I Have Nothing to Do

Years ago I had a person work for me who had a very high opinion of himself.  In his mind, he was a superstar.  He walked on water, did no wrong, and everything he touched turned to gold.  Ever worked with one of these people?  While he did produce decent work, there was a bit of a discrepancy between his perception and everyone else's reality.  In my opinion, one reason for this gap was his inability to take initiative or be a self-starter.  At one point during a lull in our workload, he even asked me for something to work on because as he said ‘he had nothing to do.’  While I appreciated the apparent desire to take on new tasks, I was a bit disappointed this person really couldn’t find a single thing to do on his own.


So seizing on the opportunity, I prepared a laundry list of potential projects for this person to work on during times of excess capacity.  Literally, I wrote somewhere around 20 items on this list, ranging from quick/easy wins to long-term, in-depth projects.  Many of them would have been a feather in his cap if completed.  I went over this list in great detail with him giving pointers on how to get started.  A year later, guess how many items on this list were completed by said superstar?  A big fat zero.  Whenever I asked about the list, he always said he was working on them.  I asked if he had any questions and he was always fine.  In my opinion, I don’t think it had anything to do with having nothing to do, but rather, he didn’t want to work on any of these tasks/projects.  He wanted credit for asking for more work, but didn’t really want to do any additional work.  To sum up, he said he had nothing to do, received a bunch of suggestions, and then did nothing.  Sounds like a great career move.  Can you say lazy?

In any professional position, I don’t think it’s a great career move to ever say you have nothing to do to your boss.  A statement like this tells your manager, ‘I have significant excess capacity in my schedule and I’m incapable of finding any worthwhile tasks/projects to work on.’  In lean times, a manager may even take the opportunity to eliminate your position and apportion your responsibilities to others.  At the very least, you will lose major points in the ‘self-starter’ or ‘takes initiative’ competency categories of your performance assessment.

Instead of saying you have nothing to do, phrase it in a way that you are looking for more challenging work.  This shows you are looking to develop your skill sets, not just fill your time.  But by all means, if you do take this step, follow through and actually work on something!  Even if you don’t succeed, learning from mistakes and making progress are valuable experiences and will reflect well on you with your manager.   

Related readings:
Forbes
Careerealism