The Work Thread

With apologies to GJones (I have about as much to say about data officering as he does about actuaries, I suspect - glad it has its perks, though), I'm going to jump in and redo mine:


So what do you do for a living?  Mostly, I play around with Excel spreadsheets.  Occasionally I write Word documents.  Often my eyes hurt from staring at a screen too much.  Now... pretty much the same actually, only there's more PowerPoint and occasionally I do some programming. Is more fun! No, really.

What's your job title/profession?  Actuary.  Or rather, actuarial student until I pass all the exams.  Essentially, we try to predict future trends by looking at past trends. Qualified actuary woop woop!

How long have you been doing it?  Getting on for 3.5 years now. Six years, current role for almost 2.

Do you enjoy?  I have never deluded myself into thinking that I'm going to "enjoy" my job.  It finances the things that I do enjoy, and provides me with security to prevent me having to do things I'd enjoy less.  Occasionally it's interesting, sometimes even intellectually stimulating.  I do like actuaries as a species, though - although recently, I've not been having such a good time at work, for reasons largely beyond my control. That was my old boss. I now have a new boss, and the stuff I look at is more interesting. I probably still don't "enjoy" my job, but job satisfaction is higher.

Was it what you had planned on doing/studied for?  Nope.  I entered uni. with very little idea of what I wanted to do, had an idea midway through that I might go into academia, and only really admitted to myself in my Masters year that I wasn't bright/motivated enough to do a PhD for minimal money. (This hasn't changed.)

Do you plan to keep at it?  Yup.  Pass the exams and qualify, and I get a whopping great payrise that should allow me a little more freedom. Payrise wasn't that whopping. Still doing it though!

In Gunman Clive 2, Clive rides a panda.  What's your mount of choice?  Something that overbalances all the time.  Let's say an ostrich - they don't look too stable. A Zamtrios. Theresa May can have the wobbly and unstable bird.

I just handed in my notice today, so now I can reveal the reason I was incredibly busy was that I fell into a bit of a mad job-seeking spiral. I saw an ad online for a job paying way more, doing basically exactly what I currently do (plus it was a 1 click application, so didn't have to actually sit down and do a CV at the time), so I applied and then ended up getting sent around to every Salesforce Partner in the country.

I've now accepted a new job based in London (but also allowing me to work remotely) and will be moving back down south, very exciting times!

Brilliant! So pleased for you.

My man(dy)! Excellent stuff! Apart from anything else, it means we can meet up more than once a year... Where's he running off to?

Balladeer wrote:

My man(dy)!

You came and you gave without taking... but I sent you away.

Nice one Rice.

Nrice.

Well done (he says as if he didn't already know all this), now you can save up and buy a nice family home and put a ring on dat finger before you have that inevitable baby.

Good stuff Andy.

Jimbob wrote:

Nice one Rice.

Nrice.

This made me do a little laugh.

For the lovely Balladeer:

So what do you do for a living? Currently I work at a science centre as one of the presenters. That means I deliver science shows in our in-house theatre as well as science activities for little ones during holidays and weekends, and then during term time we do shows and workshops with an education focus (i.e. they cover curriculum points). I also cover the floors of the centre and help engage visitors with the exhibits - or just tell them where the toilets are.

What's your job title/profession? Science communicator.

How long have you been doing it? This current role, just under a year. I've been working in various sci-comm, presenter, and education officer roles since I graduated five years ago, but a lot of the roles are temporary (they're either seasonal or festival positions). This is the first full-time permanent sci-comm role I've done.

Do you enjoy? I do! By and large. When we're just walking the floors of the centre, it can get a bit dull. But when you're delivering workshops to a class, or shows in the theatre, I really enjoy that. And the programme changes every month, roughly, so I'm delivering different programmes pretty regularly.

Was it what you had planned on doing/studied for? Sort of. I did psychology at uni and ended up doing my senior honours project in primate learning. That meant looking at how learning has evolved in children and other nonhuman primates. So I did research at a zoo as well as at schools and nurseries, and got more interested in the whole science education side of it, having come at it from the approach of "how do kids learn best at different ages?". So really I only had an idea that that was the kind of thing I'd like to do right at the end of my degree. (I did my first sci-comm job during the Easter break of my final year of uni, when I really should have been writing up that project instead.)

Do you plan to keep at it? In the field, yes, but I've just gotten a new job that I'm going to start in just under a month, as an Events Developer for a science charity. Which is exciting! It's a step up in that I will be developing new content rather than only delivering it. It'll be a change of pace, but hopefully challenging in a good way, and it also means more dollah.

In Gunman Clive 2, Clive rides a panda.  What's your mount of choice? Jon Hamm.

I think I had some inkling that's what you did - or knew it was to do with science and events anyhoo. Does sound like the new role will be a substantial step up, but a fun one! Rather than, 'Now you've been promoted, please spend every waking hour of your life in meetings.' Hope you enjoy sir.

I figured I'd update some of the you fellas on here. I recently accepted a job in London and will be moving back to my parents (in Kent) and commuting. This is primarily due to the amount of debt I have and can't sustain my current setup, which is driving Cardiff to Bristol every day. This is a temporary measure until I find my own place.

The actual role is similar to what I do at the moment in Bristol, but is more money and at London Business School (ie. bit swankier) working in their fundraising/alumni team. I'm looking forward to it, but as there'll be an hour on the train each way, I'm debating swapping the PS4 for a Switch. Does anybody use their Switch on a commute?

Congrats on the upward momentum!

Congratulations on the job/promotion-type thing GJones! But sorry about the parents thing.

I definitely do use the Switch, on tube and train. Is it the ideal travelling companion? No: it can't be stuffed neatly into a pocket, so there's a lot of 'blast I'm nearly there, unplug headphones, open rucksack, open case, shove in Switch, shove in headphones, close everything, oh I'm behind everybody else to get off'. But the magic of playing Odyssey, or BotW, or XC2 if you're into that genre on the train more than makes up for it.

Is anybody missing "the fizz and excitement" of their workplace?

I've been very fortunate to be working from home right throughout the pandemic thus far, but that's coming to an end next week. I'll be back in one of the two offices I'm based in for three days a week. I can't say I'm looking forward to it to be honest. Personally, my quality of life is far better where I'm based right now as opposed to where I live on the other side of the country. On those three days I'll be in the office, the travel will be baws, my productivity will nosedive, and I'll probably never feel fully safe. On the two days I'm working in my flat, it'll be freezing, the internet will be rubbish and I don't even have a desk. As said, I'm very fortunate to be working, but...

How about youse? How's your situation changing?

Yeah I'm working from home for the foreseeable - my work is currently going through the redundancy process so there's been no update on when staff can go back to the office. Given I'm working in higher education, there is a "hybrid model" where some lessons are on campus, some are online, but the team I work in don't need to be on campus. However, I miss the office. My motivation and ability to stick to a schedule have gone out of the window, so I mostly chip away at tasks throughout the day, interspersed by Youtube watching, music listening and occasional gaming. It's like the structure has gone and I'm just doing stuff whenever. The main thing I miss is that the commute was my exercise - it was an hour each way and included about 40 minutes of walking.

I'm actually going to the pub tomorrow to catch up with some work colleagues which I'm looking forward to, but it will be weird. I think the consensus is we won't be back in an office until after Christmas.

What this whole remote working situation has done though, is prove that it can work. I'm looking to move back towards Bristol/Cardiff next summer so working remotely is now an option, to try and keep that London wage!

We've had to fill out some back to work forms. We're in the same position as gjones, blended learning on campus so technically only student facing roles are really needed on site - or other roles like shop worker

Rumour is each team will be expected to go back, even the non-student facing ones, but in a rota capacity. My Uni is implementing an idiotic call and response toilet system, where you're meant to shout into the bathroom "is anyone there?" and if someone shouts back that they're having a poo you can't come in.

If people actually followed that system, we'd have 3 toilets in my building to share between staff and students, so I've said I'd prefer to work from home given that I don't think my employer can guarantee access to the disabled.

I'm definitely a lot less motivated working from home. My productivity is down, although that's dependant on the task. When I'm allowed to build systems I work hard, but if I'm told to do something that I think is dumb then I'll lapse into YouTube. Then again, things have been easier since I moved into a 2 bedroom place and we have more than 1 desk!

Don't envy the situation the Cappa Kid is looking at. It's been tough sharing no space and 1 chair during all of this!

I miss the office myself, though there's no doubt this situation has helped with my fitness due to the added flexibility. I have started a new job during the wfh situation so I've not really managed to build any relationships in the new place which isn't ideal, but they're asking us to come in twice a week now so hopefully that will prove a nice balance.

I think as a whole I prefer working from home. The loss of a more rigid schedule and the social aspect of seeing your work mates is obviously a downside, but the flexibility of being able to do some chores on a lunch break and having zero commute is too good to pass up. There's no word on when I'll be asked to return to the office, so it's very much a wait and see situation for me right now.

Here in Nagano, it's like the pandemic never happened.

We had a couple of weeks when the restaurants were shut, and a month or two when the majority of students were taking their lessons online, but I've been continuing to come to the office 5(or 6) days of the week all year. I've taken to wearing a mask whenever I'm in a public place, we've been much more careful about cleaning materials and our hands, but in the Japanese countryside it hasn't been a huge concern.

The weird thing has been that I've been in constant communication with folks in the UK and the USA this entire time, so I've been part of the cultural zeitgeist - the zooming, the quarantine, the extra free time and the extra anxiety - but it's all been hypothetical and academic for me. I see people playing loads of extra games or working on projects, but I've actually been at work more, not less, as we had an extra long summer seminar period to make up for missed revenue when we briefly cancelled elementary school and kindergarten lessons.

I'd have loved extra time to work on my own projects, do some writing, play some games etc. Overall, though, my personal safety and job security is probably more important than that, and I've been in a highly privileged position.

Weird to think back on the start of this year, when family and friends were worried about me because I'm closer to China . . .

Even weirder to think that before March 2017, the idea of moving to Japan had basically never occurred to me, yet here I am. I'm pretty lucky.

Before I respond, has anyone here not seen this Dettol advert yet?



Yikes. Anyway! Jeremy Hunt is a bellend and my default position is to disagree with what he says completely, and that hasn't changed here. Not just because it's going to lead to some miserable times (sorry Cappa, hope the flat isn't quite as dire as you remember it...); but because having put all of this effort into working from home, showing it can be done (as GJones says) with the right infrastructure which undoubtedly leads to better mental health and work-life balance for some if not all, it's absolutely ludicrous to go back in. We can speculate as to why the Tories might want to encourage this, given that surely working from home results in supporting local businesses to a similar extent as going to the office supports businesses nearer there. Do they have a special fondness for office-proximity businesses for whatever reason (most of the ones in the City of London are soulless chains)? Do they have vested interests in office property portfolios? Do they foolishly equate office time with productivity, ignoring time saved through not commuting? (Ssssh Muss, don't let them hear you.) Do they just love misery? A mix of all four?

I'm lucky I think, in that my company has ruled out a return to the office before the new year. I do agree with Andy that it's harder to build relationships like this, and I do miss face-to-face contact and being able to work out emotions from that; but I feel safer, I have The Lady as the best colleague you could wish for, and the City is a grim husk of a place to go to work. The thing I really missed in summer was the air-con...

I've been lucky in that
a) I've had the same job for a bit so can cope with things without having to immediately contact anyone else
b) can get into a work trance both in the office and at home
c) my office was going to do a massive refurbishment in the near future anyway so it's happening now

I expect to be away for a period of time still; I hope so as the toilets weren't suitable BEFORE the pandemic

I saw that Dettol advert and it's a crime. The bit that annoys me the most is that it ends on "leaving early" - BECAUSE YOU DON'T WANT TO BE IN THE OFFICE. Also, "second family"? I have great colleagues, but they're not that.

I've been on furlough for 100 years and have recently survived work's redundancy consultation process. That said, I'm going down to 4 days a week, and even then that's only going to be in November, once the furlough scheme is properly over (we're a charity trying to get as much support as we can!). I'll be doing bits and pieces of flexi-furlough work until the end of October, but that will be from home. I don't really like working from home because I struggle with not having a work-life separation. My office is quite close by so the commute was never an issue, and considering the line of work I do (creating and running events) it's difficult not being able to have face-to-face discussions very easily. Still... my job still exists, and I'm thankful for that.

Never trust any company that wants you to think of it as a family. Its just a way to get you to answer to unreasonable demands . . .

Much like some families.

Rum wrote:

I saw that Dettol advert and it's a crime. The bit that annoys me the most is that it ends on "leaving early" - BECAUSE YOU DON'T WANT TO BE IN THE OFFICE. Also, "second family"? I have great colleagues, but they're not that.

You can take your pick of course, but I think for me it's the use of 'office bants' unironically and offline.