Good Job is Slate’s advice column on work. Have a workplace problem big or small? Send it to Laura Helmuth and Doree Shafrir here. (It’s anonymous!)
Dear Good Job,
How do I check out and stop doing things that “aren’t my job”? I work in a secretarial role at a company where the secretaries are unionized. The union is great, don’t get me wrong, but one side effect of having it is that there are massive, sometimes arbitrary and annoyingly vague, lines around what I can and cannot do in my role.
This wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, if most of the time the things I’m not allowed to do are required to be done by managers. Managers who are overworked, undertrained, and underpaid, and so don’t have the time or brain space to address things I bring to them.
This constant shuffling, blocking, and ignoring of client concerns is noticeably affecting our productivity and client relationships and my ability to do the things that I actually am allowed to do, because what often happens is I can initiate steps 1-2 of solving a problem, but despite knowing what every subsequent step is, I’m not allowed to do them, and that irritates and stresses me out, especially when clients then badger me about wtf the needless holdup is.
My coworkers keep telling me to step back and just do my job, but this does affect my job and my ability to do it! If I’m physically and mentally able to do something, it shouldn’t matter what my job title is, I should be able to just do the thing! It’s not like the managers get paid enough extra to justify their “authority” or the stress they’re under (there’s at most a $5k difference between us, and I actually might make more when unpaid overtime is factored in).
How do I become comfortable with doing my job with my hands tied? And no, getting a new job is not really an option right now, nor is changing my office to solve the manager bottleneck. I’ve tried.
—Ready and Able
Dear Ready and Able,
This sounds incredibly frustrating, especially for someone who is actually competent. It’s really tough when you have a fixer personality and you’re powerless to fix things! But I think you need to listen to your coworkers’ advice here and try to just accept that these rules are in place for a reason, that you can do your portion of the work successfully, and that it’s explicitly not your job or your responsibility to see these tasks through. You are one part of the assembly line, and what happens on the rest of the assembly line is not your concern. I know it’s tough when clients ask about the holdup, but I need you to practice saying that it’s out of your hands. And for what it’s worth, this is probably a good thing to learn how to do in life, not just at work. Sometimes you’re not going to be able to fix everything—and that’s OK.
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Dear Good Job,
When is it time to pull the plug and go for a graduate degree? I have almost a decade of experience in a geographically limited industry with low pay and discouraging job prospects, and I want to move across the country to be closer to family. Remote work in my current field is an option, and I’m applying to multiple jobs every week, networking like crazy, basically anything I can to advance with my current education and experience. But I’m also super burned out on this field of work and worried that my role may be made obsolete by AI.
My heart wants to go for an Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS), which would dovetail nicely with my industry experience and loosen those geographical handcuffs. But my heart also quails at the thought of taking on more student debt and starting over in my 30s. And I think it’s kind of (very) crazy to go into librarianship in this political and social climate. But the thought of spending the next decade stuck in my current underpaid and underappreciated role while the world spins on without me is kind of making me crazy anyway. Is it worth it?
—Day Dreams and Degrees
Dear Day Dreams and Degrees,
We’re in a really weird and mostly awful moment right now, and so a (big!) part of me is inclined to advise you to follow your heart and pursue an MLIS degree—especially since you haven’t had any luck finding a remote job. I also think the idea of starting over in your 30s seems daunting until you think about the fact that in all likelihood, you have another few decades of life and work ahead of you, and starting over in your 30s is infinitely easier than starting over in your 40s. Or your 50s! Or… you get the picture. And getting a degree in a field where you’d be happier and more fulfilled that also has better job prospects seems like a no-brainer.
Where I’m getting just a tad tripped up, though, is the “better job prospects” part of the equation. I don’t see anywhere in your letter that you’ve talked to anyone in the field or done any real research into what the prospects are for people with MLIS degrees. I did a quick Google search and there are definitely some people sounding the alarm about getting this degree right now. It doesn’t seem as dire as some other fields, but I would urge you to let your heart take a breather and use your brain to do some digging into whether this degree will be a sound investment.
—Doree
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