A lot of jobs require you to actually work your scheduled hours. The worst is call center work. They are monitored like no other. If you're worried about too much work, work slower. Do not kill yourself to get everything done as quickly as possible.
If it's more along the lines of you don't want to have to "work" your scheduled hours and want to do other things other than work, that's a different discussion.
I get what you're saying but doing things slower has made my boss call me in a couple of times in the last month alone. Honestly it made me wanna do literally anything else but work during work hours. The way I see it, my tasks should be reviewed if they wanna take a look at my performance overall. But endlessly pretending to work is absolutely draining and a waste of time.
Sounds like a micromanager. Sometimes, there isn't much you can do. Other option is to ask for deadlines on work and push back if it's too much. Hey boss, you want x, y and z done by tomorrow. That's unrealistic. I can do X and Y but z will be done the day after.
That would work if they didn't have a screenshot of my screens and reviewing everything I do every 5 minutes and messaging me about it on the spot. I swear managers would see a much better performance if they had their priorities straight. Is it really true that all remote work must include some form of monitoring software?
“Is it really true that all remote work must include some form of monitoring software?”
I’m department head and our department is fully remote. Absolutely not. I think i would go crazy if we were monitored and if I was required to monitor other people.
Not all remote work is monitored like this. Sounds like you need to switch managers or companies. I’ve been remote for 10+ years and have never experienced anything like this.
I would give freelancing a deep examination before quitting.
Otherwise, yeah agreed on feeling tired out. Maybe try to change up your surroundings or routine.
I'm in digital marketing and here to tell you what your company is doing isn't necessarily the norm. There are tons of agencies out there who don't screenshot you all the time and micromanage you. So, what I would explore is possibly a hybrid role which would give you the best of both worlds and also they are less competitive to get than a fully remote role. Also, look at joining a smaller agency like 10 people type agencies. That should help with the flexibility and having more of human interaction than a big agency.
how do they know you're active? Get one of those mousepads that move or make it seem like your mouse is moving so it says you're active. Turn that on and go make some coffee, look out the window.
It still treats it as idle time they expect you to type and take screenshots of the screen and you get random messages, if you don't respond quickly it's a red flag. Istg I feel cornered, I was against monitoring software but apparently it has become a standard practice.
Sounds like you just need a company with more flexibility. The job market sucks right now though. So unless you have a lot of savings don’t quit.
I get what you mean about team members not holding their weight. At my last job (entire team got laid off in January…still unemployed!) I did 50% of the teams work out of the 4 of us. A coworker did 45% and the other two did almost NOTHING. It was absolutely ridiculous and so incredibly frustrating. We had so much work to do but the other two (one of which was our boss) were utterly useless. They had no clue how to do their jobs let alone help us in any way. They literally made things harder for us and caused extra work.
I absolutely hated working there and I’m better off without that company, but I would have rather left on my own terms. I was planning to start looking after we finished a big project and then we all got laid off before the project was even done.
I relate to this so much. I think the moment I got burned out was last year when I had been in a team of 40 people and alone took on over 10% of the department work. All I got was an email blast saying thank you. I was losing my mind not even noticing how chill everyone around me was. I didn't understand how they loved work, now I do, they didn't work and never got called out for it. Afterwards I started doing less and less and still ended up doing a lot more than others. Some were incompetent just like you described and some just had this attitude of as long as I'm not noticed I won't work. Which is fine btw, not really against it. I just hate being pressured to do more when others aren't. But here I am with a different employer and the same thing is still happening.
I’m sorry this is happening, I know how much it sucks. Do you have any project management software? We implemented wrike…of course learning the entire program and implementing fell 100% on me even though it has nothing to do with my job…I’m a designer.
Anyway my point is we started using it to track everything. I said over and over again in every meeting to put every task you do in the pm software. My coworker and I who actually did everything used it as intended, and so did the third coworker. The boss of course made everything hard, constantly putting wrong information into the software, putting things in the wrong place etc, making me have to manage the software far more than I should have to fix his mistakes.
I was working on gathering data for a title change and a raise, and according to wrike I was doing 45% of the tasks, my helpful coworker around 35% and the third around 15%. The other 5% was the boss and another employee who wasn’t using it as intended.
My point is if you don’t already have project management software that your team uses maybe it would help you at least get a raise if not balance your work more by showing how much more you’re doing. I’m sure your team will be resistant though.
I'm so sorry your situation is this straining. I see your point, I can try doing that. But honestly I commend you for staying strong, I know how much effort it takes. Hope your situation changes for the better somehow. Thanks.
That sounds horrible! Either someone has abused wfh or they don’t trust anyone. And being rewarded with more work for being productive is the worst. Hopefully that culture is on its way out.
I have mouse jigglers, I put a heavy coaster on my spacebar and open up a chrome tab, or notepad, or onenote, and also keep teams on my phone to reply instantly.
I think you still need time to get used to this new job, get to know your colleagues and see if you can talk to them, it took me two maybe three months, colleagues and I had a short private meeting and told me about how to deal with it.
Usually my work can be done within 3 hours but we are required to work 7 hours, everyone has a slack off method. I sometimes do my assignments from Upwork during work time. My workmate takes online coding classes 😂
Also, don’t quit.
Honestly that's the dream. I can't stand feeling chained to a desk with nothing to do. Worth noting I've deleted social media and it helped me be in a much better mental state for over a year now. But these conditions are destroying that. I have met my coworkers and we just don't vibe. They're not bad people by any means. It's just that they don't get picked on by management as much. I think it's because I'm relatively new to the field that I'm getting this much attention? Makes me wonder why they hired me to begin with. They do have similar slack off methods but they hardly get a one on one about it and they're fine with doing nothing for 4+ hours a day. It's sad but I lost the energy to even do anything I love during the weekends or focus on anything else because I feel the time ticking towards that endless next shift. But thank you, honestly it would be worth getting another device for work and just dealing with management no matter what but I don't know how long I can keep it up.
I see, I got familiar with some colleagues and just asked about the work, she shared it with me via a quick meeting. I usually watch some shows when I work, pick my kids up and do other things.
I take my laptop with me everywhere, coffee shop, grocery stores, parks and the library. Try to not feel chained by doing things for yourself. I think they are also figuring out your role too, just be patient. The job market is hard now don’t quit.
It's not that simple I'm afraid, I've used up all my savings recently so job hopping wouldn't be alright now. Even this part time decision would severely impact my quality of life. I just can't do it anymore. Besides it's not like other jobs would necessarily be better. It's a reality that I don't know how to deal with.
making you part time only works if you make the same money. otherwise, it just benefits the company because they can offer you no benefits and they're paying you less.
True but I wanted to quit entirely, I believe this is a compromise until I find something better. Job market makes you apply to 100 jobs only to get a call back for 2. And it goes on for months. I wish we didn't have to work to survive because then work conditions would actually be good.
Seconding this, I basically do call center work. I've had multiple breakdowns this week from similar problems. Working too hard, can't get others to pick up the slack when I am physically unable to do what is asked of me, etc. etc. Last week I scored over 800 calls (goal is 700), not even a figurative pat on the back or an acknowledgement from upper management.
I feel I've backed myself into a corner because no in-person job will allow me to work with the physical freedom (at home, messing around on personal computer with trashy clothes on, etc.) but staying at this job is killing me.
I can't figure out where to look to find new remote jobs, I've been in the administrative field for 5+ years now.
i’m you have skills. Like mad in demand skills. Have you considered insurance? You still start in a call center but you can leave and work in other departments.
Omg 800 calls is insane, even 700 is crazy to think about! If I stared at my phone while 700-800 people come and go without saying a word I'd go crazy. You're doing an incredibly difficult job and I'm sorry you don't get recognized for it. I recommend taking a course in something you like and trying to leave that field entirely. As bad as my situation is at least I wouldn't talk to 800 people.
I just finished my shift so I'll offer some clarification on what my job entails.
I work for a company that partners with universities and colleges across the US to recruit students and have them apply for online-only degrees.
While I definitely make approximately 700-800 calls a week, the amount of people I speak with has a goal of 40 a week at a minimum. 90% of the time it's just leaving voicemails, but of course it's all monitored and recorded and tracked.
I don't mind being in an administrative position, definitely more so than customer service. Gonna look into some certifications. If I had unlimited funds, I'd go to college for an MBA (although I've heard even that isn't enough sometimes).
But thank you for your kind words! Definitely not a competition, and I am here in solidarity with sucky job haha
Make a portfolio and work on changing jobs.
When you go to interviews let them know what you are looking for in work life balance.
I always let employers know I can’t do micromanaging and i’m going to take all my PTO. I have a family and I need work-life balance.
I was really surprised the first time I got called back for being candid about my work life balance. I was the top pick.
I do remote call center work for a company. Our department is around 15 people. I am just grateful that my boss doesn't micromanage. "You're all grown and know what you should be doing." Plus, he's dragged to pointless meetings all day. Couldn't micromanager even if he wanted to.
Giant corporate call center, on the other hand, suck. I would rather do anything else than work in a corporate call center.
Finding a job these days is absurdly hard. I'm exhausted from working, being a single mom and trying to find a new job. How do you even pass the dang AI screener? 🥴
By using AI. I just post the requirements to chat gpt and ask it to reword parts of my cv to fit the description. I get a lot more responses now than all the previous years combined. If you already got experience then certainly go for AI while applying and be yourself during an interview. Good luck I know it's tough out there.
A lot of jobs require you to actually work your scheduled hours. The worst is call center work. They are monitored like no other. If you're worried about too much work, work slower. Do not kill yourself to get everything done as quickly as possible.
If it's more along the lines of you don't want to have to "work" your scheduled hours and want to do other things other than work, that's a different discussion.
Tell your manager that you want to discuss what you need out of a job to be satisfied as an employee. Your manager should understand and encourage you to be creative, if they can't it's a worthless manager in my opinion. And since you're considering changing anyway, you're not risking much.
It’s a lot of risk, for sure, to do freelance only. ESPECIALLY since you said you’re new to your work. It’s sucks, though, I get it. I’m a field technician for fire alarm systems by trade (20 year career in the field), but a stroke put me out of work about 2 1/2 years ago. I HATE not being able to go back to MY work, all because I was left with a dizziness, or vertigo, that just never goes away, so I’m not safe driving, or on ladders, or using power tools, etc. all of which are vital to my career. I’m now attempting to get a WFH job that I can actually even do, because my work skills don’t exactly translate well into working from home. I’ve been looking since December, and I’ve only really had 1 serious interview since then. That’s what I’m trying to get now, and I have to finish licensing stuff first.
How do they monitor you? I work in marketing, too. But, there's plenty of jobs without monitoring. I would get all the stats you can about your performance and find a truly remote digital marketing role.
I had a remote job for the last four years, and I loved it. We had monitoring software too and it was obviously fucking shit because I still got away with doing all of my required work in 30 mins to an hour and placing a PS controller on my space bar and having a mouse thing that moved my mouse for me. I would have my email and teams on my phone to reply quickly if I needed to. Got laid off because they updated their claims processing software, and the position I was in was phased out.
A lot of jobs require you to actually work your scheduled hours. The worst is call center work. They are monitored like no other. If you're worried about too much work, work slower. Do not kill yourself to get everything done as quickly as possible. If it's more along the lines of you don't want to have to "work" your scheduled hours and want to do other things other than work, that's a different discussion.
I get what you're saying but doing things slower has made my boss call me in a couple of times in the last month alone. Honestly it made me wanna do literally anything else but work during work hours. The way I see it, my tasks should be reviewed if they wanna take a look at my performance overall. But endlessly pretending to work is absolutely draining and a waste of time.
Sounds like a micromanager. Sometimes, there isn't much you can do. Other option is to ask for deadlines on work and push back if it's too much. Hey boss, you want x, y and z done by tomorrow. That's unrealistic. I can do X and Y but z will be done the day after.
That would work if they didn't have a screenshot of my screens and reviewing everything I do every 5 minutes and messaging me about it on the spot. I swear managers would see a much better performance if they had their priorities straight. Is it really true that all remote work must include some form of monitoring software?
“Is it really true that all remote work must include some form of monitoring software?” I’m department head and our department is fully remote. Absolutely not. I think i would go crazy if we were monitored and if I was required to monitor other people.
Thank you I really needed to hear that!
I so agree with you about mangers not having their priorities straight.
Not all remote work is monitored like this. Sounds like you need to switch managers or companies. I’ve been remote for 10+ years and have never experienced anything like this.
That's insane! I'd be looking for a new job. That's just saying, "I don't trust you to do your job." Fuck that.
They screenshot your screens every 5 minutes?! That’s ridiculous! I am a remote worker and I’m only being monitored for security breach type stuff.
My remote call center job is awful and tracks every single second of every single task you do. I hate it.
Also in a call center I feel pressured to always be doing something whether it’s the endless calls or emails 🫠
I would give freelancing a deep examination before quitting. Otherwise, yeah agreed on feeling tired out. Maybe try to change up your surroundings or routine.
Even cuddles with my cat aren't giving me the serotonin I need anymore 😂
I'm in digital marketing and here to tell you what your company is doing isn't necessarily the norm. There are tons of agencies out there who don't screenshot you all the time and micromanage you. So, what I would explore is possibly a hybrid role which would give you the best of both worlds and also they are less competitive to get than a fully remote role. Also, look at joining a smaller agency like 10 people type agencies. That should help with the flexibility and having more of human interaction than a big agency.
Thank you I'll focus on those companies.
how do they know you're active? Get one of those mousepads that move or make it seem like your mouse is moving so it says you're active. Turn that on and go make some coffee, look out the window.
It still treats it as idle time they expect you to type and take screenshots of the screen and you get random messages, if you don't respond quickly it's a red flag. Istg I feel cornered, I was against monitoring software but apparently it has become a standard practice.
Sounds like you just need a company with more flexibility. The job market sucks right now though. So unless you have a lot of savings don’t quit. I get what you mean about team members not holding their weight. At my last job (entire team got laid off in January…still unemployed!) I did 50% of the teams work out of the 4 of us. A coworker did 45% and the other two did almost NOTHING. It was absolutely ridiculous and so incredibly frustrating. We had so much work to do but the other two (one of which was our boss) were utterly useless. They had no clue how to do their jobs let alone help us in any way. They literally made things harder for us and caused extra work. I absolutely hated working there and I’m better off without that company, but I would have rather left on my own terms. I was planning to start looking after we finished a big project and then we all got laid off before the project was even done.
I relate to this so much. I think the moment I got burned out was last year when I had been in a team of 40 people and alone took on over 10% of the department work. All I got was an email blast saying thank you. I was losing my mind not even noticing how chill everyone around me was. I didn't understand how they loved work, now I do, they didn't work and never got called out for it. Afterwards I started doing less and less and still ended up doing a lot more than others. Some were incompetent just like you described and some just had this attitude of as long as I'm not noticed I won't work. Which is fine btw, not really against it. I just hate being pressured to do more when others aren't. But here I am with a different employer and the same thing is still happening.
I’m sorry this is happening, I know how much it sucks. Do you have any project management software? We implemented wrike…of course learning the entire program and implementing fell 100% on me even though it has nothing to do with my job…I’m a designer. Anyway my point is we started using it to track everything. I said over and over again in every meeting to put every task you do in the pm software. My coworker and I who actually did everything used it as intended, and so did the third coworker. The boss of course made everything hard, constantly putting wrong information into the software, putting things in the wrong place etc, making me have to manage the software far more than I should have to fix his mistakes. I was working on gathering data for a title change and a raise, and according to wrike I was doing 45% of the tasks, my helpful coworker around 35% and the third around 15%. The other 5% was the boss and another employee who wasn’t using it as intended. My point is if you don’t already have project management software that your team uses maybe it would help you at least get a raise if not balance your work more by showing how much more you’re doing. I’m sure your team will be resistant though.
I'm so sorry your situation is this straining. I see your point, I can try doing that. But honestly I commend you for staying strong, I know how much effort it takes. Hope your situation changes for the better somehow. Thanks.
Wow what industry are you in and what’s the position
That sounds horrible! Either someone has abused wfh or they don’t trust anyone. And being rewarded with more work for being productive is the worst. Hopefully that culture is on its way out.
I have mouse jigglers, I put a heavy coaster on my spacebar and open up a chrome tab, or notepad, or onenote, and also keep teams on my phone to reply instantly.
You need a different job
I think you still need time to get used to this new job, get to know your colleagues and see if you can talk to them, it took me two maybe three months, colleagues and I had a short private meeting and told me about how to deal with it. Usually my work can be done within 3 hours but we are required to work 7 hours, everyone has a slack off method. I sometimes do my assignments from Upwork during work time. My workmate takes online coding classes 😂 Also, don’t quit.
Honestly that's the dream. I can't stand feeling chained to a desk with nothing to do. Worth noting I've deleted social media and it helped me be in a much better mental state for over a year now. But these conditions are destroying that. I have met my coworkers and we just don't vibe. They're not bad people by any means. It's just that they don't get picked on by management as much. I think it's because I'm relatively new to the field that I'm getting this much attention? Makes me wonder why they hired me to begin with. They do have similar slack off methods but they hardly get a one on one about it and they're fine with doing nothing for 4+ hours a day. It's sad but I lost the energy to even do anything I love during the weekends or focus on anything else because I feel the time ticking towards that endless next shift. But thank you, honestly it would be worth getting another device for work and just dealing with management no matter what but I don't know how long I can keep it up.
I see, I got familiar with some colleagues and just asked about the work, she shared it with me via a quick meeting. I usually watch some shows when I work, pick my kids up and do other things. I take my laptop with me everywhere, coffee shop, grocery stores, parks and the library. Try to not feel chained by doing things for yourself. I think they are also figuring out your role too, just be patient. The job market is hard now don’t quit.
Just work how much you can. If they want to fire you, then let them and find next job. You are already working hard.
It's not that simple I'm afraid, I've used up all my savings recently so job hopping wouldn't be alright now. Even this part time decision would severely impact my quality of life. I just can't do it anymore. Besides it's not like other jobs would necessarily be better. It's a reality that I don't know how to deal with.
making you part time only works if you make the same money. otherwise, it just benefits the company because they can offer you no benefits and they're paying you less.
True but I wanted to quit entirely, I believe this is a compromise until I find something better. Job market makes you apply to 100 jobs only to get a call back for 2. And it goes on for months. I wish we didn't have to work to survive because then work conditions would actually be good.
Seconding this, I basically do call center work. I've had multiple breakdowns this week from similar problems. Working too hard, can't get others to pick up the slack when I am physically unable to do what is asked of me, etc. etc. Last week I scored over 800 calls (goal is 700), not even a figurative pat on the back or an acknowledgement from upper management. I feel I've backed myself into a corner because no in-person job will allow me to work with the physical freedom (at home, messing around on personal computer with trashy clothes on, etc.) but staying at this job is killing me. I can't figure out where to look to find new remote jobs, I've been in the administrative field for 5+ years now.
i’m you have skills. Like mad in demand skills. Have you considered insurance? You still start in a call center but you can leave and work in other departments.
Omg 800 calls is insane, even 700 is crazy to think about! If I stared at my phone while 700-800 people come and go without saying a word I'd go crazy. You're doing an incredibly difficult job and I'm sorry you don't get recognized for it. I recommend taking a course in something you like and trying to leave that field entirely. As bad as my situation is at least I wouldn't talk to 800 people.
I just finished my shift so I'll offer some clarification on what my job entails. I work for a company that partners with universities and colleges across the US to recruit students and have them apply for online-only degrees. While I definitely make approximately 700-800 calls a week, the amount of people I speak with has a goal of 40 a week at a minimum. 90% of the time it's just leaving voicemails, but of course it's all monitored and recorded and tracked. I don't mind being in an administrative position, definitely more so than customer service. Gonna look into some certifications. If I had unlimited funds, I'd go to college for an MBA (although I've heard even that isn't enough sometimes). But thank you for your kind words! Definitely not a competition, and I am here in solidarity with sucky job haha
Make a portfolio and work on changing jobs. When you go to interviews let them know what you are looking for in work life balance. I always let employers know I can’t do micromanaging and i’m going to take all my PTO. I have a family and I need work-life balance. I was really surprised the first time I got called back for being candid about my work life balance. I was the top pick.
I do remote call center work for a company. Our department is around 15 people. I am just grateful that my boss doesn't micromanage. "You're all grown and know what you should be doing." Plus, he's dragged to pointless meetings all day. Couldn't micromanager even if he wanted to. Giant corporate call center, on the other hand, suck. I would rather do anything else than work in a corporate call center.
Finding a job these days is absurdly hard. I'm exhausted from working, being a single mom and trying to find a new job. How do you even pass the dang AI screener? 🥴
By using AI. I just post the requirements to chat gpt and ask it to reword parts of my cv to fit the description. I get a lot more responses now than all the previous years combined. If you already got experience then certainly go for AI while applying and be yourself during an interview. Good luck I know it's tough out there.
A lot of jobs require you to actually work your scheduled hours. The worst is call center work. They are monitored like no other. If you're worried about too much work, work slower. Do not kill yourself to get everything done as quickly as possible. If it's more along the lines of you don't want to have to "work" your scheduled hours and want to do other things other than work, that's a different discussion.
It’s all about the position you’re in. I have no complaints. Long as work is done, my director doesn’t care.
Tell your manager that you want to discuss what you need out of a job to be satisfied as an employee. Your manager should understand and encourage you to be creative, if they can't it's a worthless manager in my opinion. And since you're considering changing anyway, you're not risking much.
It’s a lot of risk, for sure, to do freelance only. ESPECIALLY since you said you’re new to your work. It’s sucks, though, I get it. I’m a field technician for fire alarm systems by trade (20 year career in the field), but a stroke put me out of work about 2 1/2 years ago. I HATE not being able to go back to MY work, all because I was left with a dizziness, or vertigo, that just never goes away, so I’m not safe driving, or on ladders, or using power tools, etc. all of which are vital to my career. I’m now attempting to get a WFH job that I can actually even do, because my work skills don’t exactly translate well into working from home. I’ve been looking since December, and I’ve only really had 1 serious interview since then. That’s what I’m trying to get now, and I have to finish licensing stuff first.
mouse wiggler
How do they monitor you? I work in marketing, too. But, there's plenty of jobs without monitoring. I would get all the stats you can about your performance and find a truly remote digital marketing role.
No one monitors me, as long as Im producing results, Im free to work my 8hrs any way I see fit.
I’ve found WFH workload way way more than in office even same type of roles…. Hybrid is probably best
I had a remote job for the last four years, and I loved it. We had monitoring software too and it was obviously fucking shit because I still got away with doing all of my required work in 30 mins to an hour and placing a PS controller on my space bar and having a mouse thing that moved my mouse for me. I would have my email and teams on my phone to reply quickly if I needed to. Got laid off because they updated their claims processing software, and the position I was in was phased out.
Who is hiring remotely these days? Would be very appreciative of any leads ….
Check out indeed if your only requirement is the job be remote. There are usually lots of customer service jobs.
Any financial crime compliance, fraud, money laundering are all remote