Work

[MPDTT]

Good employers create career pathways for employees who don't want to go down the management route - focussed on creating subject matter experts. If the only route to promotion is line management, there will be loads of very talented people who either get frustrated and leave, stagnate or take management roles because it's their only option and a role they are not cut out for. 

Edited January 14, 2021 by MPDTT

[patiirc]

Have any of you lovely people done a newco to charity? I'm looking for some advice as though I get what needs to be done, I am not sure how to go about it. The newco has yet to be set up, but will be shortly and then needs a fairly rapid conversion to a charity when operational.  Many Thanks in Advance

[ReturnOfTheMack]

This whole covid nightmare has made an interesting career path for me.

As a manager of a theatre I was put on furlough for most of 2020. In September I moved over to a leisure centre contact centre. Back on furlough in November. 

December I was seconded to the local council to work in a covid test centre. Today I got confirmation that I have been promoted within that secondment so I am a manager within the teams. A sudden jump in wages of over 600pcm after tax! While I love the money, I hate its because of this shite that caused such misery. But at least while it continues I know I can help society and pay my bills. 

 

Plus afterwards I might be able to turn it I to another job within the council. 

[SuperBacon]

9 minutes ago, ReturnOfTheMack said:

This whole covid nightmare has made an interesting career path for me.

As a manager of a theatre I was put on furlough for most of 2020. In September I moved over to a leisure centre contact centre. Back on furlough in November. 

December I was seconded to the local council to work in a covid test centre. Today I got confirmation that I have been promoted within that secondment so I am a manager within the teams. A sudden jump in wages of over 600pcm after tax! While I love the money, I hate its because of this shite that caused such misery. But at least while it continues I know I can help society and pay my bills. 

 

Plus afterwards I might be able to turn it I to another job within the council. 

I quite enjoyed my time working for the council. I ran my own department, was responsible for my own budget, and to be honest encountered zero of the "red tape" culture, although I'm sure it exists. 

Only issue I had, because it was very much a value added resource, I had to justify the budget, and therefore my job, every 6 months which was a bit of a pain but always passed.

Like you say, bit of security whilst things get back to "normal". Best of luck!

[DCW]

Work finally sprung for a laptop for me, so 10 months after everyone else I finally get to work from home. Well for the 2 days a week when I don't have to go to court. Today I woke up at 11 and answered a few emails, then went and got a coffee and a massive sausage roll and sat in the park for 2 hours delighted with meself!

[RancidPunx]

I work in IT.

I've always had a hard work ethic, in previous jobs I would always go over and above and work any overtime that needed to be done. I've travelled for work at short notice and cancelled personal appointments in lieu of work.

I moved cities, and am in my current job for 3 years now. It was supposed to be a 1 year role which suited me fine but I got extended.

My first year was slightly busy(not as busy as previous jobs), my second year was less busy and as of right now I feel like I am stealing a living as opposed to earning one.

I am doing fuck all, working from home and I'm honestly doing about 1 days work stretched over 5 days. I'm working from home and would be busier if the office was open.

My manager is kinda new(4 months) and seems happy with myself. I've said quite a few times that I am ready for anything that he needs me to work on and he seems to think that my workload currently is perfectly fine. I've a cushy well paid number at the moment, I only work 35 hours a week also.

Honestly, I feel like I'm getting lazy. I'm slacking off during the day, doing a half arsed job of my already light workload. I feel like long term its not good to be working like this but at the same time, I don't even want to think about changing jobs right at the moment.

Every few days I catch myself and try to motivate myself , worse still is my Mrs is completely up the walls and I'm dossing around the house.

I'm starting to feel guilty and know that ultimately this isn't good for me long term although part of me says that I bust my balls in other jobs and should take it easy now but it doesn't really work like that.

I've signed up for a few online courses to try and do to keep me busy.

 

Anybody else feel like they are stealing a living at the moment ?

I'm feeling guilty about it and also feeling guilty that its such a non-problem to be whinging about in a pandemic.

Edited January 22, 2021 by RancidPunx

[Onyx2]

10 minutes ago, RancidPunx said:

Anybody else feel like they are stealing a living at the moment ?

I'm feeling guilty about it and also feeling guilty that its such a non-problem to be whinging about in a pandemic.

I understand your feeling, it's really easy to be like that. It's my opinion if you are completing all your tasks to a good standard, making yourself available to your line manager and documenting that, you can do no more unless you really want to go above and beyond and look for problems to solve. It does show a good work ethic to keep looking at online courses so give yourself credit for that. It's not true of all IT roles but some can be manage and forget, waiting for the next thing to blow up (at which point you wonder where all your spare time has gone).

Go easy on yourself. Part of this is the world adapting to the fact that (in my experience) a lot of your office-based life is taken up with pointless meetings. Now you have some gaps... many businesses are still trying to understand how to manage a fully remote workforce from a traditional office.

[Vamp]

Apparently me asking who made the decision to keep the workplaces open despite the advice from the union and asking if the union had seen the new risk assessment and why not, was considered aggressive and unprofessional...

I need to find a new job don't I?

 

[stewdogg]

If you're just asking about workplace safety and they say you're unprofessional I think it's worth speaking to your union rep. I wouldn't give up on it, I'm sure other colleagues probably have the same reservations.

[garynysmon]

On 1/22/2021 at 2:37 PM, RancidPunx said:

I am doing fuck all, working from home and I'm honestly doing about 1 days work stretched over 5 days. I'm working from home and would be busier if the office was open.

I'm feeling guilty about it and also feeling guilty that its such a non-problem to be whinging about in a pandemic.

Same here.

For the life of me I can't motivate myself at all, its been 10 months of sitting in the same house and staring at the same walls. I'm insanely jealous of my other half (a teacher) who's still going to school at least some days every week.

I'm not someone who works well alone and left to his own devices, and find concentration much easier in an office full of people who are working around me. Its way too easy to distract myself at home and find just anything else to do.

Ironically, the only time I feel like being productive work-wise is around 11pm at night when normal people are heading to bed. 

Whereas before I'd be working silly hours but that's because I enjoyed my job. Right now though, all the aspects that I enjoy have been stripped out of it and taken my enthusiasm with it.

Edited January 26, 2021 by garynysmon

[LCJ]

On 1/22/2021 at 2:37 PM, RancidPunx said:

Anybody else feel like they are stealing a living at the moment ?

I'm feeling guilty about it and also feeling guilty that its such a non-problem to be whinging about in a pandemic.

I work in IT as well. I’ve also been working from home since March but I don’t feel as though I’m stealing a living. Our Department was butchered in 2012 (Local Government) and we lost 75 staff. We haven’t had enough staff to deal with the volume of work we’ve had since. It doesn’t help that we support more than 5000 staff and we’ve made the decision to migrate from Citrix XenMobile to Microsoft InTune during a pandemic. If anything, working from home has increased our productivity and improved communication (we’re having regular meetings via Teams). So I think it depends which organisation you’re working for.

[DCW]

Only started part remote working 3 weeks or so ago and boss is already being a cunt about it. I work Mon-Wed onsite one week with Thurs/Fri remote working and then Mon & Tues following week with Wed/Thur/Fri remote working. This is to keep staff on different teams away from each other so hopefully if one team gets Covid, we have the other able to step in. I was due to be remote working (basically stamping forms & the odd email) next Thurs/Fri and boss emailed me to see if I could cover for someone on Thursday doing the same in office + answering the phone. I explained that I could, but I had a videocall with my Ma's consultant on Thursday morning so couldn't be in the office during 11-11:45 or so. Only time I could get hold of consultant for weeks.

Got an email back that seemed to be copied from some HR manual explaining in legalese that 'employees remote working are obliged to be working at home at all times ,and if not should take annual leave'. I said that the call would take about 45 mins and I'm entitled to a lunch break of that duration even remote working, but she had none of it. So I said 'grand, I'll take leave so' and she refused that straight away.

Been on to my union since and they were in touch asking under what grounds she denied the leave, which she didn't have an answer for. So I have to take leave for it, which is still shite. But she's made an enemy of me now thanks to her cuntishness, so good luck when asking for favours at short notice like she usually does seeing as a good % of the office functions on goodwill and flexibility and people offering to go to different locations/stay late etc. Cow!

[MPDTT]

4 hours ago, DCW said:

Only started part remote working 3 weeks or so ago and boss is already being a cunt about it. I work Mon-Wed onsite one week with Thurs/Fri remote working and then Mon & Tues following week with Wed/Thur/Fri remote working. This is to keep staff on different teams away from each other so hopefully if one team gets Covid, we have the other able to step in. I was due to be remote working (basically stamping forms & the odd email) next Thurs/Fri and boss emailed me to see if I could cover for someone on Thursday doing the same in office + answering the phone. I explained that I could, but I had a videocall with my Ma's consultant on Thursday morning so couldn't be in the office during 11-11:45 or so. Only time I could get hold of consultant for weeks.

Got an email back that seemed to be copied from some HR manual explaining in legalese that 'employees remote working are obliged to be working at home at all times ,and if not should take annual leave'. I said that the call would take about 45 mins and I'm entitled to a lunch break of that duration even remote working, but she had none of it. So I said 'grand, I'll take leave so' and she refused that straight away.

Been on to my union since and they were in touch asking under what grounds she denied the leave, which she didn't have an answer for. So I have to take leave for it, which is still shite. But she's made an enemy of me now thanks to her cuntishness, so good luck when asking for favours at short notice like she usually does seeing as a good % of the office functions on goodwill and flexibility and people offering to go to different locations/stay late etc. Cow!

Makes my blood boil. If you are an office worker and I was your HR Director, I'd expect you to be managed by output, not working time, I'd recognise that employers need to be flexible if they expect employees to be flexible in return - and particularly during covid. If one of my line managers behaved in such a way, I'd deal with them, not you. At the very least you could have simply agreed to make the time back up.

Sounds like a crappy employer

[Thunderplex]

[King of Hamptons]

I've been a chef for 24 years, and have been at my current job for 16 of them. I did really enjoy it. The Garden centre I worked in was sold 12 years ago from the owner who had grown it from a small rose farm to a big garden centre group, they sold it in 2018 to the 3rd biggest garden group. I've been hating it lately which has not been helped by being on furlong for 4 months. We have 2 restaurant on site and I've run one of them on my own for the past 4 years. Slowly the people I work with have left as it can be awful at times and the people I work with are cunts. I've been left on my own with no help.  I feel this has been my fault as I haven't stuck up for my self at times but also the other head chef is a asshole. My attitude has been at times to 'just get on with it" 

I've just been offered a job working in the garden centres Nursery.. Its pretty labour entensive but it does come with working office hours. 4 and a half days a week and every weekend off. Plus every bank holiday and 2 weeks off at Christmas. Coming from a job where you work pretty much that. I won't have to deal with customers any more and stress should be at a minimum. It may be a pretty big drop in salary too but a former restaurant manager is currantly working there and is 3 quarters of a way she said to getting me what my salary currantly is. It's pretty much no brainer. Let's hope my formar manager can sort that out for me. Fingers crossed. 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 27, 2021 by King of Hamptons