Running out of Work at my Salary Job

[Silverhawk65]

Hello,

I am seeking opinions on what to do here, and to see if what I'm doing is justifiable.

So I currently work at home doing invoices and internal reconciliation 40 hours a week with very little supervision/micromanagement. As long as I'm not late on invoices and answer my emails, no one really asks what I'm doing. I am also studying for the CPA exam at the moment, which is important for this question. We are in a slow period of the year and my actual workflow has drastically declined and will not pick up until the middle of May/beginning of June.

I have asked for new tasks several times and have received some, but they are short-lived. For the past 2 months, about 50% my time during my work hours has been studying for the CPA exam. For some reason, the corporation I work for does not have policies in place to slow season downtime.

I do not believe my company has tracking software or keylogging, otherwise, they would notice the time periods where I do nothing on my work computer, and because I did this last year too, but wasn't full time. I have not had a performance review since I started 2 years ago.

This has been bothering me because I'm an honest, hard-working person, but I'm running out of things to do. What would you do in my situation? As long as I don't fall behind, due to the fact that I'm salary paid, and because I've already asked for more work, is me studying for the exam justificable?

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

If you're doing your job detail to the degree they desire of you, and they still want to pay your a salary as opposed to a wage for it despite not requiring that time, I fail to see the problem.


Honestly it sounds like a badly managed company that is haemorrhaging money. They're not just going to give you someone else's job ontop of your workload, but it also definitely sounds they shouldn't be paying a salary but a wage. But if they're giving you a salary and you're doing everything that you've agreed to do and to a degree they're happy with, it's not your problem. It's theirs.

You evidently signed your contract, and they're the ones that drafted it and gave you the workspace for it.

It's no more a query of your morality as it is any bad contract.

 

[Silverhawk65]

Thanks for your reply. I guess a part of me is fearful of being found out and having to explain myself. If my job were part-time and I was hourly, then I couldn't justify all my non-work related hours, but the busy season each year does get very busy so it's not like I'm doing this the whole year.

I'm torn between the morality of getting paid for unproductive work and the real need to study so I can pass the exams. This type of situation really displays the priorities of the company if they have no protocol for downtime in my situation. They also, beyond tracking my internet and email usage, don't care about my overall productivity which is both good and bad, which is a topic of its own.

I work for a moderately sized corporation and haven't shown any signs of slacking so there is no precedence for them to suspect.

 

[Silverhawk65]

The industry I'm in demands me to be consistently busy about 7/12 months of the year

I have no idea how I haven't gotten a performance review yet. It's mentioned in the company handbook. Could be that most of the supervisors are so extremely busy with their 50-60 hours of work each week that they can't do the reviews.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Thanks for your reply. I guess a part of me is fearful of being found out and having to explain myself. If my job were part-time and I was hourly, then I couldn't justify all my non-work related hours, but the busy season each year does get very busy so it's not like I'm doing this the whole year.

I'm torn between the morality of getting paid for unproductive work and the real need to study so I can pass the exams. This type of situation really displays the priorities of the company if they have no protocol for downtime in my situation. They also, beyond tracking my internet and email usage, don't care about my overall productivity which is both good and bad, which is a topic of its own.

I work for a moderately sized corporation and haven't shown any signs of slacking so there is no precedence for them to suspect.

Look, honestly someone will notice eventually ... and depending on where you are, probably by the time your contract runs out andthey get someone who actually has a decent eye to cutting back on labour costs.

Corporations kind of reward such people for basically micromanaging their operations sides of things like that.

It's the paradox of working really hard. The trick is to look really busy, while also using your time to appear to be helping others. If you merely do your job quickly, someone is going to think you don't need those extra hours ... and they'll start doing what is known as 'rank and yank'. Whereby they look at total productivity and the amount they're paying for it, cross reference that to what low and middle management are saying, and make adjustments there.

The trick to getting that promotion is to appear to be working really hard, appear to be helping others, but at the same time actually use the hours they give to you. That way you make fewer inter-office rivalries, while also cementing a better work place camaraderie when you do get the position. Because you've appeared to be helping others at least to enough people that it merely isn't easily see-able smoke and mirrors.

Just the right amount of smoke to just the right amount of mirrors.

To put it pointedly ... if you look like you don't need the hours, someone eventually will just not give them to you. Moreover, they'll use your productivity over time paid as a benchmark to evaluate other workers ... which means suddenly you will be very unpopular by the time their contracts end as well.

The fact that they don't seem to be monitoring your computer and workspace use to determine total productivity, and you're in a middling sized corporation, suggests that it's probably only a matter of time until they reorganize operations and employ someone competent to assess total activity. And chances are they'll be the ones giving you a very different contract once yours is through.

 

[twistedmic]

If you work on salary, doesn't that mean that you get paid for doing a set amount of work rather than how long it takes you? Like you'd get the same pay if you finish your allotted tasks in twenty hours a week or forty? Isn't that the point of being on salary rather than hourly?
Personally I'd say your doing fine if you are managing to complete your assigned tasks promptly and using free time for self-improvement.

 

[COMaestro]

Isn't this the whole point of salary work though? You get paid to do whatever tasks you have been assigned. As long as it gets done, it doesn't matter if it takes you one hour or ten hours, you get paid the same amount? By my understanding, that's how salary work is defined! If the company doesn't like it, they should have made you hourly instead, and have you clock out after finishing all the work for the day. They didn't, so relax.

 

[Silverhawk65]

Thanks, guys. I appreciate both sides of the argument. Really good insight. Makes me feel better about my situation.

 

[RobertEHouse]

Well, in the States a person has to be very careful what they do especially at the office. Some states don't require corporations to tell employees that they have key loggers,spy-bots and sweepers on the servers or CPUs. There are also corporations that hire a third party to look at social accounts and status. Again not all states are required at any point to inform the employees of what they do. Its worse if you are in a Right-to-Work state in which one screw up can mean you are gone with very little legal recourse.

Also i would tell you to be mindful of any "grey" clauses in your contract as well. There is a reason certain things are not totally detailed. Other than that, what you do is totally up to you,just be mindful of the pitfalls that can and exist at certain corps.

As to whatever you do, i wish you luck in finding something to fit into that slow period of time.

 

[EscapistAccount]

I do not believe my company has tracking software or keylogging, otherwise, they would notice the time periods where I do nothing on my work computer, and because I did this last year too, but wasn't full time. I have not had a performance review since I started 2 years ago.

Keyloggers and work tracking aren't a normal part of IT management because, to be blunt, IT don't give a solitary fuck about how hard employees work. It's possible some overreaching middle management type has mandated its use but generally speaking that's not how we manage access controls or assist managers in human resource management.

 

[stroopwafel]

The fact that you work for a 'moderately sized corporation' that let it's invoicing be done by someone who works from home means they don't have relatively many invoices meaning their profit margins are probably quite high. That would explain your salary being a non-issue for them as well as any inactivity on their part to conduct any other kind of work review if they are content with the way things are going. In this case, reliabilty and flexibility is more important for them than some administrative costs they could save. Ofcourse, you could have also worked for a multi-billion dollar corporation that is so excessively micromanaged that it's run like a machine from the Third Reich with the sole intent that any redundant penny on paperclips or salary costs need to be accounted for b/c god forbid the wrath of the shareholders if the corporate management is unable to squeeze every last penny from the company of the hundreds of millions they are already paying in dividends. My guess is you're working for a private company and not one on the stock market. So, consider yourself lucky.

 

[Baffle]

You could just leave it open-ended: 'Is there anything you want me to do if I run out of work?'. You've done your bit then, and you don't need to ask every single time you run out of work (because that might get the wrong kind of attention if you end up running out often).

But some companies just factor varied workloads in - they probably realise you have quiet periods, but it's better for them to pay you for those periods than to farm the work out to gig workers, which can mean training costs, extra admin costs because of the oversight required, agency costs, etc.

 

[Elijin]

Will the CPA exam/qualification make you better at your job? If so your work is being completed and you're on a path to becoming a more valuable employee. So no issue.

If the study is leading to the abandonment of your job to pursue a new career or better position elsewhere.... it sounds like you're taking advantage of a job that treats you well.