Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic The Boring Job Blues

Well, ok, my job isn't all that boring--as long as I have some of it to do.

As it is, I usually finish all of my normal tasks before Tuesday afternoon (sometimes Wednesday), and I'm hard-pressed to find something else to do for the rest of the week after I've checked my e-mail in the morning. Which is why I'm on this board a lot.

So, this thread is for all those people who have boring jobs and want to commiserate.

OK,
the highlight of my day is getting a task, any task to perform. How sad is that?

I get to work, check my e-mail (a busy morning is 5 e-mails), make the rounds to make sure the supplies are set and everyone's breathing and... that's it.

During the day I may get little tasks that are really boring - like talking to our shipping company to check the status of something or scheduling an interview but these take a couple of minutes each and then I'm bored again.

And I travel about an hour and a half in each direction to do this boring job! Thank God for the MBs and for FoLCs, I would have lost my mind a long time ago if I wasn't distracted by all the FoLCy stuff I manage to find.

Avia

I hear ya! My bosses take soooooo long to make a decision, it's like pulling teeth. They've had me looking into a new shopping cart software for our website for the last few MONTHS. A recommendation was made MONTHS ago, and it took them until TWO WEEKS ago to actually decide to use it! That, and getting specific information about our current shopping cart from them is hair-pulling madness.

Mondays and Tuesdays aren't so bad for me--at least then, I can look forward to having about 100 books worth of information (title, author's name, ISBN, genre, etc) to get ready and upload to our shopping cart. But after that's over, if I've finished the website maintenance for the day and don't have anything to do for the PR department, then I've pretty much got nothin'.

Well, let's see - what did I do today?

1. Interviewed 4 candidates for a part-time position in my department.

2. Sent 23 emails in response to various complaints that things weren't working.

3. Organised for a telecoms engineer to attend another site out-of-hours - ie, notified reception and security, wrote and faxed the purchase order, phoned the company to make sure they got the fax, made sure my staff set aside a range of IP addresses for the engineer and made sure this information was conveyed to the engineer.

4. Dealt with around 6 in-person visits by staff and students requiring various levels of IT assistance.

5. Made and took a gazillion phone calls.

6. Dealt with two serious IT failures - a) none of the students on one site could print and their course deadlines are tomorrow; b) users were receiving bounceback emails making them believe their emails weren't being delivered even though they were.

7. Marked and scored 4 IT tests (for those interview candidates).

This was probably my busiest day so far this week, but the other three weren't far behind.

DSDragon, can I have your job, please?

Yvonne

Man where was this thread last year LOL!

Just to highlight my boring LIFE, we can swap. I'll do someone else's job, and they can real estate hunt for me. I'm trying to find a condo in the area. I close my eyes at night and I literally see real estate property. I had a dream last night that I looked at the Oglethorpe complex, and all the bedrooms were shoeboxes.


Jen

Heh. If I didn't need the money, I'd say you could take it!

Actually, the real problem with my job is that my bosses don't seem to get that I run out of things to do for the week around 11am on EVERY TUESDAY.

On top of that, they tell me to tell them whenever I've run out of stuff to do, and I tell them, EVERY TUESDAY AFTERNOON. But then they don't give me something else to work on unless I send them an e-mail EVERY TIME I'm done with my normal stuff.

They don't seem to get that I don't need a new project--which will probably take less than two hours to complete--what I NEED is a greater amount of regular responsibilities.

It's frustrating.

Oh, wow, Darcy, what do you do? And Avia, what do you do? I'd love to have a job that was 'boring' for once.

I'm currently taking a break from nursing, but gadfries, nurses are lucky if they have time to do things like, oh, I don't know - go to the bathroom! Or eat! And then when you sit down at the desk to do the mound of paperwork required by the government (and you'd better do it to protect your butt), some lovely patient ( usually well meaning, but not always) comes along and tells you that you aren't doing anything but 'sitting'. Nurses have more to do in one shift than they have hours to do it in. It's no wonder so many of us burn out. And it's no wonder so few people want to be a nurse any more.

I remember when I first became a nurse that the staffing was adequate, and we actually had time to sit and talk to patients. That's a joke now. Well, I could go on and on, but I won't.....

But, hey Darcy, I only live about 8, maybe 10 hours from you. I'd move there in a heartbeat if I could get a job like that. Enjoy it, girl!

My job is not boring, but occasionally I do run out of things to do. Luckily today was not one of those days. Actually, my job sounds a lot like Yvonne's, except it isn't IT.

And now it is 5:40 pm and time to go home! (Actually, out to dinner with the hubs because it is his birthday)

I maintain the PublishAmerica company website. I didn't design it though, so the layout kinda sucks. I mostly just keep up the Press Clippings, Testimonials, Book Signings, Online Bookstore and Up in Lights sections. Then every once in a while, my bosses ask me to change some little factoid somewhere else on the site.

I also update the Public Relations spreadsheet. I put the week's new books into the sheet, request that the authors give me information, put the info in the sheet, and then wait for more. Very boring.

Then, there's the software research. My bosses have so far taken YEARS to decide on which software package they want to change to for the shopping cart. In the past few months, getting them to make the decision has been frustrating, not to mention getting them to give me the information I need.

Lots of projects they've given me have been put on hold while I wait for their decision on something. GRRR

I've been known to write a few press releases, but not many.

Over all, it's an okay job--the pay's good too--but it's not all that mentally stimulating.

I had more to do when I worked at JCPenney.

Well, I'm a Stay at home mom so my day consists of playing, feeding and changing my child. Not too mentally stimulating but I keep busy and I love being able to be home with him.

LOL Jen! I know how you feel. We are looking for a new house. It's such a pain!

Jackie

Some days I wish I could sit around and read fanfic all day! I teach 8th grade US History to 13 and 14 year old kids. Some of my classes have students who can't read, some students aren't fluent in English, two classes have special education (learning handicapped) students, one class has a student identified as "emotionally disturbed", one of my classes today had 10 students on off-campus suspension for gang activity, and the other classes have gifted students who need extra intellectual challenges. Today's challenge: convince my 165 students that Shays' Rebellion was both interesting and important and they should bother to learn about it. How did I do it? By a simulation of the concept in which I was literally crawling on my knees and begging kids to give me money, illustrating the concept of inflation through Coke cans and Flaming Hot Cheetos, and throwing kids out of their chairs as I climbed on top of their desks in 5 inch heels to dance in celebration of repossessing their "farms".

My feet hurt.

Susan (who, despite all this, loves her job! )

Hats off to you, Susan! I have respect for any teacher, but you sound like you've got even more challenges than the average hard-working teacher.

That said, you *do* sound just a little bit...um...nuts. What did the kids think of your performance?

Yvonne

You're not the first one to think so! The kids LOVE it when I perform my simulations for them. It engages them and it helps them understand the concepts in a way they can understand. (Even though it completely drains me by the end of the day!)

You think that one sounded crazy? The last one I did involved the acts that the British Parliament imposed on the American colonists and the colonists' reaction to them. For the writs of assistance, I dumped out their backpacks looking for smuggled contraband. I taxed them for having paper (Stamp Act), writing in pencil (lead from the Townshend Acts), etc. When they ran out of pennies, I threw them in "debtors' prison". And when we got to the Boston Massacre, I pelted them with paper "snowballs" until they fought back - I probably had 100 paper balls thrown back at me until I fell dramatically to the floor and "died." How often do you get to throw things at a teacher without getting in trouble for it?!

Oh yeah, the kids are still talking about that one!

You sound like an excellent teacher! I wish I had someone that enthusiastic when I was 13-14. At that age it's so easy to be put off by school. I applaud your efforts. The world needs more teachers like that.

Yes, Groobie, you sound like a wonderful teacher.