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?

  • Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    3·
    3 days ago

    I was until a few years ago, a machine operator in plastic extrusion. All but one of our engineers were useless. Did they do work? Sure. Was it productive to the line? Occasionally…

    We paid $20,000 for a new mil thickness tester, made by young engineers at the local university.

    They held a whole “class” to show us how it worked, presented not by the ones who built it, but by our engineers.

    It failed during presentation. So we all learned how to measure manually instead. It never worked. They ended up installing the old one back, which hardly worked.

    Then for the next year it sat broken, and unless the old thickness tester was in a good mood, we had to do it manually, which was so utterly time consuming and difficult.

    While I think engineers are important- so many just fuck around, least where I worked.

    • Hacksaw@lemmy.ca
      3·
      2 days ago

      The idea of letting young engineers at a university design production equipment is WILD to me. Universities make PROTOTYPES. The gap between prototype and reliable production equipment is so big you could drive a bus through it.

      A good production engineer is worth their weight in gold but when you have shitty ones you’re better off letting the workers run the ship. At least they know what’s happening and where the hangups are. You’ll know a good engineer because they’re down talking to the lead hands on the shop floor because they want to understand what’s actually happening and run ideas through the shop before they fuck with things.