Being relaxed at work is more stressful than you think. Photo: Freerange.
Many years ago, I spent a full calendar month as an Executive Level 1 (EL1) in a Canberra-based APS department doing literally no work.
While I’d previously thought getting paid to do nothing was a dream gig, the role was exhausting, demoralising, anxiety-inducing and something I’d never wish to repeat. It was a terrifying preview to the AI revolution expected to make most office tasks redundant.
My personal experience at the APS in the 1990s and early 2000s was that things were cruisy. There were others who worked hard, but the branches I landed in were always overstaffed, and the section head (EL2) was the only stressed one in the team – having to somehow allocate scarce work between all the minions.
Branch heads were empire builders. The more bodies they had under them, the greater their status. No boss would admit to having too many personnel and ministers didn’t know enough about their subject matter to call them out.
On average, I had three hours of solid work to do per day. Late starts, long lunches, afternoon teas, chats about the footy, surfing the net and being overly thorough with my tasks would stretch that out to the required seven hours and 30 minutes I needed to be in the office.
But there was one four-week stretch when this menial workload whittled down to nothing, when I started a new role in a policy team.
Back then, it was customary for a manager to induct a new employee by plonking a few files and papers on their desk when they commenced a new role. They’d have to do background reading for a few days while the IT guys sorted out their drive access (which, for some reason, was never done in advance).
This settling-in period of no real work extended much longer this time because my EL2 had to take unexpected leave the morning I arrived. The other EL 1 was on holiday, so I was left with only the APS6. I asked her if I could help with any tasks, but she was territorial and implied she barely had enough to do herself.
At first, I thought I’d hit the jackpot. I was a real-life George Costanza from Seinfeld – getting money for nothing in a workplace. But the reality is that guilt crippled me by the first long lunch break.
This was the era before work from home, so I had to be physically present in the office all the time, at least during core hours. My cubicle was positioned in a work pod with a different team, all of whom seemed busy. I didn’t feel right playing solitaire while they were running around answering demands from the minister’s office.
I had to get creative and make it seem like I was doing something productive – researching modern history I was never taught at school, learning Spanish, and looking for investment properties. But with no deadlines or purpose to what I was doing, it wasn’t long before I drifted onto YouTube.
To make matters worse, I was seated by the window, with my monitor visible to almost everyone on my side of the floor. An Excel spreadsheet with lots of numbers would be kept open in my tabs, and I would make a panicky switch to it every time I thought someone was glancing in my direction.
At exactly 5 pm each evening, I’d drag myself out of my chair, shoulders hunched, ambling my way home feeling drained and lethargic.
For the whole month, I felt on edge, like things were going to catch up with me. That my boss would suddenly appear and demand answers for my inactivity. Somehow, that never eventuated.
But the worst part was receiving a healthy pay cheque at the end of it. The shame was overwhelming. Taxpayers’ money, all of it. I probably deserve to be hounded by Robodebt operatives more than the poor souls who copped it.
In a previous column on the quirks of public service life, I was inundated with scathing comments about how my observations were out of date. Many bureaucrats somehow found time during their busy day to read the article and comment about how efficient and hardworking the APS is these days. Glad to hear it.
But let this be a warning for those looking for that cushy gig or wanting AI to take the grunt off their workload. I’ve learned it’s better to be frantic and stressed in the office –the day goes quickly and you exit with a bounce in your step. Doing nothing always ends badly, as it did for George Costanza.
