Nothing to do at new job
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There's no work to do at my new job (it's in the business intelligence department of a midsize company). Essentially there are no projects that require my input and won't be for a few years based on the project timetables. For example, my sole task for the next two months is "get familiar with our processes", with no specific outputs specified. And I really do mean that's the only task.
That doesn't mean I can do nothing either. I'm expected to be in the office during working hours, and my screen is visible to my boss and coworkers.
I left my previous job because I wanted more of a technical challenge and more varied work, since my main problem is boredom. Not having interesting work to do is a serious problem for me that stresses me out more than anything.
I can't exactly leave either, because the pay and conditions are excellent and I'm unlikely to find yet another technical employer in this area beyond the one I left and the one I have now.
Any advice? Either a way to approach my boss with this, or strategies for generating useful work for myself in a fairly limited position would be appreciated.
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Ask your boss what problems your department is facing. :)
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Looking over the new company's processes is important, but mostly so you can find a way to help someone else (with a project) out. Basically look for a way to worm your way into a currently running project by taking on scut work, covering for someone with tasks who is on vacation, that kind of thing.
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That doesn't mean I can do nothing either. I'm expected to be in the office during working hours, and my screen is visible to my boss and coworkers.
So you have nothing to do and you're not allowed to do anything either.
That's basically hell.
Maybe you could get a freelance job using the same technologies so it'll still look like you're working on company stuff at a glance. Or a hobby project.
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So you're in BI. The job is to make yourself useful.
Learn the processes. Find a way to make more money for the company (or yourself).
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Talk to their web guys, see if they need web analytics help. That's basically BI.
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There's no work to do at my new job (it's in the business intelligence department of a midsize company).
DOESN'T SOUND VERY INTELLIGENT HAR HAR HAR.
my screen is visible to my boss and coworkers.
Sounds like hell.
Phil Factor has some words on the topic that you might find useful.
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my screen is visible to my boss and coworkers
@Groaner said:Sounds like hell.
Meh. My screens are visible to some of my co-workers and boss, I take quick breaks throughout the day to clear my head and look at TDWTF or how the LHC is getting on. No-one seems to care, I suspect if I did little else there would be pushback but you have to work for/with a bunch of the worst assholes to have them begrudge you a change to clear your head every so often.
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or how the LHC is getting on
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This one is more fine-grained
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Completely unintuitive. Where do I control this shit?
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Yeah, how do I drag and drop a subatomic particle onto a detector?
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image contains errors.
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There's always something to be done, it just might not be in your field. For example, there are always legacy apps with annoying bugs waiting forever to be fixed. Or that little report tracker project those two guys in accounting asked for, but it was deemed too low priority to assign a dev to it. If you're willing to expand outside your comfort zone, you'll always have work.
If you want to stay inside your specialty, then do what Blakey said - look around and find a problem you can solve.
Failing that, there's always the fallback to "professional development". If there's a course you always wanted to take or a professional book you wanted to read, now's your chance to do it on company dime.
