Dear Jeremy – your work issues solved

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jul/11/dear-jeremy-work-issues-solved-careers-expert-advice

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I like my job but ultimately I am bored – what I do is no longer fulfilling

I have been working for a private sector company since September 2014. At the beginning I was really busy and very motivated. However, in January my company employed someone who is less qualified to do the same job.

The workload is only sufficient for one person, so I am only busy about 20% of the time. There are days when I don’t have anything to do. I have spoken to my manager and highlighted the situation, to no avail. The response I got was “there is nothing we can do to raise your workload”.

I have done online courses during work time. I am a writer and teacher, so I have written novels and developed teaching materials for a student I tutor from home, but this doesn’t fulfil me and, of course, I shouldn’t be doing these things at work. In short, I feel guilty and extremely bored.

I have applied for other jobs and have interviews lined up. However, this was a job that I once really loved and I don’t want to leave, as I like some of the people and the environment. It’s also hard to leave a permanent job for a new, less secure position.

Furthermore, I have to confess that I have begun to dislike the person now doing what was originally my job. It’s not her character and I can be nice to her face. But I feel angry when she is making mistakes and proves herself less qualified.

Jeremy says

I’d be pretty sure you’re deluding yourself in seeing this job as “permanent”. The uneasy situation you describe raises all sorts of questions – to which I can find no satisfactory answers.

Just three months after you took on this role, which you enjoyed and which kept you busy, your company took on another person “to do the same job”. Didn’t that strike you as odd? What, if anything, did anyone say to you at the time? And when you’ve spoken to your manager, highlighting that you’re about 80% under-employed, have you never asked why they took on this apparently superfluous worker in the first place?

You’ve done all the right things, volunteered to take on other work, only to be told there is nothing they can do to raise your workload. And this has been going on for a full six months. So I’m forced to this conclusion: either this is one of the more inefficient private sector companies I’ve ever come across, and should therefore face an uncertain future; or, for whatever reason, they’re trying to freeze you out.

Either way, it should strengthen your resolve to look for other jobs: it’s very unlikely that any new role would be any less secure than the so-called permanent one you currently hold.

Readers say

• There can be no argument in staying in a role that is so unsatisfactory you feel the need to write to a national newspaper about it. You are reluctant to change job because you feel another role may be less secure. This is crazy, coming from someone who is massively under-utilised in their current role. How long will it be before people wake up to the fact they are paying you for an eight-hour day and you are only busy for two hours. You should look for a new role with urgency while you can still answer the interviewers’ favourite question of what your achievements have been for the last year. starterforten

• Lucky you to be able to get paid for writing during your work time. Stay there write and publish. Make money whilst you are making money. Any employer who is stupid enough to pay for an employee to do nothing deserves to fund your writing. SevenGrams

• You have some free time on your hands, do some networking. Try to find out what happened, and more important, what the plans for the future are, and if work is coming that you might be interested in. In the meantime, be kind to your colleague. In a different situation it would have been your task to train her, and, showing a positive attitude, that is exactly what you should be doing now. Aranzazu

Should I leave a great role to pursue the master’s needed to advance my career?

I’m struggling to make a potentially career-defining decision. When I graduated with my social science degree, and knowing the line of work I was intending to go into, I was advised to do a master’s straight away. However, I was keen to get to work and wanted further study to wait until I was more focussed.

I have been fortunate with my career so far, and have not suffered from my lack of a master’s. I have a job that I enjoy that offers me lots of opportunity to develop and network. But it is limited and there’s nowhere in the organisation to go – this was made clear to me from the start and I’ve been fine with that.

I’ve been there 18 months and have turned my eye to what’s next, not with the intention to leave immediately but to start planning. The next step in my career does require me to have a master’s. All the jobs I am looking at have postgraduate study as essential. I’ve hit the undergraduate ceiling.

On a whim I applied to a master’s course abroad that seemed to be almost perfect for me, and that is a combination of all my interests to date. I wasn’t expecting anything from it but I’ve just been offered a place. I’m now struggling to decide whether to leave a job I love earlier than planned to go and do a master’s; or let the master’s slide to keep going with my current role.

I’m worried that if I go I will be severing the network ties I’ve built up with this job, and voiding my work experience to date. But equally if I don’t I’m worried I’ll end up stuck in a rut and resentful, and won’t want to continue!

Jeremy says

I think you’re dramatising things a bit when you describe your situation as “career-defining”. As I suspect you half appreciate, this is the kind of dilemma that a great many people would love to find themselves faced with. Both decisions could turn out well; and neither is at all likely to be a disaster.

This means that I can nudge you gently in one direction, knowing that it’s very unlikely to be bad advice; and you can feel entirely free to do the opposite, knowing that you’re very unlikely to regret it.

My slight preference is that you stay where you are for the moment and continue to make the most of it. Eighteen months in a good first job doesn’t seem long enough to me. And I’d be confident that, after another year or two, there will be other opportunities for you to take your master’s.

Readers say

• A fat percentage of people don’t stay in their first job long, so you won’t be alone there – 18 months isn’t too bad. Your experience stays on your CV and your network stays intact – provided you keep on nurturing it. You’ve accepted that you’ll be leaving your job soon anyway, since there’s nowhere to go. So, it’s master’s time. DeputyPeck

• One option could be to ask the academic institution if it’s possible to guarantee you a place on this course but to defer you by a year. Only then would I consider continuing in role, in the knowledge you are definitely leaving in approximately 12 months. It wouldn’t hurt to ask the question before making your final decision. ilovespreadsheets

• Go! A master’s is a prerequisite for lots of good jobs these days. You will absolutely hit a ceiling in the social sciences without one. You may want a PhD in the end, too! NancyL

Do you need advice on a work issue? For Jeremy’s and readers’ help, send a brief email to dear.jeremy@theguardian.com. Please note that he is unable to answer questions of a legal nature or to reply personally.