I’ve never had an office job and I’ve always wondered what it is a typical cubicle worker actually does in their day-to-day. When your boss assigns you a “project”, what kind of stuff might it entail? Is it usually putting together some kind of report or presentation? I hear it’s a lot of responding to emails and attending meetings, but emails and meetings about what, finances?
I know it’ll probably be largely dependent on what department you work in and that there are specific office jobs like data-entry where you’re inputting information into a computer system all day long, HR handles internal affairs, and managers are supposed to delegate tasks and ensure they’re being completed on time. But if your job is basically what we see in Office Space, what does that actually look like hour-by-hour?
I worked in software development as a QA engineer. Every day I’d load the current build of the OS and test for bugs, check that fixed bugs are truly fixed, and write bug reports. Once a week it was on me to come in early and do a quick rundown to see how usable the build was and then send a report to the entire org so people knew if it was too problematic to install and remain productive.
I worked in IT at a place that was perpetually under water. I spent all day troubleshooting either end-user computers or servers. We never had a break from tickets, so there was always work to be done unless the holidays were in season and users were taking time off.
I worked IT Exec Support for a high-up individual. It required being on-call and meeting them at their office in different cities and being the personal IT for their staff. It was pretty unpleasant in that the exec never communicated effectively and was insulated by their staff such that they had unrealistic expectations about how things should work. I was proud to land the job, but I’m glad to be done with it.
I now work in IT at a place that is super organized. I mostly wait for someone to call with an issue. Most things are pretty easy to fix. Some days I have to administer our inbox and direct users or create tickets. During that time, I’m always busy. On the days when it’s not that, I surf Lemmy (on wfh days) or read a book (on in-office days) between calls. I also configure devices for people and the like (think upgrades and new employees). I’ll probably stay here until retirement cause it’s the easiest job I’ve ever had.