Office jobs

[RoJoHen]

Until last week, I had never worked in an office before. Holy crap, it's so boring! I am scheduled to work a 9 hour day, but I only really ever have about an hour of work to do. I spend most of the day waiting for my appointments which may or may not show up. How the hell do people do this as a career?

I spent about an hour of my day today on facebook. I spent another hour gchatting with a couple friends. I took a solid 10 minutes in the middle of my morning to eat a banana. And I spent about 2 hours researching how to open a sports bar.

I mean, it's a solid paycheck, and it's a lot less annoying than my previous job bartending at TGI Fridays, but good lord, I just don't know what I'm supposed to do with myself. I got 80% of today's work done yesterday!

 

[Captain_Nick]

Welcome to my world!!

I keep myself busy with side projects; I am rebuilding my Honda, flood proofing my house, I master facebook scrabble recently, and of course I post here and on other forums a lot too. All these things burn a lot of time that would otherwise be wasted on unproductive work.

One day soon I hope to set up a business on the internet so that I can make money on the side while I am working. That would be the ideal.

 

[sojourner]

If you don't like it, I'll take it. A job that only requires %10 productivity and you can screw around the rest of the time? Yes please.

 

[RoJoHen]

And the sitting! There's too much sitting!

 

[Too Much Fun]

I had a job just like that once. I really would have liked more work. It's hard knowing you'll only have two hours of work tops, and having to make the other 5-7 hours go by somehow. I found a lot of ways. Listening to music and podcasts, browsing sites, taking long lunch breaks, writing for pleasure. There are plenty of options.

 

[Captain_Nick]

Every couple of hours, stand up, take some files off your desk, and go for a walk. Make sure you have a serious look on your face. People will think you are a hard worker dealing with serious issues. Not a slacker.

 

[RoJoHen]

The thing that's so annoying about it is that I have appointments scheduled all day long. In theory, I should be meeting with someone new every hour and getting work done. But today, of my 6 appointments, only 1 showed up.

 

[RoJoHen]

Every couple of hours, stand up, take some files off your desk, and go for a walk. Make sure you have a serious look on your face. People will think you are a hard worker dealing with serious issues. Not a slacker.

There isn't anywhere to walk! The office isn't big enough for that. The only place I can really walk is the bathroom.

 

[Captain_Nick]

Oh, be careful. Never carry reading material into a bathroom. I learnt that the hard way.

Come in early one day and sneak a mini library into the bathroom, if you can find a place to hide the books.

Alternatively, take up smoking. You get a break whenever you feel like it if you smoke.

 

[An Officer]

I remember when I switched to sitting all day... my bottom was not at all happy the first couple of weeks! It can't be the best thing to remain in a chair for so many hours.

 

[RoJoHen]

From what I've seen, nobody in my office smokes, which is rather refreshing. Everybody and their mother smoked at my old job, and they would all just randomly disappear throughout the day to take breaks.

 

[Lookingglassman]

I know what you mean. After serving 12 years in the Army as a tanker, office jobs are the pits. I have been doing an office job for the last 6 years and it is boring as heck. I have done the same thing for so long that I can do it in my sleep. I do about 3 hours worth of work in a 40 hour work week. Most of the time I am surfing the internet, getting into arguments with my coworkers on whether UFOs exist or not, hanging with the head honcho's secretary, emailing friends and dozing off. My boss don't even care if I show up for work or not.

 

[RoJoHen]

What I don't understand is that, when I went to another of their campuses for training two weeks ago, they were all running around like idiots complaining about how behind they were, about how much work they had to do, about how they would get stuck taking work home. I freaked out a bit thinking that I would get stuck doing the same.

Turns out they were all just painfully unorganized and easily distracted.

 

[MANT!]

Had an office job.. depending upon the workload, it can be a breeze...

Currently I work in a lab, and if there's nothing for you to do, the boss will find something for you that you really don't want to do... So, I do my best to remain busy
and never sit on my hands...

But with my smartphone I often can watch short you-tube videos on the can and no one's the wiser...

 

[Spot's Meow]

I have definitely been there. You start the job as a productive, efficient worker and soon realize that that is the wrong strategy. People would give me projects to do that any 10 year old could have done on the computer in 10 minutes and were then shocked when I completed them so quickly (because I had nothing else to do!). They would then say, "well that was the only thing I had assigned for you today!" and the rest of the day would be spent browsing TrekBBS and reading wacky news stories online. It sounds ridiculous, but until you have such a job, you underestimate how absolutely painful boredom can be, mentally and physically. It feels like your brain cells are dying.

So you start off looking around you and seeing how completely inefficient and slow everyone else is and thinking, "wow, what's wrong with them?" but after a few months you have become one of them yourself, and find yourself taking "longcuts" on your work instead of shortcuts, just to make it last longer. And spending 20 minutes adjusting the margins on your Excel spreadsheet when normally you wouldn't give a shit about it.

It doesn't help that there are rows and rows of cubicles, so gray and drab and preventing you from seeing anyone but the person right across from you. But you can still hear everyone, so it's impossible to do anything that involves sound or make any personal phone calls. So you sit there with your ass aching, staring at a blank computer screen, hearing every irritating laugh about every irritating unfunny joke and smelling all the irritating food that your coworkers have brought into their cubicles for lunch.

But good luck to you! Honestly, it wouldn't be nearly so bad if you get along with your coworkers and can share things with them. In my case I was much younger than the vast majority of my coworkers, by about 20 years, so I had nothing in common with them and no one I could really chat up. I think that would make all the difference!

 

[Too Much Fun]

From the movie "Clockwatchers":

"The only real challenge with this job, is trying to look busy when there's nothing to do.".

One of the best movies about working in an office, although not quite as funny as the even better "Office Space". I thought about that line a lot when I was in an office.

 

[RoJoHen]

Even though I have a desktop computer provided for me in my office, I have already started bringing in my MacBook which I have set up facing away from the door so that nobody can see what I'm doing. Whenever people walk by I just look at it very intently and then glance to my desktop as if I am comparing notes or something. I've become an expert at thoughtfully flipping through random papers in an attempt to look busy.

 

[Gepard]

Whenever people walk by I just look at it very intently and then glance to my desktop as if I am comparing notes or something. I've become an expert at thoughtfully flipping through random papers in an attempt to look busy.

Welcome to corporate America. Please check in with Scott Adams before your stay.

 

[WillsBabe]

How the hell do people do this as a career?

Well, to be fair "office job" isn't really a career. My job takes place in an office environment but the building isn't my career! I'm just the opposite of you. I'm constantly run off my feet. I seldom take lunch and usually arrive early. Only yesterday my boss was commenting that he wishes he could create a new day so we could have time to do all the jobs we need to do.

 

[What's his face]

What is it you're supposed to be doing, theoretically? What's your job?