Is anyone else's 9-to-6 job 3 hours of work and 6 hours of pretending?
I started my first 'real' office job about a year and a half ago. My job is to track invoices and update spreadsheets for the finance team. For the first 3 months, things were great. I was busy from 9 until lunch and then until 6 PM. I really felt like I was learning and contributing. But after those first 4 months, things completely dropped off.
Now, I'm lucky if I have 3 hours of real work on a busy day. I've asked for more responsibilities, but there's just nothing extra to do. I spend most of the day on my phone scrolling through Reddit or reading ebooks just to pass the time. A few weeks ago, my manager pulled me aside about this. She asked me what I was doing, and I told her I was just reading. She told me I shouldn't be on my phone and suggested I read technical papers related to our field instead because it's 'related to what I studied in college'.
The problem is that after 8 months in this job, I discovered I no longer have any passion for my field of study at all. The boredom has become killer and has made me question my entire career path. I feel like my brain has melted. I'm just trying to endure it to complete the 3 years of experience for my CV.
What do people do when they finish their work? It's so mentally exhausting to finish everything by 11 AM and then just stare at the screen, hoping for an email that will take you 10 minutes to handle. I have 14 more months left to reach the 3-year mark, and after that, I plan to leave. There's no chance for a raise or promotion here.
My manager knows I have all this free time but doesn't offer me more work or more money to do new things. I'm so bored and feel mentally drained from the lack of work. Is this really what office life is? Or should I just quit now?