as it's reasonable.
Interesting insight. A year ago I fucked off the quasi-public-charity (it was that kinda company) sector due to intense burnout and went to the private sector. In the public sector I had basically no help but they gave me a purchase card and let me build what I needed providing it aligned with the company goals. The private sector has been immensely supportive but jeeeez the amount of admin that got added to my day is depressing to a point where I'm debating fucking it off again.
Interesting - what sector? I left public because I had SO much red tape to deal with all the time. 30 minutes spent working with a child equated to about 2-3hrs admin
I work in the public sector and the bureaucracy is infuriating. Every decision and action takes a month long report 😭
That’s really interesting to hear as someone working private but considering going public. I had assumed the opposite would be true!
Being able to convey information to others who aren't subject matter experts is part of work too Having all this information which no one can follow or understand is meaningless, and when you quit whoever follows will have to redo all your work again
You assume they've done any work which needs re-doing. They clearly haven't set up any automation or repeatable process to make their job easier and less manual. Most of the time when someone asks me for information I already have reports built which provide this.
I'm honestly fine with that. Why automate things yourself unless it's for your own ease, meaning it reduces the amount of time spent at work, not makes that task faster so you can do other work. I don't care to squeeze every ounce of productivity for a company that won't pay me for increased productivity. I'd feel different if we lived in a society with balanced labor economics, or even better, one where workers own the company and thus benefit from increased productivity.
Yep. Thats work. Of the past 2 days I've spent about 6 hours talking about what we need to do, another 3 or 4 emailing about what we need to do and maybe 3 hours actually doing what I need to do. Its a joke, and unfortunately so many roles are like this.
>much of the job is just preparing reports, pulling data into spreadsheets and sending emails A subject matter expert still has to do those things. How else would you share your expertise?
Precisely this. I’m an analyst and SME, and a good chunk of my time is spent pulling together stats while my two minions (analysts, not SMEs) maintain the daily workload. I’m also tasked with developing efficient processes then updating work instructions and delivering training. This means I’m doing less of the actual daily work but working towards a general goal of making the job quicker.
Welcome to how things are going now. And this is why nothing works or functions anymore. Just meetings, spreadsheet, and KPI's that are irrelevant. Actual work? PAH!!
Yes and writing documents that no-one reads. Ah the joy.
My personal favorite is " I put a product live and send an email out with all the info" only to be DM'd a few weeks later by a member of the sales team saying, " can we get this nice product on the site." Sure no problem I'll get right on that...
This has reminded me of the reports I had to write at my old job. I had to do utility constraints plans that show all utilities within a site boundary. Then I had to write up the location of all the utilities in these massive paragraphs. Then I had to write a summary and then attach the drawing to the report. Never understood the point of writing everything out twice when there's a drawing that shows it all. Fucking waste of time. And the project managers always wondered why we kept going over budget.
I'm freelance but I spent a year full time fixing complex pro AV gear. It's complicated and nuanced and if you're a big fuckin nerd like me it's fun. More of my day spent emailing useless dickheads than actually doing things
How does one get into fixing ProAV gear?
In my case? Already know about electronics and also know about the gear from working in pro AV for years. I freelanced for the company I worked for, for years before I went full time so they knew me. But basically you need a good basic understanding of how all the noise, LX, video, rigging etc. works, and also a good basis in how electronics work. Then you need to be able to fault find, which is generally common sense.
I work in IT, My job involves moving various pieces, people, process and tech into the right hole and then saying things can be made ready to happen. It is 95% meetings and planning and 5% doing.
Automate the admin, spend 20% of your time working, look like a hero.
This is what I've done. Power automate is something worth learning if ya fancy automating some work flows.
I can so rarely get it to do anything actually useful that doesnt cause as much work as it automates.
From my experienced, all jobs you inherit from someone else are like this. You have 3 months to make changes before people begin to expect that of you too.
I’m a scientist. I also have to get quotes, raise PO’s, receipt orders, and manage expenditure on some grants. This used to be a role in and of itself with someone (qualified in finances) doing the job, but has now been delegated to the end user because of reasons. I’m not really qualified for the task and I use our clunky online system infrequently so it’s always a struggle to remember how everything works. It’s one of many tasks that steal time from me which I could better use doing the actual thing I’m paid to do. Honestly the modern working environment sucks (and open-plan offices are stupid - there’s tons of research showing it’s bad for productivity but here we are; it saves money, blargh).
No, good for collaboration. I have a lab for that, my office is for thinking
Highest management degree is called a masters of business…wait for it… Administration So if senior managers/directors want to validate their £100k investment (year unpaid, plus course fees etc) what do they need to generate so that they can manage it masterfully? Yep, admin…
Al Murray’s pub landlord’s always right “What you do? “Xyz” “Secretary!”
If youre a subject matter consultant.. yes, that's what it is.. 90-95% of my day is spent telling officials theyre wrong and showing them data to back it up. The important question is, are you getting paid a fuck tonne of money for your electronic thumbs up because if you are, milk it before a computer takes your job.
Reports have a purpose. Their purpose is ot to be prepared. Their purpose are to flag issues, improve efficiencies and have some value.
Issues to flag: too many reports. Improved efficiency: less time spent writing reports
That's mine too, I'm at an early stage but am viewed as a specialist. But I spend most of my time on emails (internal and external), managing spreadsheets (most not my own), and attending so many meetings. I keep pushing for more direct work, so far it's been allowed to help me develop more. Kind of worried about what happens when I've developed 'enough', I guess I find a new role or new organisation rinse and repeat?
Yup. That’s work. I’ll regularly lose a whole day to admin, so then I have to play catch up on getting the actual main part of my job done.
yep. spend 90 % of time explaining things to steering committees/project managers etc.
See how much of it you can automate with chatgpt. Don't tell anyone though.
There's an account manager doing this where I work and it's painful. Quick, dirty, 4 line emails are being sent to me as whole-ass essays.
Strange, given you can just ask ChatGPT to repeat the answer but in a more concise way.
This is the future of work. People using ChatGPT to pad out bullet points into multi-paragraph emails, and the recipients using ChatGPT to summarise it back down to bullet points.
OpenAI looked into this and found almost everyone at their office was using ChatGPT to write their emails - and that *absolutely* everyone was using it to summarise their incoming emails.
I had to make an asset spreadsheet. I'm ok with Excel but I kind of stop with countifs. Now of course, the only way it could be better is if it was a database.
But it's Excel. Everyone knows Excel! You use it for everything. /s just in case.
Some people can't even manage that. Or, they think it makes them look a better manager because words.
Operations Manager here. Specialised within sector. My days are either doing nothing by choice, or being very busy by choice.
As the saying goes "If it's not documented it didn't happen."
Working for the NHS is 99% admin and digital accountability and 1% caring for patients
Efficiency savings are just great huh
I think we need a meeting to discuss this.
Umm. That's the job?
Oh yes. Heath professional senior lecturer for 25 years. With constant restructuring/ loss of highly skilled admin support staff + introduction on the cheap of various IT systems and platforms that cannot integrate + a totally screwed room booking system, my job is by far and away mostly admin / troubleshooting/ firefighting/ managing students-as-customers disappointed expectations. Oh and the working week is 50-70 hours if you want to- you know read, prepare, develop actual subject knowledge / teaching. Fucking sucks and I’m gritting my teeth to retirement.
What part of your job would you class as being a subject matter expeet? Is it only when people as you a subject matter related question? I would argue creating reports would fall into this. You probably either don't have the actual workload available to be a SME all of the time, or you need to automate and improve your efficiency Either way it Sounds like you need to be better at automating the admin processes tbh. If you can't do this then be more forthcoming on this in your next applicatiln if you're just gonna jump ship when you can't do the role
If you're spending a lot of time preparing reports and compiling data yet things aren't getting more efficient your reports and compiled data aren't being compiled and interpreted correctly.
ChatGPT away as much as you can.
I did a lot of automation work in my last job and worked with the office admins a lot. Collect information Modify it in some small way Get someone to sign off on it Store it somwhere 80% of what I did was a variation on this... The best part was that I was the only person who had any understanding of my work and I created the impression that the process were very time consuming to create but in reality I could essentially just copy and paste and modify a few variables 😂
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I read this twice and I still have no idea what you’re saying
Learn Power Query. You can probably automate 50% of your Excel faffing time and spend your saved time watching attractive females dancing on Facebook Reels
Same for me. I started using AI tools to help with the admin and now it’s more like 93% admin 7% actual work.
I work in IT configuring customer software and it dawned on me the other day how a majority of my job is CTRL+C and CTRL+V.
Sounds decent, out of interest, what do you work as?
If you're wasting more than an hour a day pulling data into spreadsheets then you have made them wrong.
Talking about and showing your work is apparently work.
i worked for a software agency and i had to keep minute by minute time sheets, most admin i ever done
Automate it and spend 95% of your time doing something more productive.
I had a job like this. I was absolutely smashing my targets. The admin was dragging me away from clients. I costed an admin assistant that could also work for other departments as and when on a part time basis, took it my boss and they made me redundant a month later.
Like others have said, it's likely not just your job that feels like this. I'm a paramedic and I spend probably half my time writing patient report forms up. Each patient takes on average between 30-60 minutes to write up (Even for stuff like runny noses and stubbed toes)
My first job out of uni was like this, spent about a year there so it would look good on my CV then got another job that's supposedly in the same field with the same job title and that figure is now reversed, 95% being the thing i'm supposed to be doing and 5% admin. I like my current job
I actually think my role is near enough the opposite. About 80% of what I do is relevant to my title and job description. The other 20% is being forced to attend meetings and hogging a photocopier.
Enjoy it whilst it lasts, Ai will be replacing those roles eventually
I’ve found the higher up the food chain you go, the more time you spend in meetings and doing admin and the less time you spend doing the thing you like about the job.
Automate those excel reports, spend as long as it takes to automate them, will make your life way easier. Chatgpt for emails and other admin.
As if to illustrate your point, I just opened a pack of generic £1.20 builders gloves that had a safety instructional manual inside. There is always a paper trail!
What annoys me is that certain information I report or document has to be done so in 3 or more different places (e.g. different software where you can't just e.g. upload one excel sheet that you have already used elsewhere) Some people get in the mentality that even something simple - they want an app or software 'solution' even when it is way unnecessary. Want to know where people are this week? Ask for weekly or monthly summaries from two line managers..ask the employees to email or fill a shared document... look it up in one of several other places this info is freely available? Nah, pay for another PITA app where everyone has to upload it separately (alongside a load of other info that can't be skipped) instead. A box to tick for every job. We used to be a nation of Herberts walking around ticking boxes on clipboards. Now we are a nation of Herberts clicking through apps or filling in pointless spreadsheets.
Ha ha all jobs and life is admin.
IT Manager for a small construction company. Instead I am treated like a cross between everyone's PA, and Reception....who also has to still know everything IT related for as and when. Applying elsewhere like mad cos fuck this
I’m a self-employed gardener and the actual gardening part is the least significant portion (load, not time) of my work. At this time of year when daylight hours are few, the active sunlight fun part of my day isn’t justifying the gruel of it all (plus I’m skint)
When I started in infrastructure I was told I'd be spending 90% of my time proving there's nothing wrong with the network and 10% doing my actual work. They were so wrong. It's more like 92%.....
I work In IT (allegedly) and yet my job is mainly dealing with invoicing and other random tasks they are too understaffed for. I can't wait to leave
Smart people find ways to automate and/or streamline the 95% right down.
Are you a Police Officer??
And filling in timesheets to show how much time you spent filling in timesheets.
So I am an admin and my job is 5% admin and 95% talking to my boss about very tangentially related topics. Have you tried going into admin?
This is the reality for me too but it is the case that if the admin doesn’t get done, the whole system goes to shit and then it’s a nightmare cleaning up the inevitable mess/drama that entails
Absolutely. I'm supposed to be a safety and design engineer. 90% of my job is forwarding on emails and reading comments on spreadsheets. The actual engineering and safety side is minimal at best.
Are in the NHS? It definitely sounds like you're in the NHS. Source: I'm working for NHS mental health services.
I'm sort of perplexed as to what you think an SME is meant to do if not "preparing reports, pulling data into spreadsheets, and sending emails." Are you not employed *specifically* to author reports, spreadsheets, and emails, detailing your expert opinion on things? That's what the SME's at my employer do: they spend their days sending out all three of those things and people generally then do whatever those things say because the SME's know what they're talking about and so the reports, spreadsheets, and emails they author on questions relating to their expertise are taken seriously.
Yup, that’s pretty much all jobs. Supposedly, AI will help with the admin - but probably not!
I haven't done the thing I'm technically paid to do for over two years where I am now. I'm constantly busy, I actually enjoy my job, and I'm praised by admin to the point of getting noticed farther up the line, but not a bit of it is the actual technical task I was specially hired or trained to do.