Is it normal to do basically nothing at your corporate job?

Six months ago, I was hired as a data analyst at a large insurance company after finishing my master's program. The interview process was thorough—a technical assessment where I had to clean messy data and build visualizations, a case study presentation, and a couple rounds of behavioral interviews with some SQL questions thrown in. Nothing too extreme, but enough to make me think this would be a challenging role.

Now I'm here with a 6 figure salary and benefits in a hybrid role (2 days in office, 3 remote), but I spend most days with surprisingly little to do. My first project was cleaning up our customer dataset and building some marketing dashboards. I worked efficiently, finished ahead of schedule, and my manager was genuinely impressed with the results.

But since completing that project three months ago, I've had minimal work. I occasionally get requests for data pulls or simple visualizations that take maybe 30 minutes. I've started using some basic tools and approaches that just seemed logical to me.

I built a few reusable templates in our BI tool that I can modify for different requests. The marketing director called me a "visualization genius" in a meeting because I used a different chart type than the pie charts they've apparently been using since 2003.

The marketing team thinks I'm working overtime because I schedule emails with their requested reports to send at 6:30am. In reality, I finished them at 2pm the day before and spent the rest of the afternoon watching YouTube videos about beer brewing.

I mostly use Chatgpt to help write my SQL queries. My 58-year-old manager walked by my desk last week, saw some basic subqueries on my screen and said, "Wow, you young folks really understand this database stuff intuitively." Sir, I literally just asked an AI to write this for me.

I wrote a small Python script to help the sales team consolidate their weekly reports (honestly, I just described the problem to Chatgpt and tweaked the code it gave me). We literally covered this exact task in my data processing course, but they acted like I'd invented electricity. The sales director wanted to know my "secret" to solving their problem so quickly. My secret is that I'm not using Excel formulas for everything like it's 1998.

For weekly department meetings or any other meeting with way too many people in it I use an ai note taker so I don't have to pay attention during call. When someone asked about a detail from last month's meeting, I just asked ai about it topic while everyone was still debating what was said. Do people not know that you can do this??

I genuinely work maybe 10-15 hours a week. The rest of the time I'm just... waiting. Reading wait but why posts. Watching woodworking videos. I even started baking bread smh. Organizing my desktop folders by color (don't judge me, we all have our ways of maintaining sanity).

Is this what corporate America is actually like? In school, professors warned us about the "demanding corporate environment" and "high-pressure deadlines." My biggest pressure right now is pretending to look busy when my camera is on during team calls.

Last week, I got called into an unexpected meeting with my manager. I was convinced they'd figured out I wasn't doing much. Instead, he asked if I'd be willing to help other team members "level up their technical skills." I'm not even sure what skills I'm supposed to be sharing—using the search function? Knowing how to clear the cache? How to ask Chatgpt?

Is this normal? Did I accidentally hack corporate life? Or am I missing something fundamental about how work is supposed to function? I feel like I'm in some weird corporate twilight zone where perception completely disconnects from reality.

Jobadvisor:

It's understandable that you're feeling confused and a bit guilty about your current situation. Your experience highlights a few common, though often unspoken, realities of corporate life:

Is it normal? Somewhat.

• Efficiency vs. Perceived Effort: You've demonstrated efficiency, which is a good thing. However, many corporate environments value perceived effort over actual output. The "busy work" culture is real.
• Technological Gaps: Many companies are slow to adopt new technologies and workflows. Your familiarity with modern tools like ChatGPT and BI platforms gives you a significant advantage.
• Legacy Processes: Older employees and managers may be resistant to change or simply unaware of more efficient methods.
• Uneven Workload Distribution: Some roles are inherently less demanding than others, or workloads can fluctuate significantly.
• The "Illusion of Productivity": Many people are great at looking busy, even when they're not. Meetings, emails, and internal processes can create the illusion of productivity without generating much actual value.

What you're experiencing is a combination of these factors:

• You're highly efficient.
• You're leveraging modern tools effectively.
• Your colleagues are less tech-savvy.
• Your current workload is simply light.

Advice:

1. Don't Rock the Boat (Too Much):
   • While you're tempted to expose the inefficiency, doing so could create unnecessary friction.
   • Continue to deliver high-quality work and maintain a positive reputation.
   • Continue to schedule emails to send early in the morning, and to maintain the appearance of over working.
2. "Level Up" Your Colleagues Strategically:
   • When you're asked to help others, focus on teaching them practical skills that will genuinely benefit them, such as basic SQL, BI tool usage, and data visualization best practices.
   • You don't need to reveal your "secret" (ChatGPT), but you can subtly introduce them to the power of AI-assisted tools.
   • Teaching others will make you look like a team player, and will fill up some time.
3. Use Your Extra Time Wisely:
   • Skill Development: Learn new skills that are relevant to your field or that you're personally interested in. This could include advanced data analysis techniques, cloud computing, or programming.
   • Networking: Build relationships with people in other departments. This could open up opportunities for future projects or career advancement.
   • Internal Innovation: Identify areas where processes could be improved and propose solutions. This demonstrates initiative and can add value to the company.
   • Personal Projects: Continue your hobbies like bread baking and woodworking. Having a healthy work-life balance is important.
4. Assess Your Long-Term Goals:
   • Consider whether this level of inactivity is sustainable for you in the long run.
   • Think about whether you're learning and growing in your current role.
   • If you're feeling unfulfilled, start exploring opportunities for more challenging positions within or outside the company.
5. Document your achievements.
   • Keep track of the projects you have completed, and the positive feedback you have received. This will be very helpful during performance reviews, and when you are looking for a promotion, or new job.
6. Be aware of company culture.
   • Some companies value people that can find ways to improve processes, and automate tasks. Other companies will view this as you trying to remove work from other peoples plates. Understand what your company values.

Your situation is a unique blend of efficiency, technological advantage, and a potentially inefficient corporate environment. Use this time to your advantage, but also be mindful of your long-term career goals.