Take Charlie, a data scientist at a financial company. What was most surprising was that many did not exactly love the situation and felt somewhat conflicted. Reporting for this story, I spoke with multiple people who are essentially funemployed, or at least one meaning of it, who sit around at work all day with very little to do. So for now, like many people, his jobless employment status continues. “If we did,” he says, “I don’t think I’d be employed.” He’s read stories about companies tracking remote workers to make sure they’re actually working but feels pretty confident his company isn’t. He shows up at office social events once a month to put in face-time and is generally well-liked.
Nate doesn’t think his boss or anyone is really aware of the problem - his company laid off hundreds of workers earlier this year, and he made it through. Are they incompetent? Do they suck at managing?” “It also raises questions for people about whoever is supposed to be managing that person. It can engender huge resentment from the person’s colleagues, especially if they themselves are overworked, and you do see that combination a lot,” says Alison Green, a career columnist and expert who runs the website Ask a Manager. There’s a percentage of every job that’s bullshit, and in their case, that’s 90 percent, minimum. These jobless employed are a persistent presence in the working world, their existence a bug that’s become a feature. Twice a month, Emily Stewart’s column exposes the ways we’re all being squeezed under capitalism. Other times, like in Nate’s case, that’s just how the corporate cards have been dealt. Many people have also, at some point in time, been that less-than-occupied worker. Strongly suspecting that a certain person isn’t doing much, or not nearly enough to fill up what is ostensibly an eight-hour day, seems to be a near-universal work experience.
Vox granted him anonymity to speak for this story for obvious reasons, as we did all of the workers interviewed. “How do I initiate that conversation that’s, ‘Hey, I haven’t been doing much of anything this whole time, I need more to do’? You don’t really want to draw attention to it,” says Nate, which is a pseudonym. Maybe he could take more initiative and try to take on more, but he gets good performance reviews and raises as it is, so he figures, why bother? Plus, it’s not like he can waltz up to his boss to announce there’s no real business reason for his existence.
“I don’t have a problem with being asked to do work it’s just I’m not really being asked,” he says. His only real restriction is that he can’t stray too far from home in the event he is needed for something. Otherwise, he spends most of the day doing, basically, whatever he feels - he sleeps in, he watches TV, he does household chores. He moseys over to his computer whenever he gets an alert on his phone that he’s got a task to complete. In reality, Nate works one hour a day at most. In theory, Nate works 40 hours a week in the operations department at a major fintech company.
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