The Appearance of Being Busy
A tongue & cheek guide to surviving the modern workplace
I work in a sector where early career people can easily become the dumping ground for the jobs no one else wants to do. So I had to quickly develop some tactics to ensure that I wasn’t swallowed up by time-consuming and incredibly undervalued work. While developed in academia, I believe that this approach can be transposed to other areas. By following these 10 steps, you too can develop a Teflon coat.
In the initial weeks after coming to post, a knock on the door meant tidings of new duties. At first, I thought my new colleagues were being friendly (which they were), but I quickly realised they were also being opportunistic. And I don’t blame them — we were short-staffed and everyone was overwhelmed.
I found myself saddled with extremely complicated administrative tasks that were then impossible to delegate further down the food chain because I was at the bottom! Had I these tools at my disposal then — it might have saved me some thankless hours spent on mind-numbing assignments.
1. Never agree to a piece of work until you have asked at least 10 annoying questions to the job giver
After being bombarded with questions, s/he may be forced to admit that you are not the…
