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I have a very cyclical job. Depending on how many projects I’m working on, where we are in the project lifecycle, or just the natural ebbs and flows of how demanding a client will be, I could either be putting in repeated weeks of late nights in the office or sitting here with virtually nothing to do for a day or two. I’m currently going through one of those down phases, and it’s driving me nuts. And listen, I love having nothing to do – free time is like the golden ticket – don’t get me wrong. It’s just that I feel wicked uncomfortable just sitting in my cube blatantly goofing off, especially if my surrounding colleagues are on other projects and actually have shit to do.
If I decide to write, it looks unusual because I never do actual work in Microsoft Word. If I’m dicking around on various websites, it’s even more blatant that I’m getting down with some serious “me time.” I’ve got the podcasts going right now, but I have no idea what to put on the screen. Right now I have a side project for internal use only on my screen. I’ve done pretty much all I can do to it at this point, so I just sort of write and re-write shit and make minor adjustments to the formatting. Yesterday, I asked for something to do. I was given a 30-minute assignment that I had to stretch the length of an afternoon. It was like putting on a TV show but pausing it every few minutes to get a new beer or check Twitter, and next thing you know it’s a few hours later and you’ve successfully goofed away a whole afternoon.
When I have nothing to do, I always feel like I’m the one being judged because it’s so transparent how checked out I am. Like I just spent two hours researching for the gambling whirlwind that lies ahead in the form of March Madness, and I can’t help but feel like I’m the one doing something wrong even though I really have nothing positive to be contributing to my employer.
I wish I could just hit the gym mid-afternoon disappear into an empty office, put on some Netflix or write or read a book about sports in peace. I can be out of sight out of mind, happily reading PGP alone, and if you need something, email me. But being so exposed in a cube gives me such a hesitance to do anything to pass the time that sometimes I’ll just wind up staring at the computer screen with an old PowerPoint deck open just aimlessly scrolling through while not absorbing any information. And that’s just a huge waste of everyone’s time, and probably murders brain cells. (Sidebar – I found some link to an article about basic high school math problems most high schoolers should (I repeat, should) be able to solve, and I just tried them and I was utterly perplexed. I attribute this 100% to not using my brain at all over the past two days.)
I know work is going to pick up soon. In fact, I can see my impending doom, as a few projects are going to be ramping the fuck up real quick, like I’m sitting on a railroad track and can see the train rumbling towards me in the distance. It’s unavoidable. I know I should relish these few days I get every so often of not being busy at all, but I like to stay busy, and sitting here doing nothing makes me antsy. If you’re not going to give me something to do, let me work on my hobbies in my cube and don’t judge me for it.
I know there are plenty of you that have the same exact issue. Does anyone have any advice? Anybody have a deal worked out with their manager or supervisor that if you ask for work and they’ve got nothing for you that you can just leave, kind of like when you could leave class if the professor was 15 minutes late? I need to work something out, because I could save so much time if I could take a gym break in the middle of my non-busy days, unabashedly catch up on my shows in the cubes, or write fire content for you..
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Boston Max
Spending my retirement fund at Trader Joe's and trying to remember to check my mailbox semi-regularly
@BostonMaxG
@boston_maxg
Sooo… I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but are we getting a TGDAG today? Kinda getting antsy.
Easy solution to writing at work: do it in an email draft. Unnecessarily highlight, space and bullet point sentences so it looks like a professional email with a lot of good points.
What I’ve done in these situations is usually see if there’s any company training available for new skills to help me in my job. Whether it’s something with pivot tables, new technology coming out, etc, there’s usually some one or two hour courses during the work day that can both a) fill the boredom at work, and b) make you look proactive to your boss/coworkers.
Macros for days
Registered for VBA for Excel. Something to get those mandatory professional development hours while being paid to be out of the office.
The beauty of my job is I have a small ass office (it’s literally a closet) with pretty solid sound protection. It’s amazing when I have jack squat to do. No one bothers me, and if someone does, I have a quick moment to click out of whatever I’m doing.
Can I give you some of my work? I’m drowning over here.
I usually copy and paste a bunch of articles into notepad and pretend I’m taking writing notes or something while typing occasionally.
Reading this website was the answer for these kinds of days for me.. having one right now in fact. Cheers! Sorry this is completely unhelpful 😉
The life of a Consultant on the bench. I feel your pain.
Story of my life. I’m bored and my boss knows it. Luckily I’m provided with free access to Adobe webinars so if I’m THAT bored, I’ll start watching one on photoshop or something. Might as well take advantage.
Are you allowed to use privacy screens? When I worked in consulting, they let us have privacy screens on our laptops to protect our client’s information. I would highly suggest investing in one. It’s a complete game changer. You can do whatever you want on your computer and no one can see what you’re doing.