[Closed] How is work at the moment?

gash.
my boss has been having a hissy fit as i dont seem to feel the need to work for free, when the work i do for free gets un noticed.

It's not just you.

I ride to work most days, is great, by the time I'm home I'm pretty stress free.

EDIT: to be honest I quite l like my job at the moment.

I seem to be working 11-12 hour days again.

It isn't, there is no work, not for me anyway.. 🙁

all good here

I'm a boss, I'm working 12 hour days and employees going home 'on time' or on sick. I'm not seeing much of my kids and exhausted.

Work bad
Short term contract
Hours squeezed
Team culled but work expected to stay same
Everyone paranoid
Bugger all else around in East Anglia if we get canned which we expect to this year
GF public sector and says similar but should be a bit safer for us as a family

It's ace! Am being challenged, am having fun, am booking flights to China tomorrow!

Sorry to be a little smug!

work is ok, admittedly only a 3month contract and the employer is relocating in a few months with most of the staff being made redundant. I don't think they realise what is happening. And lots of free chocolate 🙂

And before anyone says i am talking crap, i went through the process last year and there are distinct phases, you know it is happening but you can ignore, then someone goes on maternity or through a first wave and you think it is really happening.

My boss is a c@@t

Just manages upwards to the CEO and doesn't give a **** about his dept. But he talks posh !

Has no idea what our dept should do and the only reason it's afloat is because people just get on doing stuff regardless. Quite depressing as he'll just f@@k off to another job in two years and leave a load of mess behind him

And relax ... !

Work for an architects practice in Portsmouth working predominantly in te social housing sector. Had a quite few months either side of Christmas but it's gone hectic again for me. Doing about 8-9 hour days in the office and emailing from home. I do find it's either deadly quiet or flat out but I'm glad it's the latter

After being made redundant last april, I have retrained as a swimming teacher, mostly self employed. Its hard work compared to other job I had. But more challenging and fun, and Fingers crossed got lots of work at the moment, especially doing 1-1 lessons at a private health and country club, with free membership which is nice. Golf anyone...

I jumped off the stress train 3 years ago. Went from a 6 fig salary to self employment cleaning windows.
Never been happier, now working a 4 day week.
Downsized the house from a 4 to 3 bed. Best part is we are no worse off now after saving on the house and massive tax savings. Its a big step but working for yourself can be a boon to life.

literally this week i've changed from 13hr shifts, 200 miles from home to a 40hr a week, 5yr contract on my doorstep for a minimal reduction in money.

so, work is great at the moment thankyou 😀

I work for a local authority. We're in the process of restructuring which basically means months of consultation where they tell us nothing and keep us hanging on far longer than is needed. We've just relocated and are finding out that the new building is all about image and nothing to do with getting the job done and to top it off, there's local elections soon so ever idle politician who has been asleep for the last five year is running around promising everyone the mood on a stick in the hope of being re-elected and expecting me to deliver on those pipe dream promises.

No, work isn't going well.

Never been busier.. Telecoms is booming, and we are mad busy with the upgrade project for O2..

Self Emnployed plumbing and heating and likewise to a lot on here, never been busier than am at moment. And not with small projects either, some really nice things that if all come off I have enough work for probably the summer........

How to keep them all happy?

My line of work is fubar. Costs going through the roof and competition driving prices and margins down. Mainly due to the collapse of Sterling I guess.

I'm now looking at going back to localised IT. Or plumbing. Something local that cant be outsourced I guess.

Been shite for the last two years. Gone from job I actually enjoyed going to into a paranoid, backstabbing, foul place to be.

Partly corporate culture changing and party a change of line manager.

Only the money keeps me here now.

Was laid off on new year's eve. Being unemployed, so far, is ****ing brilliant. I think the novelty might wear off once the money runs out though.

Right now?

Tedious argument with a heroin enthusiast.

He seems to think that it's a terrible affront to his human rights to request that he take a drug test.

This in spite of the fact that he has been a heroin enthusiast for well over two decades, was imprisoned for offences directly related to the funding of his enthusiasm for heroin and signed a whole series of forms in which he agreed to be tested for heroin (whether taken enthusiastically or otherwise) in return for his early release from prison on Licence.

He also freely admits to taking heroin frequently and enthusiastically.

During the course of the conversation Godwin's Law was invoked at a very early stage, 'You're worse than the SS!' (conversely, I believe that their stance on heroin enthusiasts was rather more severe than mine).

FML.

I work for a less well-known insurance company. It's mental. Everyone's f*cked. Just knackered and stressed. Lots of politics and fighting at the top.

Seriously thinking of jacking it in and going contracting for 6 months.

Same old cr@p but I seem to be getting the feeling that management are beginning to realise that they've gone too far with some of the Health and Safety and PC stuff (probably just wishful thinking though).

I'm self employed, is ok having a couple of days off to start my new patio deck, pics soon..

My job is great, I got a 6k bike on the C2W scheme that I run 🙂

Work is busy, we have just employed 4 more staff and will be opening an office in Germany soon. I will also have to fly out to our India office later in the year. I went last year, but got stuck in Bahrain for a week because of the Volcanoe - I used to walk past Pearl monument every day where the protest now is.

But having been unemployed for a year prior to getting this job, I now always feel paranoid of loosing it. It does make me appreciate when its good though, having had shite jobs or no job before.

For all you guys not working, make sure you ride your bike loads. When I was unemployed I should have done more riding instead of wasting time looking at my PC for jobs that were not there.

quiet
but i like that, as i can spend my day on here talking boollox 😆

Ticking along. Under the thumb now with GPS trackers on the vans, individual performance monitoring, removal of flex and being tied to a laptop during the day as we are not allowed paperwork. (even Toughbooks don't really like going down muddy manholes)

But I'm not been hassled too much, the work is steady and I get on with my colleagues, would be nice to get a bit more OT though. Plus I am being sent for my C+E license in a few weeks which will be a nice week playing in a truck 🙂 Only problem is I like the work which means I don't really have any incentive to progress to management, which I'm sure will bring stress along with the slightly bigger pay packet, and I would be expected to work as many hours as needed without OT. But staying where I am means a distinctly average pay packet, and most guys that have been on longer than me feel they are 'stuck in the job'.

Shit.

Mr Gove has abolished all the School Sports Partnerships, meaning I'll heave no job from September. And not many schools have an interest in employing a PE Teacher with incurable cancer. Apparently.

My boss is a bit of a nob but the directors are great and so are the other office guys. The factory staff can be lazy ****ers and very annoying.

Can't complain, just had a couple of big projects successfully go live (so far anyway...) so just taking a breather and doing internal projects at the moment.

Really, really busy. Working 11 hour days, my boss would like me to work more, not seem my company busier. I'm stressed, tired and need a break.

IT and coms recruitment is clearly not for those who are stress averse.

IT for a manc basesd public sector law enforcement based service.
lots of pointless restructuring going on with no eye on what we actually do so the wheels are most deffinatly going to fall off the wagon very soon. senior management are ineffective and a the staff that avoided the redundancies are either keeping their heads down or (if they have the skills) they are getting the he'll out.
my notice goes in next week \o/

Better, starting to get back everything I lost in 2009/10. I've re structured, so making more money on a lower turnover.
I've got one guaranteed huge job come summer, possibly two.
Just got the final few K of 2009/10 debt to clear this month and then I'll be rocking.

Utter crap, help run a small but profitable family manufacturing business, always paid our bills and kept local lads in work. Never shafted a supplier, the revenue or the VAT and never let our bank down.
But at the beginning of this year our business account manager came and told us about an unfortunate new bank directive, to slash overdraft and financing facility to small business in certain sectors, therefore at our quietest time of year when productivity and turnover are lowest and subsequently outgoings are highest, they decided to cut the overdraft facility we have by 2/3, so we now have to run on 30% of the available cash available proportionally that we have had for the past 25 years. Every day is a lesson in survival, and its far from over yet. Crazy thing is our order book is fuller than its ever been, sales are up and the income stream is pretty much guaranteed, yet we still have to let staff go and let down suppliers putting them under pressure, for the first time in a quarter of a century !!! Thanks Natwest !

Pretty good here. Working on a project for a privately owned island in the carribean which has involved a visit and may require another. Great client with the possibility of additional work.
I did dream about cost breakdowns last night though.

Great...3 days into new job...gotta price up the tools to kit up a bike workshop today....was gonna get cocky but hughjenjin above is a mate and am worried about him 😥

Oooh, that's bad backhander, worst work related dream I had involved an office full of unprocessed quarry tickets!

My job is pretty boring, working towards earning my clients their bonus, whilst not getting one myself - my own company is using confusionto keep us all on edge. Oz beckons though, might be on the move later this year.....

CaptainFlashheart - Member

Sorry to be a little smug!

No change there then.

I work for a well-known insurance company. It's mental. Everyone's f*cked. Just knackered and stressed. Lots of politics and fighting at the top.

You work for AXA then?

Hard to say - it's pretty quiet at the moment for us, which is almost nice... but there is a load of stress (for me) with United Utilities possibly taking over a lot of our work in 5 years. Work with my Dad but he is past retirement age so can always start drawing his pension.

I am currently retraining as an electrician "just incase". If things don't go tits up it will be useful as I can do a lot of work that is currently contracted out and save time and money/boost profitability. If it does turn it's toes up I have another marketable skill (by then it will be 11 years mechanical/electrical engineering/electricianing and an MSc in Environmental Architecture - so I should be able to go pretty much anywhere I want to hunt for work)

At the moment it just seems a good idea to use the quiet time at work to get more qualifications (back when I worked in IT I did the same and knocked off an MSc in IT which I then never used as I went for the career change option... I suspect the two may have been related).

I work for a well-known insurance company. It's mental. Everyone's f*cked. Just knackered and stressed. Lots of politics and fighting at the top.
Is everyone's work stressy at the moment or is it just us?

I work for RBS and it's toilet. Our office is closing, we're being moved halfway across london, and despite the fact we're gone in 3m, no ones yet been told what help/assistance they can expect. Its going to turn my travel to a 2.5h journey each way for a low paid clerical job in claims, the tossrrs won't make anyone "redundant" so it seems constructive dismissal is the only route forwards.

Honestly, a lot of people have just given up...

Turn up, get paid, go home.

We're on another restructure after the last one has just finished which lasted since I started here 5 years ago (Higher Education Establishment). No-one can be arsed anymore it seems. As my dasd used to say;

'You don't get paid to enjoy it, if you did, you'd be paying them...'

Doesn't help me get out of bed in a morning though!

Busy idiots here in manufacturing.

Luckily I'm leaving tomorrow before they ship what's left of our order book over to our Polish plant, never to be seen again.

Starting in a sub-contract drawing office, servicing the construction industry.

With lots more holiday! 😀

The busiest we've been in the last couple of decades probably. Massive order book, not enough bodies to get the kit out of the door. Days fly by though!

horrible, that's all i can say without breaching confidentiality considering the press interest in some of our residents. seriously considering stopping nursing and working in a mobile phone shop or tescos or something.

was gonna get cocky but hughjenjin above is a mate and am worried about him

ha ha cheers mate, Still battling on mind. A pay decrease and a skipped salary this month isnt as bad as being jobless ! On the other hand spunking a load of cash on fancy new bike bits is a non starter at the moment. 🙂 If everything goes pear shape can myself, Mrs Jengin and all the little Jengins come and move into your log cabin ?

"its called work for a reason, it's not supposed to be fun"
"just be thank full you've got a job"
"everyone needs to be flexible"
is the attitude of senior management as they slope off home between 1600 & 1700

It feels like I'm waiting for the final cigarette & blindfold.
It's now at the point where if it does happen I'll just be glad that it's over. I quite like what I do but ..........

Oh and talking about it on the internet is a disciplinary offence 😮

After 6 months of hell, basically nose to the grindstone and pure grafting for little rewards, things are picking up for me. 😆 Not in a smug way, I've just been through the shit. The country, however, is about to enter phase two, I was told at the beginning of the week that 200,000 house repossessions are expected this year. The first wave folks who received unemployment benefit are coming to the end of the two year period and wil have to fend for themselves, that'll result in more job losses and closing businesses.
Good news is that I can park pretty much at the doors of the supermarket or shopping centre, the car parks are empty!

I have a strategy of doing as little as possible while getting paid as much as I can. Its going ok so far but does involve working for a german lawyer (I've got nothing against germans or lawyers per se, but the combination is not good)

Hand to mouth in the Building trade for us at the moment and has been for the last couple of years. Would give my right arm for a bit of continuity,

Nick... what part of the telecoms are you involved with ? Any Civils on them ?

Slow and boring. Not enough video work coming in. Another interview on Monday though, really hope I can get a new job.

It's busy but slightly tricky, customers are being very picky and so I'm having to work hard to make things work properly and smoothly on the plus side the days are flying by.

It's good that the people I work with are decent and non irritating.

Nearly gone - winding up my own business after 2 disastrous years and no sign of any improvement. Looked for a way back into IT/consultancy for a bit but there seems to be no likelihood of that after a 7 year career gap, so it's back to school for me.

Fairly good - I really enjoy my job as I consider that I work in a worthwhile field. Pay's not good though, and the organisation I work for rely on Local Authorities for income, which is not a great position to be in! My 1 years contract is up in June, and I'm being realistic about renewal. I'm only in an office about 10% of the week though, and still seem to get dragged into office politics slightly...

Also have a p/t job which I enjoy (that's for an LA, and the department will be massively re-structured next year, so I may not have a p/t job after that) and also work freelance. It's the freelance bit that's paying for a lovely biking trip this year 🙂

Jujuuk68 - Member

"I work for RBS and it's toilet. Our office is closing, we're being moved halfway across london, and despite the fact we're gone in 3m, no ones yet been told what help/assistance they can expect. Its going to turn my travel to a 2.5h journey each way for a low paid clerical job in claims, the tossrrs won't make anyone "redundant" so it seems constructive dismissal is the only route forwards."

<channels TJ>
Are you in a union?

It was the exact same story at our shower (LTSB), jobs being closed up but then management taking a mad, deny-it-all, approach and trying to shoehorn people into other completely different jobs. "But it's the same as what you're doing now!" was what we heard when they tried to move us from a highly skilled support area to a credit card callcentre and we all said **** right off. Then we agreed to go and see a different business area which was just as inappropriate and turned out to be a huge demotion, but when we said "This isn't right" were told "You went to see the job, you've accepted it".

Basically if they can bully or scam people into going along with it they will, if you dig your heels in and protest and play it by the book you'll probably find that the front goes and then they also do it by the book. Good luck!

We joked that HR and redundancies was the only growth area in the company but it turns out they've not increased resources at all which just means everything collapses. But still you get all the promises as if nothing's wrong.

Never been an option to work less than 10-11+ hours a day.

Quite enjoy my job itself but would love to have some time back every now and then. Taking my first week off next week for quite a while, but that will probably be largely spent on the Blackberry. Oh well.

Surprised at OP's comments about insurance companies. We share an office with one and from what I can see their world seems to largely consist of chatting with their mates in Lloyds and then off to the pub.....obviously a different type of insurance co to yours then!

Pros:

I'm self employed getting paid well to do not very much work that's easy. I coast, and I'm still producing more quickly than anyone else so bosses are happy. I'm well out of office politics and am not involved in the company as a whole.

Cons:

I'm bored out of my mind each day.

Made redundant after 20 years in the psychometrics business but got a job setting up and managing a commercial postroom in Wapping.

Treading water at the mo' and earning comparatively minor ducats but promises have been made for 2011.

Fingers crossed.

Things are looking up hopefully moving in 2/3 months and going from fulltime 40hrs to 30hrs parttime same shite just a few less hours to do.Lakes on my doorstep and a possible new venture if we get the property right.

Very quiet for me at the moment, nobody is having work done, but then most of them attended job creation work at thelocal councils, and health services now their jobs are going, along with all the money lending jobs in chester where i work.

The only thing booming is bike theft, and im not into that,but can offer lots of security advice or secure your shed etc.

restructuring here in the face of looming government cuts, people in tear lots of HR meetings etc
still busy as usual though!

Okay well good. Working 18 hour days at the minute as we are working on a job which is also at least 1 hour commute away from home however it's interesting and at least I get paid well in over time or rest day working. however there is often a lot of politics surrounding the job which can frustrate and tire you out which you don't need on a long day. Today's day is that long I have a hotel booked for the night and I'm at work now waiting for something particular to happen so I can progress the work. So in a nutshell okay although I'm a tad tired and want to ride my bike 🙁 Sundays' ride (my 1 day off in 17 days) sucked as it was horrifically muddy and cold.

Not as bad as some, but could be better. Been placed under supervision of a fashion as manager & work colleague feel that my memory & decision making process are f*cked and I'm no longer capable of fully undertaking my role. To me it feels like discrimination & cost cutting, if they get rid of me or redploy me to a lower pay band they'll save some £££££'s.

Working as a systems Engineer at Royal Mail at the mo, but the company's completely imploding, as the nepotism and promotions to useless sycophants is finally coming home to roost.
I have my CV out far and wide, as I'm thoroughly cheesed off with the daily infighting (some of it actually physical).

Working in an obscure part of the civil service doing bits connected to benefits that may well disappear in 2013 and other arcane legislation with a declining customer base.

20% of our staff will be going at the end of June based on current work forecasts, pretty sure no one volunteered to take the voluntary option, got an interesting few months coming up!

Incredibly busy here. The area of our business that I'm leading quadrupled last year (company did 70% overall growth) and has kept on growing this year. I guess that we are a very fortunate outlier (probably in top 10 fastest growing UK company in year). Just trying to enjoy it whilst it lasts.

our place is busy and the downturn 'so far' has not hit us (engineering firm that make very bespoke bits for the offshore market)

i hate the job but there is noway i can complain, a good few close friends have been let go recently in other jobs and its brought home how lucky i am.

infact when i get out of the car in the works carpark and walk to the door i whisper to myself "you have a job" - its bloody scary out there and i feel for anyone going through the mill at the moment.

I quit my job yesterday!

Forget that lark, working's for losers!

Come the end of the month I'm going to be travelling the UK riding my bike for the next five months at least.
Follow that with a bit of part time until the weather really sets in again for winter and then I shall go back to working full time again until the Spring.
Next year I'm going abroad to ride.

Great here. Work for myself contracting and earning daft money at the moment with zero stress

Great!
It's dried up enough for us to get into the top clearfell block. BIG fun. Have our sights on another 40 acres.