My Co-Workers Are Starting to Side-Eye Me for What I Do All Day at Work. If Only They Knew Why.

Good Job It’s not my fault. Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Getty Images plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Good Job is Slate’s advice column on work. Have a workplace problem big or small? Send it to Laura Helmuth and Doree Shafrir here. (It’s anonymous!) Dear Good Job, I was hired because headquarters requires a person in my position at every branch location. The person who previously held my position wasn’t just bad at her job; she actually tried to sabotage things (think: deleting crucial files and the like). Now my boss only trusts herself to do my job, and I spend most of my days sitting at my desk watching YouTube videos and getting side-eye from employees who actually have work to do. Any time I’ve brought this up to my supervisor, she politely waves me off and says she’ll train me on my duties “eventually.” Should I suck it up and just sit there looking stupid all day? Any suggestions to make myself look busy when I’m not? —Bored Dear Bored, Having to look busy when you aren’t is one of the most annoying problems of in-office work. Another common problem is managers who refuse to give up their responsibilities, which could be because they like to do the tasks they’re good at, don’t like to train other people, are stuck in a rut, or are still fighting the last war with your sabotaging predecessor. To deal with your supervisor’s “eventually” response, try proposing some other solutions to her: Are there other tasks of hers you could take on to free up some of her time for training? Could you shadow someone with your job title who works at another branch location? Is there anyone else on staff who could walk you through the responsibilities? To build her confidence in you, ask her to train you on just one aspect of your job, and then give her regular updates that you’re doing it promptly and correctly. While you’re waiting for your manager to let you do your dang job, you could use your free time more productively. If some of the side-eyeing peers do work you’re interested in, volunteer to partner with them on a project. Offer to cover for colleagues who go on vacation. Mentor interns or new hires. Introduce yourself to peers at other branch locations and ask for their advice on best practices for your position. Take online workshops, classes, or trainings that are relevant for your current role or would position you for a different job. Read up on news about your industry or profession. But it’s also fine to not be productive. Use your time stuck in front of a computer to email old friends, comment on Slate articles, or write a novel. Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don‘t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Dear Good Job, Months ago, my spouse and I decided that I would take time off from work. I’m young (approaching 50 if you consider that young), but I’ve been intensely doing a white-collar office job for close to 25 years now. I don’t want to say I’ve burned out—it’s not that, but it’s something between checking out and truly burning out. I just need a break. Not a downshift, not a “time off to look for new positions,” but a real actual break of a year or maybe more. We’ve worked out the finances, and we can make this happen, and the plan is absolutely that I’ll go back to my career after I’ve just spent some real time, finally in my adult life, not having to work for money. What’s the catch? Well, my company is in the process of being sold, and there is significant financial incentive for me to stick around for another eight or nine months. And it will very likely be a busy eight or nine months. I know I have to do it… It’s not a life-changing amount of money, but it is basically equivalent to an extra year’s salary or more, and with things like kids, college, retirement, and so forth, it would be foolish of me to give it up. It would set us up very well. And, as I said, I’m not truly burned out—if I was, I could just stop right now. But I also really am having a hard time imagining how to get there… Yet another school season, schedules, travel, another holiday season constantly worried about getting that next email, another spring season dominated by the same thing… I just can’t imagine doing that right now. So that’s my question… I know I can get through this time. But how do I get there? How do I structure my mind to make it over the finish line? I can do the usual bobbing and weaving with extra vacation time and so forth, but I’ve come to realize I need a mental pathway for doing this, and I don’t have one. Any thoughts? —Done Dear Done, Before we get to how to manage the next eight or nine months of intense but well-paid work, are you sure you have to do it? You ran the numbers earlier and calculated that you could afford to take a year off. It’s tempting to earn a year’s worth of salary in two-thirds or three-fourths the time. But wouldn’t you have enough without it? Imagine how enormous your current salary would have seemed to you when you were starting out. Does your younger self think you’re rich enough and want you to enjoy an approaching-50 year? Would your future self rather economize and enjoy memories of your year off, or gleefully spend the extra money you socked away while you were risking burnout? Let’s assume you ran the numbers again and decided that the extra money would help you retire earlier or more comfortably, go on dream vacations, expand your kids’ college opportunities, have more long-term flexibility in your career, or fix other problems that money can solve. If so, that’s one way to build a mental pathway: Remember that this is your choice. You weren’t trapped into the next eight or nine months of intense work; you decided the benefits are worth the sacrifice. A sense of agency can make an unpleasant situation more bearable. And remember that it’s an ongoing choice. Unless the extra money comes as a lump sum at the end of the transition, you could try working the intense shift for a month or two and then revisit your decision. Your letter makes a great case for why employers should offer sabbaticals. It’s grueling to work for decades with no more than a few weeks of family leave or annual vacation time. Sabbaticals help recruit and retain talent, improve morale, bring in fresh ideas, and prevent burnout. That’s another way to get through the next eight or nine months, Done: Promise yourself you will take that sabbatical as soon as the bonus work is over. Sign up now for Slate Plus to read all of our Good Job columns for the week. Dear Good Job, Near the beginning of the year, our small team was assigned a new manager, “Jim,” who immediately alienated our team by trying to introduce remedial improvement plans to a group that is, by all other accounts, a high-performing and high-value contributor to our division. Then Jim basically disappeared from our lives for three months, and when we started having regular meetings, kept showing up with solutions to problems that didn’t exist. Despite everyone in our company—including our CEO—constantly talking about coaching, no one on our team has really been coached this year. He’s never around, and it honestly feels like when he does show up, he is just there to annoy us with a bunch of nonsense that doesn’t matter to the business we do. Now we have gone through a big shakeup, reporting up to a different vice president. Many people on this new team have asked me what Jim has done for us all year. How can I possibly answer that question without sounding like I’m stirring the pot, while still being honest about the fact that he has contributed nothing to our team (or to each of us individually) for more than half the year? —Black Hole of a Manager (he/him) Dear Black Hole of a Manager, Oh, Jim. Jimmy, Jim, Jim. Isn’t it fascinating that one person can embody so many bad-manager traits? I suspect Jim isn’t long for this company. The fact that colleagues are asking you about him suggests that they’ve noted his incompetence, and that they value your perspective as one of Jim’s direct reports. By being honest, you can build your own relationships with members of your new team and the vice president you now report up to. Use factual and/or corporatese language to share important information without sounding like a tattle-tale or pot-stirrer. Tone is important: Try to sound reluctant to say anything negative but respectful of the person you’re speaking with, who deserves to hear the truth. “Jim seems to still be learning about what our team contributes to our division.” “Jim met with our team during just five of the past eight months.” “We’re still waiting for Jim’s coaching plan.” “I’d be happy to fill you in on what our team has accomplished this year. Jim seems to have a different understanding of the business we do.” —Laura More Advice From Slate I have been different degrees of poor for my entire life (I’m 40 years old.) However, my grandfather recently died and left my wife and me with an absolutely absurd, life-changing amount of money and assets. As far as I understand it, the interest on the investments alone would be enough to live on for the rest of our lives. We want to use some (maybe a lot) of this money to help out our friends, most of whom have also been poor for their whole lives. 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