Your output is pointless. Have fun staying committed to your job!

June 8, 2013 8:04 PM

I've been employed in my current job for a year now, and on more than one occasion (and by more than one coworker, hell, even my predecessor) I have been told that the bulk of my work (two very large, and somewhat superfluous reports) will ultimately be shelved and unread. Considering how much work I put into these reports, and as a researcher with a background in applied science, this is making me extremely ill at ease (if not resentful) on a daily basis. How can I cope with knowing that what I produce throughout the year is ultimately a worthless paper weight while I continue to gather experience?

I've been unhappy at my job for quite some time. After about 6 months with my current employer I realized that the position I enthusiastically accepted, as described by the description on the original posting, does not match the actual job itself. I realize now that I mostly compile a series of reports that I have been told by several coworkers (rather unabashedly) are not ACTUALLY read by anyone. At best, they are browsed and shelved. The fact that this happens seems to be almost an in-joke around the office. Compiling these reports is extremely tedious and frustrating considering the data I work with is convoluted and weird and is extracted from multiple, typically unreliable sources. So although it is challenging at times it is in a way that I find more annoying and mind-numbing than engaging. Not only is this report seemingly pointless, it keeps getting larger and for what seems like no reason at all.

Let's put aside the fact that it was completely unprofessional and dickish for my coworkers to tell me such things without considering how it might make me feel about my work (or maybe they KNEW well enough and did so out of spite)...I could go to my boss and let them know my concerns, but I know THEY feel as though the reports are important simply because they seemingly justify the existence of the organization and the budget. The fact is that my boss goes out of their way to make me feel as though what do is crucial and important, possibly because they can sense my discontent on the occasions that we interact. Certainly I know my enthusiasm has been very noticeably killed off.

I would leave in a heartbeat if given a better opportunity but at this point I would have less than a year's experience on my resume in this field, and I am paranoid that potential employers will see my leaving this position after a year as a red flag. So with that in mind (assume I can't leave for another year) how do I even go about not feeling completely negative about my job? What I do professionally is EXTREMELY important to my overall sense of well-being. I'm having trouble crawling out of my bed most days and I become depressed thinking as though I am wasting my time here when I could be doing work that I can at least fool myself into thinking has some sort of larger impact.

My main gripe is that I don't feel as though my job is providing me with opportunities to expand my skill-set and knowledge in a way that will benefit me in the long run...it is literally just a means to pay the bills and pad a resume and I find that extremely troubling. The perks are nice (decent pay given my lack of experience, affordable health insurance, generous PTO, etc.) and I am often at odds with myself given that knowledge. I don't want to be THAT sort of spoiled, privileged person that is discontent because their work is not validating their precious sense of self but I know that the issue is far more complex than that. If you've had a similar experience, please let me know how you coped with feeling as though your job is pointless day in and day out until it was appropriate to move on. Much obliged as always!

posted by Young Kullervo to Work & Money (21 answers total)

Best answer: The fact that your boss thinks it's important even if not read means your organization values it, even if some of your coworkers don't. There is not a lot of information here, but the document may serve a purpose as a record even if it's not read.

And more importantly, your work is not pointless if it is keeping you fed and clothed!

At least, that's what I tell myself. A portion of my time is spent on a similar project producing documents I don't think are often read or useful to anyone. Worse, lots of people work on this project producing lots of documents that I'm pretty sure are worthless.

I comfort myself with the knowledge that:
1. I am fulfilling the (perhaps foolish) expectations of my employer.
2. I am doing no harm, if no good, which is a better position than many employed persons are in.
3. I am improving some aspects of my writing. I try to entertain myself by including asides and digressions that fit reasonably into the document.
4. I won't be doing this forever, and have started to keep an eye out for a new job...
posted by pseudonick at 8:41 PM on June 8, 2013 [8 favorites]

This is not exactly the same thing but I am currently writing reams of protocols (in a very specific tedious format) that I know will rarely if ever be read. The reason that I don't feel hopeless and resentful about them is because FDA regulations require their existence (and accuracy) so I know the documents serve a purpose. From how your employer depends on your reports to hinge the 'existence' of your company and for budgeting, it sounds like you're working in a similar framework. For me it may be easier because my work means the company is not breaking the law, whereas it doesn't sound like the purpose of your docs is quite so cut and dry. However, I think it's the attitude of your coworkers that's bringing you down from the tone of your letter. I feel that my coworkers could make the same jibes about my work never being read, but they would sound stupid implying we don't need to meet the law; your coworkers are able to convince you. Is it possible to get some better'proof' from your bosses of how your reports matter and/or review how you might reprioritize your duties if these reports aren't too closely read ???
posted by Tandem Affinity at 8:43 PM on June 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

Best answer: You could look for ways to make the process of producing the reports more fulfilling for you, or more of a learning experience. That's always been my tactic with boring tasks at work, and if your bosses are the type to give you some latitude, you might be able to do something more with the project. My first thought is to present the data in a way that's easier to read and invites more attention than a quick flip-through. Or if that's not your thing, you could design a better back-end process for gathering the information so that it can be done more efficiently - templates, better organization, new software, etc.

Some projects just don't invite much creativity at all though, so if you're stuck, then focus on taking on more responsibilities at work. Volunteer for things, suggest things, offer to help, and generally involve yourself in other tasks so that you can at least feel like you're getting some useful experience and contributing something while you're at this job.
posted by ella wren at 8:53 PM on June 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Sorry for the lack of information regarding my work, I am trying to be as discrete as possible. Think a typical annual report type document on steroids, but without investors or clearly defined stakeholders. It contains mostly usage data for a variety of services and some "evaluations" that actually require complex statistical analyses (even if it is only comparative rather than truly experimental). I guess these evaluations determine whether a program will continue to be funded or not which implies SOME impact, but if I am honest, I have been guided to splice the data in the most "favorable" manner without lying or flubbing up the data, so even the honest results of my work seem to be undermined in this way.
posted by Young Kullervo at 8:54 PM on June 8, 2013

Hi! I'm an auditor. Nobody reads what I do either. My direct manager reviews my work to make sure my logic is sound and that things are explained clearly. The detail work I do ends up feeding a larger body of reporting. That body of reporting is also not often read, but it feeds a body of reporting that's even larger still. C-levels and board members take action based on the information in those second-level reports, which rest upon the conclusions that I draw in my work. Everything I do gets condensed into a single bullet point, if someone cares. My work gets stuck on a network drive where it remains, ignored, forever.

Unless it's not.

Here's the thing - if the information in the top-level reports is bad, people might go to jail. It is what is called "discoverable". If areas under my purview end up in court, there are going to be a whole lot of people reading my words, dissecting my decisions, identifying deviations from established methodology, and repeating my work to see if they arrive at the same conclusions. If this happens, it is a bad day for everyone. The best way to make that not happen is for me to do my job as best I can, and then to make sure I communicate my findings as clearly and accurately as possible, knowing that my ass is then covered. Oh and also my management chain has the best information available.
posted by TheNewWazoo at 9:09 PM on June 8, 2013 [10 favorites]

Even if you are getting paid to make useless documents, it is at least worth a paycheck, rent, food, and health insurance.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:10 PM on June 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

Oh, so I guess to answer your questions directly, sometimes you're a small cog in a big machine. Sometimes you're the insurance policy. There's value in that, believe me. Try to stay informed about the bigger picture, try to speak up when/if you notice something wrong, and find fulfillment outside of work.
posted by TheNewWazoo at 9:11 PM on June 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

It's not unusual to give non-critical work to someone who doesn't have a lot of experience. Hopefully you are in an industry where your work gets more important as you get more experience? It sounds to me like your sense of well-being is poorly adapted to the reality of having to pay your dues.
posted by AlsoMike at 9:16 PM on June 8, 2013 [5 favorites]

My main gripe is that I don't feel as though my job is providing me with opportunities to expand my skill-set

that implies a totally different question than the one you asked. the short answer is: if you want to learn something useful from it put effort into automating the process and writing documentation that will make the job much easier to learn and do correctly for a new person than it was for you.

you should ask your manager about why you are doing the report, and how it fits into the bigger picture of your company. regardless of weather or not your report is useful you come out ahead because you've either pointed out a big opportunity for making the company more efficient, or you've shown that you're pro-active and trying to learn about the business.

ultimately it's up to your manager to decide what you will work on. once you've made your point about how your time is not well spent on the report the responsibility is on your manager.

i'm seconding what someone else said about giving the new guy the less critical work. maybe they're just seeing if you're capable of handling more important work. maybe it gives you the background knowledge to do the important work. maybe your boss knows it's useless but some outside stake holder demands (or once demanded, and now forgets about it) the report is done, so for bureaucratic reasons it has to be done. i didn't see anywhere in your question where you ask your manager why the report needs to be made. so, you should ask her/him.
posted by cupcake1337 at 9:32 PM on June 8, 2013

Best answer: I know exactly how you feel. My first job out of college was with a gigantic corporation, in a group that existed purely to satisfy regulatory requirements. Everyone who worked there was 100% aware that all of the reports we generated were completely pointless, the data was completely bogus, absolutely nobody read our reports, and no decisions would ever be made based on our work. For a fresh young graduate with lofty corporate ladder climbing ambitions it was a killer being stuck in a cubicle next to a bunch of older people who were content in cranking out pointless work, taking their paycheck, and going home. It felt like being put out to pasture before I'd really had a chance to get out there and work my ass off. And it was excruciating talking to my friends who all had more meaningful and exciting jobs than I did.

But eventually, I managed to transfer out of that job into a more fast-paced, cutthroat environment where every mistake could literally be measured in dollars. I had been fantasizing about how exciting it would be, but in the end, I hated it, I was miserable every day, and I ended up getting laid off (through no fault of my own, but still I wonder if I had been more happy in that job if it wouldn't have been some other unlucky sod who got the axe). To quote "All Quiet on the Western Front", I was almost happy the end had come.

How did I cope until I switched jobs? Well, to be honest, I was depressed all the time too, so maybe I didn't cope very well. But now I went and got my ass kicked and I look back and think, wow, I didn't have it so bad at all. So this is what I would have told my past self, if I could:

1. You are making money without having to do any actual work! You are beating the system! Most of us toil away to make some other guy richer, and here you are getting more out of it than The Man does! You're winning the game, even if you don't realize it.

2. Resume padding is more important than you think to get your next job. Most people, unless they have worked your exact job, will think your job was way more important and complex than it actually was. Use that to your advantage. I've been in so many job interviews where people think that my first job must have been really valuable experience, and you know, I'm nodding my head and hamming it up for them, while secretly giggling about how much BS it all was and is.

3. You will not do this job for the rest of your life. If you really, really, can't stand it anymore, you can just quit. This isn't the rest of your life.

4. Take FULL advantage of your likely laid-back work environment. I mean, I used to spend whole hours going out to lunch with my friends who worked nearby, or even going out for hour long coffee breaks in the middle of the workday, and nobody cared, either because they were all doing the same, or they knew how pointless any of our 'work' was anyway. Now I sit at my desk for 10 hours a day and eat at my desk, and I don't even get to walk out to buy my lunch because we get it delivered. I'm not saying be a total slacker, but hey, if you have 'flexible' work hours, use them!

5. On a more serious note, you can use all the office down time to develop real skills. Pretty much the only reason I have a job today is because I have better Excel and programming skills than most people in my industry. How did I develop them? I spent tons of time at my first job figuring out how to automate all the stupid manual reports we generated, so I could click a button and spend the rest of the time goofing off.

6. Really, don't invest your identity into your job. These days you can lose your job any time for any reason. By all means climb the corporate ladder if that is your aspiration, but don't make it your identity. Have some non-work things to look forward to in your life. Or an escape route planned.
posted by pravit at 9:43 PM on June 8, 2013 [19 favorites]

Best answer: I used to do a report just like that. So, I actually tried to get it axed. I was actually successful in that, because it cost a lot of money to produce in lost time for me and everyone I had to hassle for data.

But not before I learned a couple of things that would have made me feel a little better even if I hadn't successfully killed it.

1) Most of the people on the distribution for the report (and there were many, including oversight agencies we reported to) were already in a position to have a gut feel for what was in it anyway. So it wasn't "news" for them, it was just like your bank statement, a detail list of what you already generally know. So usually it passed without any comment whatsoever after all that work. But you'd better believe if I had put something grossly out of line with expectations in there, my phone would have blown up.

2) It was the evidence that we did something, and that we were constantly trying to make it better. If ever anyone said, hey, what the hell does [my organization] even do, anyway? Can we get rid of them? Bam. Read this.

3) Most surprising to me, the simple fact that I went around demanding stats from various people periodically meant that they had to get the stats from various other people, and those other people actually had to have something to say. If anyone were to completely blow off their job, they would not only have to trick their manager in some way, but they would have to work just as hard coming up with false data for me as they would just doing their job in the first place. On the couple of occasions I can remember remarking to my boss that Mr. X was stonewalling me, Mr. X suddenly got a LOT of unpleasant high-level attention all up in his business trying to figure out if there was something over there to hide.
posted by ctmf at 9:51 PM on June 8, 2013 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Turn the report into a presentation. You'll be remembered for that, even if the report doesn't get read.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:28 PM on June 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

I am a policy wonk. 90% of my output never goes anywhere. I deal with this by:

1) redefining what "doing a good job" means. Doing a good job means producing a high quality product, regardless of whether anyone reads it. If the analysis was solid, the evidence was good, the writing lucid, the process well-managed, the team well-functioning: I did a good job

2) recognising that often ideas have to wait for their time to be right. I've put together variations of the same idea five or six times and seen them fall over, but I also know that one day, the time comes when your idea, your report, your thing, is the one that's in the right place at the right time and it gets up. Which is why step (1) is important

3) learning that sometimes the process is as important as the product. The process is where relationships are formed, trade-offs are made, alliances are built and broken. These are what gets you your next, more interesting job.

4)Laughing at it. Because really, what else ya gonna do?
posted by girlgenius at 1:05 AM on June 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

Also concerning your co-workers statements - don't forget that it's a game with some people to play up the existential futility of their jobs or yours. I think Dilbert has made some of us a little perversely competitive in this arena.

I do IT management work and know for a fact (due to the way budget priorities are treated) that my bosses don't always understand the importance of things I recommend, not really. Things like compliance, redundancy, and upgrading slow systems. Perception, however, doesn't change reality.
posted by randomkeystrike at 2:44 AM on June 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

Lots of great advice here on maximizing the benefits of your current environment. Jobs like yours also tend to have managers who are very open to sending people for training, conferences, etc., so it would be a good idea to take as many of those opportunities as you can. Also, if you are feeling invisible in your organization, make use of the fact that you are not very busy to volunteer for your professional association, or for the annual corporate fundraiser, etc..

It might also be worth talking to your boss about ways to enhance the visibility and usefulness of the info and analysis in the report. Could you separate out some of the analysis that would be of particular interest to certain areas of your organization, and package them into presentations or short briefing notes? You could then do some internal outreach to other parts of your company. Your boss might appreciate the chance to showcase the team a little.

Finally, don't let the cynics get you down. Some people get really jaded and don't realize how much bet can dampen the enthusiasm of others. I doubt they mean to disparage you or your work, so try not to take it personally.
posted by rpfields at 3:41 AM on June 9, 2013

I view work as a means to an end. I get paid a nice chunk of change to be there. Insurance is not my passion, it is how I can take care of Mr. Meat and the cats and have a great apartment with a balcony and get mani/pedis every so often. Those things are way more important than whatever boring task I do at work.

With that said:
If I do everything right and it's ignored, success.
If I do something wrong and an insured/agent/state notices, BAD! Very bad. Expensive.
So way better to do it right.
posted by Ms Vegetable at 5:12 AM on June 9, 2013 [3 favorites]

Do you know how many PhD dissertations get read after defense by anyone for their actual content (as opposed to employers checking the PhD's employability)? Virtually none. And it's getting worse. And yet, people still do them, and they're valuable if only because they prove that Dr. Soandso can put together an argument and test a hypothesis and argue it before a committee and complete a large long-term project and blah blah blah. And some day, maybe that dissertation will be incrediblyuseful to one person.

So imagine that you're writing a dissertation. You are proving that you can do it, and you are planting a seed that may be very useful some day, but if not, at least you're exercising parts that will come in handy.
posted by Etrigan at 5:23 AM on June 9, 2013

It's quite de-motivating to be told that your work has little to no purpose. Unfortunately, this comes under the heading of Work (Life/ Stuff) is unfair and sometimes sucks. Even though you feel that your employer is not giving you opportunities to develop skills, you can do this on your own. Prepare an abstract of the next few reports for your boss; maybe there's useful information hidden there. Look for trends in the data that might be useful to other parts of the company. You have access to data and and software for extracting statistics and information, so get great at this because it's a skill in great demand as companies are swamped with data and need people who can wrangle it. See if the company will send you to conferences to improve your skills, and join industry organizations to make valuable contacts. If you have downtime, use it to self-train on skills that will help you in your next job. Make the report better looking - you can develop Photoshop or other skills.
posted by theora55 at 7:31 AM on June 9, 2013

one thing to add: if you have to collect data from various people, use it as an opportunity to network. say they email you data once a month or quarter. invite them out for coffee or lunch and get to know them and the work they do. this will put you in a better position to move on or up.
posted by cupcake1337 at 8:26 AM on June 9, 2013

I agree with everything Pravit said. Also, if you know you'll be out in about a year, that will give you something to look forward to. In the meantime, take advantage of some of your free time in terms of networking and improving your skill set and, perhaps most importantly, remember that it's just a job. It may not be glamorous or what you want, but it's a paycheck.
posted by juliagulia at 8:27 AM on June 9, 2013

Lots of good perspective and food for thought above.

Something that crosses my mind: the co-workers who told you that nothing gets done with the report you're working on, how reliable are they as narrators? There could be any number of reasons why they might be trying to downplay what you do, or discourage you, or… (I say this as someone who's not instinctively attuned to the whole office politics thing, but who's learned the hard way that when my husband listens to my what-happened-at-work-today rambling and says, "I think Excessively Political Coworker has it in for you", I should listen, or I'm liable to find myself some time later peering over my shoulder at the dagger in my back and saying "Huh, it's monogrammed 'EPC', how about that?")
posted by Lexica at 7:51 PM on June 11, 2013