Absolutely nothing to do at new job

LegacyUser

Hi there. I started a new job at the end of April. We are a new department in a large organisation, and it currently consists of myself and my boss. There were a few things to do when I started as we were moving offices etc. but now that we're settled in new building I have been mostly completely idle for the last 4 weeks. I have maybe 30 minutes to an hour's work to do every day and for the rest of the time I'm idle. I used to work in the Public Sector where plenty of people do sweet FA but this is a whole new level.
I'm almost 40 and have a kid and a mortgage to look after, so I'm not really in a position to jack it in, I was under a lot of financial strain before this job and the money is pretty good for me as is job security, and it's actually a nice place to be all day with lovely people and facilities, so for the moment I can grin and bear it. I have spoken to my boss today, and last week about my situation, and he's asking me to just bear with it for now, until he sorts out exactly what our dept will be doing and what responsibilities we will have. He's a very nice and intelligent man so I trust he'll get things in order sooner rather than later, so I can cope for now just dicking around surfing the web and taking tutorials online for now.

Anyway the main problem is, for some reason HR decided another person is starting on Monday, who I'll be in charge of. The problem is I will have absolutely no work for them to do. What on Earth am I supposed to do with him? Apologise and say sorry there's just f**k all for you to do? This recruit had been arranged before my boss and I started (he's new too), so we have no say in it.
This is stressing me out as the guy is going to think the place is a total joke shop (which it very well may be), and it reflects badly on me. He's also going to be sat right beside me, seeing me do f*ck all all day!

What would you do in this situation? Thanks.

Big Bag of Chips

If there are other departments, can you ask them if there's anything they need you to help out with for the time being until your own department is up and running?

Soulsun

<SNIP>



Where do I apply?????

sexmag

Big Bag of Chips wrote: »

If there are other departments, can you ask them if there's anything they need you to help out with for the time being until your own department is up and running?

+1 on this, tell your boss that you would like to be productive while they new department gets set up and is there an overflow from another department you can help with?

Johnnyhpipe

I had a job like this before and I lasted about 4 months. I had literally nothing to do!

I don’t have any answers for you asI couldn’t fix it myself at the time.. but in the end it really got to me. It was much harder to look busy than to actually be busy!

mfceiling

What do you do?

Absolutely nothing. Do you pay this new guys wages? I'm not being smart but the thanks you get nowadays for going out of your way for people/work is non existant.
Explain to the new lad that "your" boss is waiting to get your roles sorted and there's nothing you can do.
Who cares what he will think of you. He's hardly going to take an ad out in the paper. In a months time you could be snowed under with work and going out of your mind with stress. Relax for now.

JustAThought

Jokeshop of a country wasting our hard earned taxes with this feckless waste. At least you have a conscience.

OP what area will the new department be in /in charge of. (Dont say here it will ID you). When the new person gets in let your boss call a 3 way meeting so that you are not seen to be undermiing or badmouthing him(her) and let them clarify the situation -so you are all on the same page. Then perhaps suggest that you both use the time in a structured manner to read evolving research and reports in the area - and -this is key - schedule it out.
even Find some book if necessary for them or website of industry reports and schedule their time block by block & week by week if nesessary so they arnt melting your head saying Im finished every half hour.

Eg Monday
9-930 Emails and Internal meetings and familiarisation with internal systems and other team leads /people flowcharts
9:30 -10 Team meeting and weekly summary. Goals and objectives -update on dept status/progress.
10-1:00 Industry research & report reading on X subject - you can lead on this -show industry specialisation and knowledge of practices and overseas research / projects. Find some industry or conference reports and make a spreadsheet of them with hyperlinks as a starting base. You can later ask them to create one and present it to you for suggestion/approval as the weeks go on - so you know the standard of research and primary sites is acceptable & of good standard & not just pressing buttons on the website.
2-3:30 Summarasing reports read and hyperlinki g references and website in report for you -keep the from just playing solitaire
3:30 -5 Online course in project management or excel to keep general still up todate -there are plenty of free ones that will busy up a few hours a day per module. Try googling MOOCS and pick from the ivy league or top 10 lists. Perhaps ne managerial and choose a few for them to choose from that would line up with your goals/strategic alignmenys/long term needs.Project management and excel or datametrics are easy wins. Perhaps you work in the area of environmental regulation or ecosystems -there will be an industry specialist course there. Do a few.
Hometime.

Thats before you start looking like a non manager by sending them off to do manual handling or some such timewasting nonsense.

If there are core skills as a manager you have identified that could be necessary fot the role (dunno -comms or PR or digital media) you could do an online course side by side and then you have something in common to discuss and review and you will both feel ss if you have done/learned /achieved somethi g. Many of the courses run modules that last 1-3 hours so if yiu timetable this in together you will look as if you are managing and working produvtively yourself so your boss may be impressed with your proactiveness and managerial capacity too.

I dont know as it civil service if you get to see their cv but there may be gaps in it for the new role that you could also use this time to address.

Above all be seen to be on top of the situation and ready to answer to a level above you - weekly written reports of what was researched, adocument trail of summaries of research done -keep their report writing skills up -and of what progress in exactly what courses that you agreed on was achieved. That if managed right, will kill a few weeks. Snd no -onlune courses only - not an excuse to waste more resources and go on a jolly to a conference.

Passenger

JustAThought wrote: »

Jokeshop of a country wasting our hard earned taxes with this feckless waste. At least you have a conscience.

I dont know as it civil service if you get to see their cv but there may be gaps in it for the new role that you could also use this time to address.

The OP works in the private sector.

Wildly Boaring

JustAThought wrote: »

Jokeshop of a country wasting our hard earned taxes with this feckless waste. At least you have a conscience.

OP what area will the new department be in /in charge of. (Dont say here it will ID you). When the new person gets in let your boss call a 3 way meeting so that you are not seen to be undermiing or badmouthing him(her) and let them clarify the situation -so you are all on the same page. Then perhaps suggest that you both use the time in a structured manner to read evolving research and reports in the area - and -this is key - schedule it out.
even Find some book if necessary for them or website of industry reports and schedule their time block by block & week by week if nesessary so they arnt melting your head saying Im finished every half hour.

Eg Monday
9-930 Emails and Internal meetings and familiarisation with internal systems and other team leads /people flowcharts
9:30 -10 Team meeting and weekly summary. Goals and objectives -update on dept status/progress.
10-1:00 Industry research & report reading on X subject - you can lead on this -show industry specialisation and knowledge of practices and overseas research / projects. Find some industry or conference reports and make a spreadsheet of them with hyperlinks as a starting base. You can later ask them to create one and present it to you for suggestion/approval as the weeks go on - so you know the standard of research and primary sites is acceptable & of good standard & not just pressing buttons on the website.
2-3:30 Summarasing reports read and hyperlinki g references and website in report for you -keep the from just playing solitaire
3:30 -5 Online course in project management or excel to keep general still up todate -there are plenty of free ones that will busy up a few hours a day per module. Try googling MOOCS and pick from the ivy league or top 10 lists. Perhaps ne managerial and choose a few for them to choose from that would line up with your goals/strategic alignmenys/long term needs.Project management and excel or datametrics are easy wins. Perhaps you work in the area of environmental regulation or ecosystems -there will be an industry specialist course there. Do a few.
Hometime.

Thats before you start looking like a non manager by sending them off to do manual handling or some such timewasting nonsense.

If there are core skills as a manager you have identified that could be necessary fot the role (dunno -comms or PR or digital media) you could do an online course side by side and then you have something in common to discuss and review and you will both feel ss if you have done/learned /achieved somethi g. Many of the courses run modules that last 1-3 hours so if yiu timetable this in together you will look as if you are managing and working produvtively yourself so your boss may be impressed with your proactiveness and managerial capacity too.

I dont know as it civil service if you get to see their cv but there may be gaps in it for the new role that you could also use this time to address.

Above all be seen to be on top of the situation and ready to answer to a level above you - weekly written reports of what was researched, adocument trail of summaries of research done -keep their report writing skills up -and of what progress in exactly what courses that you agreed on was achieved. That if managed right, will kill a few weeks. Snd no -onlune courses only - not an excuse to waste more resources and go on a jolly to a conference.

Nowhere does it say currently civil service
In fact the first line says in a large company.

OP been there and it did pick up. Keep talking to your boss. What happened in my case was that they knew we'd be hard to hire and needed a full team prior kick-off so just hired some of us too early. Got consent to "work" from home the odd day until it got busy

Johnnyhpipe

Hard earned taxes??

JustAThought

Johnnyhpipe wrote: »

Hard earned taxes??

Yes -I see -I read it back and see where I got it from. It may well be that I am wrong and if so I apologise.

silverharp

Take the initiative , do a review or design a policy structure for the department. Do similar with a training manual. Another area is finance, put together information like budgeting and costing or procurement, see if you can't save the company some money.
Another thing might be training for yourself and the new person, try look for on line IT courses for MS Office packages.

Mr. Incognito

That's 7.5 hours a day with your employers resources to find a new job.

seamus

This can be quite common in large companies. Small companies usually spin up new departments and teams when there's already a 12 month backlog of work for them to do.

But big companies often do the exact opposite; spot new things coming down the line and start the ball rolling on the new department months before they've anything to do. This can be down to things that are as simple as accounting - "I might not get approval for 3 new headcount in Q4, so let's get these people in for Q3". And you end up hiring 3 people who have nothing to do yet.

I would be inclined to grin and bear it for the time being. Consider it an opportunity for a breather; a few months where work is not stressful and you can have a look at your personal life and home life and maybe get some housekeeping done.
Naturally, sitting in a job doing nothing feels like you are stagnating. That when you go to the next interview and they ask what you've been doing with yourself you have nothing to show for it.

silverharp also offers good suggestions; consider what "infrastructural" stuff you can put in place for the department before the work starts. No doubt you have some idea of what your role will be in general, so you could have a think about what things that role will require.

Although it's a large company, so punching the clock might be a necessity, maybe discuss with your boss whether there are ways to mix it up a bit - early or late starts and finishes so that you can get personal stuff done and not feel like you're sitting in the office wasting time when you could be at home finishing the garden or washing the car.

Personally I'd probably put a six-month limit on it. If by September there's no change and no news about work coming down the line, then start getting your CV out there. Otherwise you will start to feel trapped by being out of practice.

shakeitoff

That's so admirable but at end of day it sounds like a sweet gig. The world cup is on watch everything. Maybe do some online courses to look busy.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

LegacyUser

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Well there are bits and pieces, and between having coffee and reading a few things and this and that, it's not that bad really. Today I had a meeting I rather enjoyed too.
I guess I've never managed people before, and I have a new staff member, yet I've no work to give him. That's my main worry. I could prob cruise along doing shag all for ages if I had to, as long as I'm getting paid, all I want to do is look after my partner and kid by hook or by crook!

Thanks for your suggestions, I'll see if there are any online courses I can do, maybe project management or something. Any suggestions for good sites?

Oh and it's a rather large Swiss company, keep your knickers on everyone it's not the Civil Service. So it's probably only legacy Nazi Gold money I'm wasting.

Funny thing is, this isn't the first job I've had doing nothing. I had one in Australia while on a working holiday visa for about 6 months where I did absolutely f*ck all, the whole time I was there, and they were paying me decent money. I was too hungover from partying the whole time to care though so it suited me at the time. It's crazy how much this goes on.

LolaJJ

I wouldn't be too worried about what the new recruit thinks of you being idle. He will most likley see it the same way that you see your boss.

This is a new department, really sorry that we haven't exactly figured out our role definitions yet.

I imagine though, that whatever industry you are in and whatever department it is - you must be able to do some research projects on how things might work, or maybe you need to investigate some software or tech advancements that will assist in better reporting or whatever the equivalent is...

Failing that I would be alerting other departments (with your bosses permission) that you and your new recruit have capacity to assist where and if possible.

It might work in your favour down the road a bit

CalamariFritti

Actually I don't get people who think this is great. This would absolutely do my head in. It'd be like prison. Just sitting there... Ok, you're getting paid, but still its awful.

Anyway, as others already said play it open and wait for better times. This can happen in a large organisation and before you know it you may be very busy. You probably feel you're not pulling any weight or anything and you're worried since you're new and you don't know the place. It's boring as hell and on top of it you feel like you're going to be 'found out' even if there's nothing you're doing wrong. I'd give it more time, it will probably turn around.

I once observed this in a company where they wanted someone real bad because they became available and then they couldn't sort out responsibilities and the poor girl sat on her arse with nothing to do for a whole year before she actually packed it in. But that would be extreme and very unlikely. Just underlining my point this can happen in a large organisation. Smaller companies simply couldn't afford that kind of cr@p.

Enjoy it while it lasts, watch some Netflix and the World Cup and collect your pay at the end of the month. Can you “work” from home even some of the time also could relax properly then or do other stuff.

No doubt it will get busy at some point.